We received a complaint on Facebook about one Wayde Alford using our page to spread hate and we noticed right away what our tipster was talking about. Alford had posted a comment in response to our last article about the shooting of Linden Cameron (https://copblaster.com/blast/25958/whos-the-salt-lake-city-officer-that-shot-13-year-old-linden-cameron). Cameron is a 13 year old autistic boy that was shot by Salt Lake City Police on Friday. His mother had called for help during a mental health crisis and her son threw a tantrum when police arrived. He was unarmed, but they shot him anyway. His mother has tried her best to explain how her developmentally disabled son cannot control his emotions at times. Autistic kids are notorious for their uncontrollable tantrums (https://autismawarenesscentre.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-tantrum-and-an-autistic-meltdown/). Despite this, Wayde Alford is blaming Cameron's mother for his shooting. He posted the following comment on our Facebook page in response to our article, "the police already have years of training, the parents need to teach their kids to not to be little sh*theads, and teach them to obey the law."
By Alford's logic the police are justified shooting unarmed developmentally disabled children and the parents are to blame for not teaching their kids to obey the law. First, even a normal kid that is taught to obey the law could easily be the next Cameron because children by nature are stupid. Second, the nature of Cameron's condition is such that he literally is not capable of making rational choices not matter how he has been raised. The only thing his mother did wrong was call the police in the first place. There is no such thing as the justified shooting of an unarmed child. There is nothing a child can do short of pointing a gun directly at an officer that would justify using that amount of force. There is no reason why that officer could not have simply tackled the kid. If the officer was too fat and slow to chase down a little kid, he could have just used a taser. There is zero justification for that shooting.
Alford obviously has no clue what training police go through because there are zero results in the Oregon CJ IRIS for anyone with the last name of Alford (http://dpsstnet.state.or.us/PublicInquiry_CJ/SMSGoPersonLkp.aspx?LkpBy=LN&LkpVal=alford). Yet Alford is listed in public records as an employee of the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) and proudly displays a picture of himself in some type of DOC uniform on his personal Facebook profile. In the video below you can see a staff member at the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) wearing a name tag that appears identical to the type worn by Alford in the above photo. We have been looking at pictures of DOC employees online and have yet to find any dressed exactly like Alford is in that photo, but even though the resolution is not high enough to make out the logo on his shirt entirely, it looks strikingly similar to an Oregon DOC logo. It also appears to read "physical plant" above the logo. Several Oregon correctional facilities have physical plants within them (https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/oregon_state_penitentiary/) and those plants appear to be staffed by civilian employees. We are not sure exactly what a physical plant in a state prison is, but it appears to be a facility containing shops which probably employ prisoners to produce goods. We believe Alford to be a civilian employee working at an Oregon correctional facility in the Salem area. The only facility in Salem with a physical plant that we know of is OSP.
Judging by Alford's Facebook profile he has been a wannabe his entire life. He was in the U.S. Navy at some point and claims to be a Gulf War veteran, but probably spent all that time on a ship swabbing decks. Guys like that typically think it would be really cool to be in the military, but know deep down they don't have what it takes to be a soldier. After leaving the Navy he became a civilian prison employee. Civilian prison employees tend to be just as sadistic and power hungry as correctional officers, but know deep down that they don't have what it takes to be an officer.
According to public records Alford was charged with domestic violence assault in 1994, but the case was dismissed.