Screencap by Boch.
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A police officer in rural Virginia avoided using deadly force to take a naked mass murder suspect into custody today. Police say Matthew Thomas Bernard killed the mother, wife and child of a AA minor league pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays organization, along with his (and the wife’s) mother.

Watching the apprehension, you can see for yourself how the officer probably regretted bringing his police patrol rifle into the situation.

Pro-tip: When confronted with a naked attacker while using pepper spray, don’t forget to douse the groin as well as the face.

The round-and-round went on long enough for the officer to run out of pepper juice.  Which didn’t really have much of an effect on the lunatic pursuing the cop, no doubt intending on disarming the cop.

At one point, the crazed suspect attacked a bystander as well.

Screencap by Boch

Here is the mugshot once he got to jail and the pepper spray washed off him.

Matthew Bernard. Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office photo.

From the NY Post:

Naked man busted for killing Rays prospect Blake Bivens’ family is mentally ill: relative

The Virginia man accused of murdering his mother, sister and nephew — the mother-in-law, wife and baby of a Tampa Bay Rays minor league pitcher — had been battling mental health issues and snapped after reaching a “breaking point,” a relative said.

A cousin of Matthew Thomas Bernard — who is facing three counts of first-degree murder — said the slayings stemmed from Bernard’s ongoing mental instability.

“Unfortunately he was suffering with mental illness and came to a breaking point,” Bernard’s cousin, Jenn Stallard, told DailyMail.com in a statement. “Matthew is my cousin and I will love him and be there for if I am ever able to because what the public has seen was not him at all and his family, we would never imagine this could have happened.”

Stallard said she was reluctant to share more as the tragedy was “still extremely fresh” for Blake Bivens, a 24-year hurler for the Rays’ AA affiliate, the Montgomery Biscuits. The pitcher reportedly learned of the slayings allegedly committed by his brother-in-law just hours before a doubleheader scheduled for Tuesday night in Tennessee.

This should have been a defensive gun use. Sadly, it wasn’t.

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95 COMMENTS

  1. Honestly I would have been OK with a Good Old Fashioned Night Stick/Buttstroke Lobotomy for the therapeutic value…and I am not generally someone that defaults to the side of the cop.

  2. Pro-tip: I have never read any policy that encourages, let alone, allows you to target any other part of the body other than the face when using this particular chemical.

    If he had shot him, we all know everyone would have cried he was unarmed and the police should have found another way to apprehend said dirt bag.

    • Your comments show neither of you are a product of higher education. It was well established he was mentally ill but the Far Right refuses to treat mental illness as a disease out of pure ignorance. Its the exact same mentality that convinced the Far Right in Hitlers Germany that murdering mentally challenged people and mentally ill people was socially acceptable until the Catholic Church found about it and made such an outcry Hitler backed off because it was putting his dictatorship in jeopardy. Two different countries, Germany and the U.S. but the Far Right was and still is the same in both countries, ignorant , brutal and sadistic, primitive and sadistic. I sometimes think Neanderthal Man would have been more humane.

      • College was overrated and could have been replaced equally well with a reading list and a book club to discuss and disseminate said books, but the nifty paper makes people pay me more for no reason so its cool I guess.

        Anyway, I guess I commend the cop for his taking the guy alive, but I would have wasted the guy as soon as he tried to attack someone else. I may be willing to risk my own safety to take a suspect alive, but I’m not risking the public and a vulnerable target like an old man or child would certainly not entice me to hesitate.

        • Nazi Germany was a socialist, autocratic country; these are left-wing philosophies, not right-wing.
          You demonstrate, yet again, that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
          Given how often you’re shown to be absolutely wrong, why do you keep this up?
          I won’t suggest that you’re mentally unbalanced. Instead, I’ll suggest that you’re merely an internet troll.

        • TO BIGOTED BILL

          You flunked world history. Hitler like the Republicans hated socialists and did everything he could to destroy them. He even privatized a lot of government agencies just like the gangster criminal Republicans keep trying to do (read that Soc. Security). His attack on Russia was his religious crusade against Socialism.

