Stefan Mychajliw: We're welcoming John Deaton to the South Shore Press Newsroom. He is a former United States Senate candidate in Massachusetts, a former prosecutor, and a former Marine. It's good to see you, and thanks for spending time with us.
John Deaton: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Stefan Mychajliw: So I want to pick your brain as a former prosecutor when it comes to the Charlie Kirk shooting. What is happening right now when it comes to law enforcement and prosecutors piecing together some semblance of a roadmap to catch a suspect?
John Deaton: The entire FBI is on alert. The government, the White House. The FBI has a hundred thousand dollar reward for any information that leads to an arrest. They just released two photographs of a person of interest. It looks like someone was a professional. The fact that this person was able to evade, there are reports now of a jet 30 minutes after the shooting, turned off its surveillance responders so it could eliminate radar. And then it came back on like an hour later. So they're looking at every lead, but they found the rifle, and it has things about transgenderism and fascism. But you gotta decide at the very beginning, at this stage, was this meant to be found? Is this a diversion? Because someone that was able to escape so quickly, you wondered if they didn't have a plan for the rifle, so they just discarded it in the woods. So was that meant to be found? But right now, I think they're following just about every lead that comes in.
Mychajliw: Again, from your perspective as a former prosecutor, how much information is just flowing into the offices right now of people who are saying, Hey, I have this tip, I have this information. How swamped are prosecutors in law enforcement right now?
Deaton: Absolutely overwhelmed. And as you can imagine, the internet and X and Facebook and all of the social media are going to be ripe with conspiracy theories. There's going to be so many false leads. But right now I would imagine that they have already allocated just about every resource of the FBI that they can to handle those calls and running down all these leads. I'll be very surprised if there isn't someone arrested in the next 48 hours.
Mychajliw: Last question for you, John, how important is the public's help when it comes to people may have seen something where they think, well, it may not be significant, but it really could be when it comes to breaking open an investigation like this.
Deaton: Sometimes it's dependent on the public and being able to run down those leads, and certainly would encourage anyone if they can think of anything suspicious out of order. Because listen, this attack wasn't just on Charlie Kirk. It really was on our Republic. Charlie was out there doing what you're supposed to do, which is meeting you face to face, civilly and respectfully saying, Prove me wrong. This is what I believe. Let's have a civil debate. You know, America was born in a heated debate. The Federalist Papers, as you know, were a fight, an argument over the Constitution. Hamilton and Madison barely could stand each other, but they didn't use bullets; they used words. And so we must understand this wasn't just an attack on Charlie Kirk and what he stood for, it's an attack on the way we are, the way we exist as a country.
Mychajliw: All right, that's John Deaton, former US Senate candidate, former prosecutor, former Marine. Thank you for joining us and most importantly, thank you for your service.
Deaton: Thank you. Thank you for having me.