[Grampa Dave]

Because the cops were looking for dangerous White Male Christian Gun Nuts, the real killers were stopped 10 ten time and released.

Just more proof that Political Correctness can kill innocent people and waste million of $'s with police profiling and look for evil whites due to their bosses ignoring solid leads.

Since the original came from the Washington Post, you will have to go the link to read the entire article.

[Grampa Dave]

Since this was on the front page and was breaking news for the Mercury, I posted this in breaking news.

It may be time to move even these front page stories re the Snipers to Extended News. It is up to you to make the call.

[randita]

And everyone was marveling at how easily these people just disappeared into thin air after each shooting. That notion led to even more misinformation, such as the snipers must know the area like the backs of their hands, etc.

[spycatcher]

It's almost like these snipers, while creeping around after murders with their headlights off, had moles working on the task force pushing the "White Man White Van" theory for them.

[lds23]

And the silence of the libs and Dems is deafening. You know they were salivating, primed to start blaming Bush, talk radio, etc. if the sniper was "the angry white male".

[spycatcher]

Anyone else notice how often these guys and "YMCA" come up in the same sentence? Both in this article and others about their life near Seattle they hang out at the Y.

Funny rumor from another post too that they weren't really "sleeping" at the rest stop either.

[Young Werther]

An interesting headline. PC kills!

Is it me or is there a lack of English acumen in today's media. The cable news weenies report that Sen Wellstone was KILLED in an airplane crash. Did he DIE or was he KILLED. I see a difference but today's crop of news editors don't.

Is it me?

[RossA]

How hard is it to search a car for a rifle? A 34" long rifle? Where could you hide it?

But, of course, that would be an "unreasonable search" and would require a search warrant - according to our courts.

Given that they were checking the car's plates for violations, a serach for a rifle would take LESS time. Remember: these two were pretty dumb - (just not as dumb as the DC cops).

[nmh]

Maybe the killers should have painted a sign on their car telling the police they were the killers.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

"We were looking for a white van with white people..." said Washington, D.C., Police Chief Charles Ramsey,

"containing the killers of Chandra Levy."

Just rubbing it in.

[backhoe]

Locator ^

[Madcelt]

Interesting article. But, was it just me or does anyone else remember a press briefing where Moose was asked about the "dark car"? (Early in the snipings) In which he responded we need to concentrate on the white van. I'm pretty sure I saw it but I would like someone else who saw it confirm that for me.( Just to prove to me I havent lost my mind!)

[Atlas Sneezed]

But they're "pur heroes in blue"!

They are our "government protectors"!

The snipers were caught because of "good old fashoied cop shoe leather, dogger police work"!

The sniper was caught because he WANTED to be caught and/or was so stupid he unintentionally turned himself in, essentially confessing all the needed facts in a telephone call that connected him to a robbery where he left his fingerprints, which had been taken and recorded by the INS when he was in custody as an illegal alien. It helped that neighbors in Tacoma told police that he was a suspect.

So, the cops ran the fingerprints, and identified the guy, and were able to use ordinary DMV databases to ID the car so that a citizen to find it. Where is the brilliant detective work here?

More telling is how our "government protectors" had the snipers in their grasp, but let them drive away. Was there evidence to suggest that transients living in their cars might be suspects? Especially when a witness to an early shooting described the Caprice at the scene? Perhaps this is hindsight, but it makes on wonder whether our government "protectors" failed us. Will the families of the later shooters sue the cops for letting the killers go?

Also, our sniper bought the rifle in spite of the prohibition on restraining-ordered people from doing so, somehow getting past the leaky sieve of our government's background check process. Again, our government "protectors" failed.

The younger sniper is an illegal alien, who was in custody of the INS, who released them for no apparent legal reason. Would the killings have occurred if the shooter lacked a trusted driver with a hatred of America? Did our government "protectors" make the killings possible?

Yet this and all other safety and security issues seem inexorably to lead to more government power, and fewer citizen liberties.