          It always makes me laugh when the Far Right equate Hitler with Socialism. Its the result of their own guilty conscience because they worship everything Hitlers said and did such as his hatred of minorities , refugees, free speech, social programs, and of course he did everything he could to destroy unions a prime hatred of the Far Right to this very day.

          Go back to school your a flunky.

      • it isn’t the far-right, Mr. educated by self proclamation; it is the left in the pockets of big pharma and the privatized prison owners, who have shut down most metal health facilities due to offending people by diagnosing them as full blown psycho. That is the reason for the shootings, murders, etc. Please educate yourself and reread your critical thinking 101 text before insulting people. Also, undoubtedly on a psych-tropic drug as well.

        • That was actually Regan who shut down federally funded mental health hospitals.

          But yes, private prisons are a big problem and they do everything possible to make sure they are filled up. Current administration encourages it. Example, many, many studies have found that the more contact a prisoner has with friends and family, the lower the risk of recidivism. It is very strongly correlated (sort of a fancy statistics way of saying “no shit, but here’s the evidence to backup the no shit statement”).

          Welp, private prisons have been jacking up phone rates like crazy. Most jail and public prison systems phone’s are run by private companies (not Verizon, they are literal companies who do nothing other than run the phone system in the prison…why THAT is outsourced I have no idea, other than money in someone’s pocket). ACLU (however you might feel about them) recently sued FCC to actually regulate it.

          They refused and the court said nothing to see here.

          But charging prisoners or their families (who are often poor) rates of several dollars PER MINUTE for a LOCAL phone call is reasonable, right? No way that isn’t going to result in prisoners limiting their contact with family and friends, right?

          I am down for a bit of punishment for crimes, but I’d rather criminals don’t commit more crimes. Seems a lot more important then the rod. But hey, so long as it isn’t rich people getting taking advantage of, cool.

        • Mtn Dewey,
          Donald Trump and his billionaire pals are actually the owners of the private prison system, and the Trump administration is doing all it can to fill them up at the taxpayers expense.

          After all, just where do you think Donald Trump is going to put all the POTG who refused to turn in their bump stocks or firearms? The private prisons will be ready and waiting, when you have a large investment like that you need customers!

          “The lawsuit, filed in 2014, asserts that detained immigrants are forced to work for $1-2 a day. GEO and CoreCivic (the other largest private prison company) combined donated nearly $500,000 in support of Trump – half went to a super PAC that helped elect him and the other half went to support Trump’s inauguration. Now, two months into his administration, those donations appear to be paying big dividends.

          Despite inhumane conditions in private prisons, President Trump’s administration has announced several orders that benefit specific private prison companies in both the immigration and criminal justice systems, creating the appearance of pay-to-play corruption at the highest level.”

          Isn’t it strange, everyone said Obama was going to throw us all into the underground Walmart prisons but actually it’s the Trump administration ramping up the for-profit prison industry.

          Fascinating.

      • My little Vladdie just loves to run around naked. No matter how many times his little pee pee got caught in the door, he would just keep doing it.

        Now he is running and playing with that police officer. Such a *special* little boy my Vladdie!

        • Zinggggg!!!!!!!!

          Commenter Vlad’s Mom wins the award for best Internet comment of the year!

      • Call mental illness for what it really is. Sinful behavior.2nd timothy chapter 3 in Gods word the Bible says that people would become insane in the last days.the English word in most Bibles is perilous but the Greek word is halepous which means raging insanity or ragingly insane.so vlad as far as higher learning you read the wrong books.accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour while you still can.remember vlad the 🔥 of hell last forevermore

        • So your God sits creates Hell and the lake of everlasting fire and then tells me I must worship his vanity or he’s going to throw me in the lake of fire for eternity.

          What a small minded bully, next thing you know he’ll be telling me to disembowel my son on a big rock or sell my daughter into slavery.

        • You will stand before this so called vain GOD in judgement if you persist in being so foolish and you will scream in terror

        • To Jerry “the sky rider”

          You have every right to privately engage in your Bronze Age Mysticism but please keep your praying, rituals and incantations by the light of the moon in your own back yard. Freedom “of” Religion also means the right to Freedom “from” Religion for the general population. This country is not a Christian Caliphate and never has been.

