Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Quality Police Work

A year ago at this time, Charleston, WV was suffering it's own DC Sniper affair. Over the course of a week or so, 3 people were killed. Now this wasn't some idiot with an AK. Whoever this was, did it right. He used a high caliber weapon, probably from a few hundred yards away. After the three were shot, the murders abruptly stopped.

As the anniversary passed the media asked a few questions of the police department. The Chief responded in typical blue line tradition.

"We've got over 4000 leads. We're working hard on this case. We're just a phone call away from solving this."

Ya catch that last bit? Just a phone call away? Let me paraphrase that for you...

"We have no idea who did this, and we've stuck this away in the We Hope Someone Calls and Tells us Who Did It File."

When a police department actually does get lucky enough to solve a crime, it's almost always the direct result of someone either confessing, accidentally telling on themselves, or a third party snitch. Modern detective work is a sham. Science has caused the slueth to atrophy.

Science consentrates on 20 to 40 feet around the body, because most of the time the killer was there, and therefore left clues. But a sniper? He wasn't 30 feet away. He could've been 1000 yards away, in any direction. There is simply no way to do a forensic sweep of an area that large.

File it away alright. Under "How to kill someone and get away with it".

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