Do we really need to pat the cops on the back for being lucky enough to catch killers only because they essentially turned themselves in? Bare competence is hardly cause for accolades.

Another thought: there may have been some voice scrambling employed, but if not, those various calls must have provided the politically incorrect probability that it was a black man's voice on the line. If so, was this critically useful piece of information withheld from the public for political reasons?

Please let me know if any of my factual assumptions are wrong.

[heartwood]

what gets me is that the car seems to have been physically altered to be a shooting platform - a cut-out in the trunk, and a rear seat removed so that the shooter could lie down - and the police did not notice this.

also did they enter all the license plate numbers of the cars they stopped? yes, because they know they had stopped this car 10 times. so where is the search that pulls up all the plates that show up twice, thrice, five times, ten times?

[Straight Vermonter]

Part of my job is doing statistical analysis, looking for trends in what seems like chaos. Databasing the license plates of all the car that were stopped at the roadblocks set up after each shooting would have been childs play. I am stunned that this was not being done.

[Atlas Sneezed]

If I were a family member of one of the later victims, I'd sue the racist bastards.

[hgro]

We must NEVER be accused of racial profiling.

[CurlyDave]

This wasn't even due to PC, although PC played a big roll in it.

This is just plain really bad police work. What good is a database if you don't use it?

If you can't find the car, either he is:

(A) not getting stopped at your roadblock, or

(B) being stopped, but being let go.

There just aren't any other possibilities. To check (B) you just search your database for cars with multiple stops. What are the odds that the same car would be at more than one shooting site? How about more than two?

By the third roadblock stop for the same car this thing should have been wrapped up.

And, by the way, this is not exactly rocket science. A perfect example is that this is the way they finally caught "Son of Sam". Thye New York Police searched their ticket database and after exhaustive looking finally got him through a parking ticket near one of the shootings.

That job was a lot harder, they had to sort throught lots of tickets. In this instance they had the example of how to do it, and a large number of roadblocks, where clearly license numbers had been recorded.

[Zon]

The big story in all this is that the government has failed miserably in it's one valid function -- to protect individual life-and-property rights. Failed miserably so it could succeed at upholding political correctness. It would be a grave mistake to compartmentalize the terrorist sniper because it's an event borne from a much wider-scope problem.

Politics suck -- politics suck objectivity out and insert irrationality in.

Sometimes a small error will be compounded over and over until it becomes a massive problem.

In mid-term and presidential elections tens-of-millions of people vote for the lesser of evils despite that it still begets evil. How can so many people thinking they're right be so wrong?

"The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the Government - that is, the Law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all therefore, put in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We say to it, "I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital which, you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this mean I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!" - Frederic Bastiat

Thus it follows logically:

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everyone else." -- Frederic Bastiat

Politics suck.

War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers

The first thing civilization must have is business, science and art. It's what the individual and family needs so that its members can live creative, prosperous, happy lives. Business, science and art can survive, even thrive without government and its bureaucracy.

Government and its bureaucracy cannot survive without business and science. In general, business, science and the individual and family is the host and government and bureaucracy are parasites.

Keep valid government services that protect individual rights and private property rights while upholding the sanctity of private contracts -- military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today. 

Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a relatively free market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.

Any government agency that is a value to people and society -- there are a few -- could much more effectively serve people and society by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.

Wake up! They're parasites. We're their host. We don't need them. They need us.

You're the host. You don't need them -- they need you.

It's your life. Make them meet your terms and become a value creator or let them chose to perish.

[Mixer]

I am so sick of reverse discrimination it isn't even funny. It is ok to profile "Whites" but don't dare accuse blacks or Arabs for these crimes.

Seeing this first hand at the airport makes me want to scream, seeing grandma off to the side being patted down....pathetic.

[Eva]

Add to that the fact that Moose now admits that the sniper expressed sympathies with the 9/11 attackers. (Did I tell you that I spoke to the reporter from the Bellingham Herald and he told me that Mohammad told the director of the Lighthouse Mission that his goal was to become an airline pilot?)