      • When the boy told me he wanted to go to college, I laughed so hard they had to put me on an oxygen tank for two weeks. He was bursting with pride over his SAT scores, 49 in writing and 51 in math. He thought a total score of 100 meant he had an A. And there I was, sucking oxygen out of a tank for another two weeks.

        When the college recruiters started showing up at my front door, I realized this was no laughing matter. One recruiter took pity on me and explained the new world of college admissions. It is true, colleges used to use SAT scores to filter applicants for intelligence. Now, they use SAT scores to filter out intelligent applicants because they are much more difficult to indoctrinate. A school like Harvard just can not get enough of the little cross-eyed, slack-jawed little droolers. You can tell them anything and they will believe it. That recruiter was the scariest man I have ever met in my life.

      • Yes, mental illness should be treated rather than punished. But that doesn’t mean police officers are obligated to sacrifice their lives avoiding harm to the mentally ill suspect they are trying to arrest. Acceptable risk to the general public is virtually zero.

        The warden of the Cook County, Illinois jail estimated that 25% to 30% of his inmates were there due to mental illness. That suggests we need hospital beds and prison cells in a ratio of one to three. We don’t have enough of either and don’t have the money to pay for more. The politicians’ solution is to downgrade crimes which is just letting the criminals get away with neither treatment nor punishment.

        • And another significant proportion would be in prison because they never learned self-control, self-discipline, and to consider the consequences of their actions.

        • quote———————–We don’t have enough of either and don’t have the money to pay for more. —————quote

          TRANSLATION. The Republicans are too cheap and stingy to spend the money. When small countries like Germany and France have been providing such services for decades it shows that if we quit our massive wars of rape, pillage and conquest we would have more than enough money to tackle the problem of mental illness and drug addition in the U.S. but it will never happen under a Republican Administration.

          VOTE SOCIALIST IN 2020 FOR A CIVILIZED AMERICA. FEEL THE BERN. VOTE BERNIE SANDERS, A SOCIALIST FOR EVERYONE.

        • “VOTE SOCIALIST IN 2020 FOR A CIVILIZED AMERICA. FEEL THE BERN. VOTE BERNIE SANDERS, A SOCIALIST FOR EVERYONE.”

          Now, that’s funny right there, I don’t care who you are!
          Yes, the socialist/communist countries are SO civilized.
          Hey, Vlad Tepid, here’s an idea: Go live in one of them. See how long you can stay out of one of those institutions they have.

      • And yet vlad supports an ongoing genocide against blacks in America all the while accusing others of being racist. Tell a big lie, vlad. Tell it often. Your idol hitler was a proponent of the tactic.

      • Hitler and his followers were leftists not far right. For someone pretending to be educated you are remarkably ignorant.

        • If you made that statement at Harvard you would be laughed right off the campus. It always gives me a good laugh as well to see the Far Right constantly using projection. Read my above post that proves the Far Right of today is every bit as Nazi as Hitler was.

        • Funny how the left constantly redefines socialism every time it fails spectacularly isn’t it Vlad. And namedropping Harvard doesn’t lend your claims any credibility, it’s a cesspool of academic bankruptcy. Hitler was a Socialist, my grandfather fought in the Wehrmacht and was seriously wounded in the march to Stalingrad. He wasn’t shy about sharing his experiences and thoughts about the period and the Weimar Republic that preceded it. Nationalsozialist’s (Nazi’s) were socialist and by definition leftist. All of your dishonest spin doesn’t change that. Own it.

      • ” I sometimes think Neanderthal Man would have been more humane.”

        He certainly would have been smarter……….

      • well most of the Brownshirts were communists or Democratic Socialists who thought the NSDAP was going to work towards and fulfill the socialist state promises. Having no knowledge never stopped you Vlad

    • And now we will get the “oh if he was black, they would have just shot him”, the police just can’t do anything right these days.

