Profiling gone bad (LINDA CHAVEZ on the Muslim Snipers)

Townhall.Com ^ | October 30th, 2002 | Linda Chavez

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Linda Chavez (archive)

October 30, 2002

Profiling gone bad

From President Bush on down, it seems everyone is opposed to racial profiling -- that is, unless white men comprise the group of likely suspects. For the three weeks that two snipers terrorized the Maryland and Virginia suburbs around the nation's capital, we heard endless speculation by government officials, experts and media commentators that the killings were likely the handiwork of an angry white man -- or men. It's the same rhetoric we heard repeatedly in the as-yet-unsolved anthrax attacks that killed five people a year ago.

By assuming they "knew" the race of these killers -- with absolutely no evidence to back up their suspicions -- law enforcement officials may have impeded their own investigations. That certainly appears to be the case with the sniper killings. Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey acknowledged that police paid little attention to alleged snipers John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, who on 10 separate occasions over the course of the killing spree crossed paths with authorities, according to the Washington Post. "We were looking for two white guys in a white van," Ramsey said in defense of various police jurisdictions' failure to connect the pair to the attacks. As it turned out, Muhammad and Malvo were two black men driving a blue Chevy Caprice.

Imagine the outrage if the murders had been committed by two white men, but police had 10 times passed up the opportunity to apprehend them because a phony racial profile -- and nothing more -- told them to be on the lookout for a black man? There would have been cries of racism, justifiably so.

I have consistently opposed racial profiling, not only because I think it's morally wrong, but because it leads to sloppy police work. In the absence of information from witnesses about the race of a perpetrator, it's not enough to know that similar crimes have been committed more often by members of one racial or ethnic group.

But if police reliance on racial profiling helped lead them astray in tracking down the D.C.-area snipers, their reluctance to probe other important characteristics about the alleged snipers is equally troubling. Muhammad's race is clearly irrelevant to his alleged crime -- but his political and religious views may be very important in understanding his motives. Yet both government officials and most of the media are assiduously avoiding any discussion of Muhammad's conversion to Islam -- or, more accurately, the radical Black Muslim sect -- and his reported sympathy for al Qaeda, which are legitimate avenues of inquiry.

If the snipers had turned out to be two white guys who were members of some extremist Christian sect and had voiced sympathy for Timothy McVeigh, you can bet we'd be watching endless investigative reports on the evening news about right-wing Christian and militia groups. In fact, after McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, the media spent hundreds of hours dissecting the roots of the militia movement, and some newscasters speculated there might be thousands of would-be McVeighs just waiting for their chance to kill hundreds of innocents to make a political point.

But the media are ignoring Muhammad's political and religious ties in order not to appear anti-Islam. The possibility that Muhammad may have been acting out some fantasy that he was a mujahideen killing infidels when he allegedly shot his victims doesn't seem to interest the major media in the slightest.

The media have no such reservations when it comes to probing whether Muhammad's Gulf War experience may have been a factor in his alleged crimes, however. A Reuters news service reporter even asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if the military "felt responsible for creating the alleged killer."

Certainly soldiers are trained to kill, but American soldiers are not trained to kill civilians, much less their fellow Americans. Muhammad may have learned how to fire a rifle with precision from the U.S. Army, but he learned to hate elsewhere. We should be asking where.

Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a TownHall.com member organization.

Contact Linda Chavez | Read her biography

©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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[Sabertooth]

((((((growl)))))

Post here to the thread if you'd like to be on or off the Sniper Muhammad ping list.

[farmfriend]

Bump and a ping.

[Abar]

A Reuters news service reporter even asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if the military "felt responsible for creating the alleged killer."

Bastards! It knew it was either them or NPR.

[kimosabe31]

Had the snipers been members of the Montana militia, Montana would be crawling with feds right now. Waco, by comparison, would look like a sunday school picnic.

[Eva]

bump

[Righty1]

The Feds also were sure that it was a white man in the Atlanta bombing. I wonder if the child killer (who was black) in Atlanta took so long to catch because the Fibs were sure it was a white man?

[Eva]

I do think that was the theory in those Alanta child murders. They never considered that it could have been a black guy.

[TheMole]

Linda's too soft on the press and its' supposed experts. Here's a quick list of the completely misguided incorrect and wrong notions they pumped out before the actual perps were caught:

The killer was an angry white male. (There were two of them and they were black.)

The killer was acting alone. (See above.)

The killer was a right-wing gun nut. (Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are not right-wing.)

The killer was using a white delivery truck/white van with a ladder. (They had a dark-colored Chevrolet Caprice sedan.)

The killer was avidly watching the TV coverage of the slayings. (They were living in their car.)

The killer just happened to be operating near the federal capital. (They made a cross-country trip from Washington state to get there.)

The killer was working some kind of a regular job and doing the killings in his spare time. (They were unemployed.)

The killer was a courier or delivery driver familiar with the area, enabling him to cunningly escape after each murder. (Neither of them had lived in DC, MD, or VA before.)

The killer had military sniper training. (Muhammad only had basic training - he was a U.S. Army machinist.)

That's basically just off the top of my head. I didn't watch a great deal of the sniper "coverage", so others may be able to add a some more points. What I'm trying to show is that the media speculation was not just a little off - it was complete and utter nonsense. Linda Chavez is much too kind.

[Hugin]

we heard endless speculation by government officials, experts and media commentators that the killings were likely the handiwork of an angry white man -- or men. It's the same rhetoric we heard repeatedly in the as-yet-unsolved anthrax attacks that killed five people a year ago.

And the Feds likewise dismiss the fact that the first victim of the anthrax attack was the husband of the realtor who rented Mohammad Atta his appartment to focus in on a white male "person of interest".

[mrustow]

See also:

The Beltway Sniper Case: What's Race Got to Do with It?

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping!

It is amazing how many Free Republic pseudo conservatives are still defending the Moose with his art of misdirection re the bad guys!

[Grampa Dave]

FYI

[Grampa Dave]

More for your file on Political Correctness and those in charge of DC Metro Police.

[swarthyguy]

Thanks for the ping, Grampa.

Sometimes we act as if a terror act can only be committed by a card carrying member of alqaeda. Not individuals nurtured by jihadi ideology and inspired by madmullahs.

These guys are a movement and an individual like the LAX shooter is just as credible a terrorist as the 19 killers.

It's like an Islamintern or a islamist internationale aka the International Islamic Jihad Front. They unite over their hatred of America and nonmuslims, papering over their doctrinal differences to destroy everything in their path.

[Palladin]

Good article. I like Linda Chavez.

[fooman]

thanks for the ping.

[Grampa Dave]

This is the key what you posted:Sometimes we act as if a terror act can only be committed by a card carrying member of alqaeda. Not individuals nurtured by jihadi ideology and inspired by madmullahs.

There are not that many card carrying al Qaeda thugs in the world and fewer in America.

However there are a lot of whacked out al Fuqras, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam devils and Black Panthers willing and eager to be terrorists and to commit terrorist acts on American soil against innocent Americans.

As you point out, they can commit terrorists acts like the recent pair of Nation of Islam Serial killers, the lone Egyptian Terrorist at Lax or in larger numbers. Regardless, they are some type of Jihad in America with the same goals to use acts of terrorism on innocent Americans.