Posted on 09/16/2002 11:10:48 PM PDT by Utah Girl
You're being sanctimonious again.
Presumption of innocence and questioning the testimony of an alleged eye witness to a crime are two entirely different issues, sandude.
BTW, what are the "institutions" that need protection?
A thousand pardons, Queen of Cryptic Posts!
To the Tower! if you do it again!
Now...you know I can !
Good! Then you can be the Princess of Cryptic.
I never said the press is too lazy to expose LE. If it is a lazy press, it's not LE they're sheltering. I've also never said or implied that all of LE is "stupid or corrupt." Not hardly, too many LE in my family.
Without the police, imperfect as they are, we'd be in a world of s--t.
I'm not saying you are starting up stuff about certain religious institutions again, but I would just like to make a point on that. There are a lot of very vociferous people in the country today who are sneering at the supposed "hypocrisy" of certain large churches. These churches are not perfect; far from it. But I wonder if it has ever occurred to some of these people what things would be like if thousands of people, especially young men, weren't being taught day in and day out to not harm others, but instead to turn the other cheek. Some of these young men have literally no other training in how to act, other than what they hear when their grandmothers drag them to Sunday school. If they had never, ever heard of the lifestyle in which a person at least tries not to hurt others, there would be absolutely nothing to keep them from, say, tearing limb-from-limb every person on the street whom they found to be a little bit different.
This literal belief in hell, and in not hurting others, held by some otherwise clueless and aggressive young men, has protected many a loudmouthed, annoying liberal from being attacked by such young men, of that I am sure.
Religious institutions are mechanisms of social order, and they are needed.
I think Utah Girl posted a short article from (maybe) the Deseret News, about Lois Smart being interviewed for 3 or 4 hours by FBI. But I don't remember where or when (sounds like a song); If it wasn't Utah Girl, it was someone on this thread.
There's obviously nothing new in the case and not likely to be unless Elizabeth is found or her body is found. If her body is stumbled across it will probably be meaningless unless the mud or foliage in the area is tied to evidence from the Jeep which will only be made public to further implicate Ricci, who I believe was an accomplice and possibly involved with what ultimately happened to Elizabeth, but not the person that took her from her bedroom.
Since there's nothing new to discuss I'll just reiterate my view that the SLCPD has known who the kidnapper is since the early days of the case so I don't think they've needed to listen for any street talk other than know what's being said to CTB. By the fact they haven't charged the kidnapper I believe they have no plan to and probably have political reasons for not wanting his identity known, maybe someone who shouldn't have been on the streets and no longer is, maybe because of who he might have been working for. I doubt they could have kept this from the FBI so any hope in the FBI cracking the case is in my view leaning on a reed. I'm sure the family is not involved and don't believe LE is protecting a sexual pervert who is a neighbor, a prominant member of the community, or a Mormon cleric. There could be people the kidnappers worked for, such as organized crime, but there has been no information released by LE to lead to any educated speculations.
Excuse me, but I think you would have to hunt the archieves quite awhile to find any post by freedox about religion. I think an apology is in order to her for the "again" word. Just a suggestion...devil.
Maybe the neighbors weren't told about an "armed man." Maybe they were only hurriedly told, "Elizabeth is missing!" Maybe some of the neighbors were themselves armed. Maybe the fact that they thought Elizabeth was at the mercy of a man with a gun made them all the more frantic to find and rescue the helpless girl.
We're not even sure when it was that Ed supposedly found out from Mary Katherine that the man was armed. Remember he said that at first he'd thought she was dreaming, but then he looked for Elizabeth and didn't see her. Maybe at that point he took off out of the house, just knowing Elizabeth was gone, and didn't get back until later to hear the details of what had supposedly happened.
I am not sure I believe the man was really armed. You say you are not sure of that either. Maybe some of the neighbors weren't sure of it, either.
Remember when those searchers, the next day, reported seeing the man and then hearing gunshots? People converged on the spot where the searchers allegedly saw the man. Doesn't sound like they were overly concerned about their own safety. Some people act too quickly in an emergency; most people wouldn't want to be seen turning tail and running away to just hide in their house and refuse to help some poor 14-yr-old girl. Also, I'm sure they all thought that quick action might solve the whole thing before Elizabeth came to harm.
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