        • When the boy was a freshman in high school, his favorite cartoon was “Speed Racer”. He told anyone who would listen that he wanted to drive fast cars. He wanted to be a “racist” just like Speed Racer when he grew up. I never did bother to tell him what the word really means.

    • Agreed, if he would have been Latino or Black the cops would have used him for target practice and laughed about it even on camera.

      • If you were wanting consistency Vlad Tepes will leave you wanting. Above he laments the apparent “far-right” conspiracy against mental illness, then is upset this mentally ill man was taken alive.

      • I would have laughed too. Take your childish “intimidation and shame” tactics somewhere they might have an effect. The guy deserves to die, and slowly and painfully. Boo hoo, he’s mentally ill. Plenty of mentally healthy people with problems we should be addressing with money wasted to treat the untreatable.

      • The boy thinks that the Irish civil war was a direct result of racial discrimination against the “Black and Tans””. He believes, black and white television sets are responsible for the “Colored Laws” in the south, in the first half of the twentieth century. He claims that driving black and white patrol cars turned all police officers into “shoot on sight minority hunters”. He learned all of this in college.

    • Actual data shows us that white are more likely to be killed by police despite the fact that blacks commit more violent crimes. You’re just buying the narrative that’s being pushed down our throats nonstop. Try to find the actual data instead of the story that attempts to spin it.

      Here’s a similar situation as above, as in a deranged white guy running around naked. A couple of differences to note are this kid didn’t kill anyone, and the cop was black. “University of South Alabama campus police officer who fatally shot a naked student was carrying pepper spray and a baton at the time” The students name was Gil Collar. Never heard about it? No outrage machine? Ask yourself why. Spoiler alert: it didn’t fit the narrative.

    • Daniel Shaver would disagree. He was killed with an AR 15 by a police officer while unarmed and laying face down on a hotel hallway.

      In Eugene, Oregon a very white left wing activist was at a school allegedly to pick up his kid when, while carrying a pistol, he became combative with school security. He was subsequently shot in the head by the cops and is now very dead.

      All on film.

      Google is easy.

      • Most likely that the “hallway” rifle you speak of and the one pictured here were M16s. Most departments carry them.

  3. The cop probably had a service rifle since the suspect, before they tracked him down, was reported as armed and dangerous, having used a rifle to kl=ill the three victims Personally the incident reminded me of the guy who smoked “Spice” and got so whacked out he got naked and tried to eat someone’s face off. Pepper spray had no effect on him either..

  4. Sad thing is they will likely keep him in some lock up and eventually determine he is too old to be a danger to the public and set him free. After a couple of months he will go off his meds and disappear until he kills someone else and gets locked back up.

  5. I am hesitant to say this but had this been a person of color he’d have been down on the ground full of holes and leaking profusely. While I do recognize the self control it took this is a great example of how a white person is treated as mentally ill while a black man in this situation would’ve been a credible threat worthy of taking out immediately. I’d feel more comfortable praising the officer for self control had the alleged murderer and running man not been white. I say this as a Caucasian man who spent nearly 15 years in that part of Va. The naked man should have been taken out at the knees with a baton if deadly force wasn’t warranted and the doughnut running from him while carrying an AR15 should be fired for not doing his job. Apparently the sight of a naked murder suspect even confused the police dog at one point.

    • See the above post. You’re actually wrong. You just buy the narrative, which is why they push it. It works on an amazing amount of sheep.

    • Kudos to you my friend! your comment is the only one addressing the Great Elephant in this room, that no one wants to address: Let’s not beat around the bush here: This man would have been shot if he was black period! is an statistical reality; no pushing agenda of any kind here, the numbers are there, the US is like South Africa was; disproportionally higher number of black people killed by the police relative to white people.

  6. Did people forget you can poke and bash a man with a rifle?

    I remember when special operations teams solicited for an AR-15 stock strong enough to smash a man’s head in but also lightweight.

    Seems like this guy wanted the cop to kill him. Nope. Can’t let him get the easy way out. When he goes to prison inmates will find out this guy killed a little baby, a woman and an elderly woman. I don’t think they will treat him well.

    He’s not crazy. Don’t let him get away with this shooting by giving him an out for his behavior.

    His family already knew he was getting to the point of hurting people. They shouldn’t have allowed him access to guns. At least it was only his family that was killed not other people’s families. The family is still in denial how dangerous he is even after murdering 3 of their own.

  7. The cops behavior I get. Can’t risk that guy getting ahold of the rifle.

    Old dude… com’on man! Punch, elbow… just trip the guy! Much as I hate to use the term, FFS, “DO SOMETHING”!

    I mean if the cop wasn’t there and this dude REALLY attacked you, you’re just gonna let him beat on and maybe murder you? DaFUQ?

    • Because it’s the law. You are not supposed to become a “vigilante” and take the entire legal process into your own hands. The law of self defense applies to government too. If he shot an unarmed teen who wasn’t posing a legitimate risk to him it would be considered too much force for the circumstances regardless of what the man did to other people hours prior. He might have been okay shooting him once he started choking the old man, but the old man could have been hit, so he took out the baton.

      There was other police on scene. They were down the street with a K9.

      • You would be amazed at the number of cops and civilian woman who have been killed by a naked man.
        Besides it’s ok to be naked and mastrubating in front of strangers and other peoples children. The homosexuals, Libertarian, Liberals, and the Left, and the sexually liberated, all said so. In fact they get government permission to go naked.

        “The law allows undressing in public at private beaches, on private property, and at special permitted events, such as Bay to Breakers and the Folsom Street Fair. Children under 5 years old will also get a free pass.”

        https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/11/21/san-francisco-bans-public-nudity

        They do it in Austin Texas as well.

        • jwtaylor
          The open carry of long guns happens in Texas as well. Altho this is new legally.
          But I think several overweight women having their tops off together in a group, is less threatening to the general public. These women have a head start on law abiding open carriers.
          Also several people together open carrying long guns is also less threatening to the general public. As has just been demonstrated by Gun Owners of America’s Rachel Malone and her very well armed supporters.

          BTW
          Would it be wrong to comment on the legally exposed breasts of overweight women??? And the ladies do sport a strap on dildo. Well fitted for public attire.
          We do comment on the legally exposed Arms of law abiding citizens.

        • Yes this all proves the depravity of the Christian Religion where a naked person is considered a threat and or obscene while war and violence is considered wholesome and good fun and great entertainment. It cannot get any sicker.

          Its interesting to note that when the Romans first discovered the Christians they said ” If this out of control wacked out religious cult is not put to an end it will result in the destruction of our civilization. They were right it did.

        • Vlad Tepes
          Thank you for supporting public nudity and public masturbation in front of other people’s children. I’m very grateful that the sexually Liberated feel comfortable to come out of the closet.
          This is an important first step. Your previous step forward was having sex with a horse in Washington State. You greatly helped by previously by making it legal and normal. Just like your “glory hole” activity.

          Christians will of course disagree with these activities and will continue to teach our children firearms marksmanship. Children as young as 11 have shot criminals stopping their attacks on family members. Others as young as 8 years old have stopped home invasions with THEIR OWN gun.

  8. It’s amazing how pissed off the internet was that he wasn’t immediately shot because, I guess, that’s how the internet thinks police handle black people so the solution is to shoot white people when they’re naked and unarmed too?

    People literally triggered and furious because a guy was apprehended intact with no injuries to him or anyone else.

  9. Why was this guy walking the streets to begin with? Despite what many people think, most of these wackos don’t just “snap”. They tend to have a police record thicker than a phone book.

  10. 1. He should have been shot, I think it could have been articulated, especially with innocent bystanders.
    2. If the cop was utterly unwilling to shoot him, a hands on take down would probably be an excellent idea.
    3. Get a proper sling for that handicap(rifle). It’s a liability instead of an excellent tool.
    4. Did he not have a taser? This is a great taser opportunity if the officer didn’t want to go hands on.
    Just my thoughts.

    • For the sling, based on the black line down the middle of his vest, it looks like he probably has one of the bungee 1 point type of slings. And it looks like he is holding it that way because it would probably just be hanging on the side of his body nearest to the naked crazy person.

  11. In 2002 Deputy Herzog in Washington State, was killed by his own sidearm after responding to naked man call. It was before tasers, but tasers don’t always work.

    • This was one of the cases I was referring to above. Radio hosts Lars Larson and Michael Savage both talked at length about is crime.

      The officer, an Afghanistan war vet, had a wife and three small children.

      • Was the officer actually too compassionate or justifiably afraid they would be crucified for doing their job? Big difference!

        • I’m sure the cop haters, Libertarians Liberals and the Left. Think so. Because when this cop was murdered not a single story was written about it on any Libertarian Liberal or Left wing news site. Except some did say they were glad the white cop was killed.

          The naked black man broke the law. If he had kept his clothes on after getting intoxicated on one of the three L’s favorite substances, he never would have gotten into trouble. But that’s what happens when you take drugs. You do stupid sh*t.

          And then your held accountable.

  12. Barney Fife here was totally incompetent. He should be forcibly retired before the same thing happens with someone that does want to kill officers. He was so out of his element he literally had no idea what to do. The headline is frankly stupid. Instead it should read “Incompetent officer was in danger of himself & everyone in the area being killed before knowledgeable officer does his job & ends the situation.” The instant the naked man confronted an officer that had the fortitude to actually do something he was taken down quickly.

    • I agree. Brave is charging into a school alone to confront a mass shooter. Stupid is letting a killer charge you while you have one hand occupied with a rifle.

    • I think you’re right, what we are seeing in the video is not restraint, but rather indecision. The officer giving ground is a judgement call I’ll leave for the experts, but he certainly shouldn’t have let the suspect get within proximity and assault the other man.

  13. Man, if I were that old guy, naked man would have assumed room temperature. But, this would have been perfect for a K9 apprehension, I guess one wasn’t available at the time. Once one of those Malinois’ locks-on, you’d have to kill them to get them to let go.

    The cop should have saved himself the trouble and shot the guy; it wouldn’t have even made the news, cause the suspect’s the wrong color.

  14. I’m just warning y’all, if you kill multiple people and then charge at me while I have a rifle but no sufficient backup, I’m shooting. I’ll articulate a reasonable deadly threat for that all day.

    If this guy had managed to grab that officer’s rifle, which he could have easily done- pepper spray isn’t all that great- he could have killed not only the cop but whoever else happened to be around.

    • BusyBeef, exactly. I think police training probably includes a lecture goes like this:
      “When met with a mass murderer who is white, you must take him alive at all costs, even if it endangers your own life. We need to keep white mass shooters alive for questioning!
      But when confronted with an unarmed black man with his wife and daughters in the car, you must keep shooting until he’s dead, even if you risk killing his wife and daughters, and even though he’s unarmed. When confronted with a car that’s the same color as a suspect’s car, and the occupants are black, you must shoot until you kill them all, even if it’s just an innocent woman in the car and the suspect was a black male, she’s the right skin color. When confronted with a black man selling loose cigarettes, you must have six cops put him in an illegal choke hold and strangle him until he dies. But don’t forget, mass murderers who are white must be taken alive and unharmed, even if they’re wearing a tactical vest and carrying an AR-15, a pistol, and 25 spare magzines.”

  15. That smug looking pr!ck annihilated a family. “Breaking point” my ass. He was a time bomb waiting to explode and should have been institutionalized years before and kept under lock and key. His relatives didn’t know he was dangerous? What a load of cr@p. They always know. Always.

  16. Interrogatory

    Would a Taser have worked in this situation, or do clothes need to be present to ‘hold” the darts to the skin?
    /asking for a friend

  17. Poor decision making by the cop. A: by not killing the wacko society must spend MILLIONS to try him and incarcerate him. and B: by not killing the wacko he ran the VERY REAL RISK of being disarmed since the pepper spray had zero effect. If said wacko had disarmed the cop the cop would probably have died and
    the wacko would have continued his killing spree. When confronted by a naked man who laughs at being pepper sprayed the wisest choice is to assume he is IMMUNE to non lethal means and KILL him….your life and the lives of others depend on such decisions.

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