OT: Bowling for Columbine

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by jimbob:
The one that really got me was the Anthrax scare. Does joe-trailer park really think he's important enough to get an anthrax letter? I mean honestly, short of having major celebrity status, we're all pretty safe.

Uh dude, how many of the five people killed during that thing were celebreties? Only one, and that's only if you count that first guy that died as a celebrety which is a stretch. He was a photographer for a tabloid newspaper. How many people outside of his little circle knew him before he contracted the disease. And how many of the five were even the targets of the peson sending the antrax? Again, maybe just him. Two postal workers that handled one of the letters, and two other ladies that just got it somehow. Probably by cross contamination with mail containing antrax spores.

The Antrax scare was about fear, yes that is correct. But you didn't have to be a famous person to be afraid of it. Like the sniper killings in D.C. it picked it's victims pretty much at random. But unlike the sniper killings you didn't know immedietly you'd been picked. All they could tell you was it caused flu-like symptoms in the early stages. It's no wonder everybody that came down with a runny nose started thinking about it.

Geoschmo

[Major Tom]

Realistically, the chance of getting shot by the sniper, or getting an Anthrax message is less then being hit by lightning, but of course Antrax, the Sniper, as well as black men with guns is what the average person fears, when they should really fear white people and lightning (I know nobody who was killed by guns, but one person who was killed by lightning).

[geoschmo]

People fear what they have no control over. They don't fear lightening, because they (correctly or not) think they can avoid it by staying inside during a storm. The things that kill most people, heart desease, lung cancer, car accidents, are all things that we understand the risk factors for fairly well, and have at least an impression that we personally can avoid if we control those factors. Most people killed by guns are either involved in a crime themselves, or know the shooter personally. So we think we can avoid getting shot by staying on the straight and narrow, and not hanging around weird uncle fred. Snipers, anthrax, random hooligans (why do we always have to bring the race thing into it. ), are all things that strike randomly. Of course rationally they should not be feared because the odds are so slim they will happen to us. But because there is nothing we can do to change those odds, we feel powerless, and afraid.

Geoschmo

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

Snipers, anthrax, random hooligans (why do we always have to bring the race thing into it. ), are all things that strike randomly.

Funny you should ask about that. As I live in Northern Virginia, and some of those sniper attacks were uncomfortably close to where I live and work, I know WAY too much about the events surrounding that one. Including the fact that the guy in charge of the investigation was made chief of police precisely because he was completely opposed to "racial profiling". At least the usual kind, which presumes that blacks (or Hispanics, or Arabs/Middle-Easterners or whatever other non-white ethnic group you care to insert) is responsible for a given crime. In fact, said police chief was so opposed to said profiling that he ignored witnesses who claimed the sniper was dark-skinned and ignored the fact that the sniper's car had been ticketed repeatedly near the times & locations of the shootings. Beyond that, all the police checkpoints they set up when the later shootings occurred were instructed to ONLY pull over white men. No women, no non-whites, just white men.

Now, I agree that racial profiling is a bad thing. However, completely ignoring witnesses isn't very smart; not to mention the fact that saying all serial killers are white males, and using that as the basis for an investigation, is pretty damn close to racial profiling as well. It's just not "minority profiling"...

Finally, the snipers were caught partly by luck, partly because they started taunting the police, and partly because someone at the tip-line finally decided to listen to the people linking the shootings to other crimes. And that police chief in charge has been branded a hero for completely mucking up the investigation. What do I expect from a region where a man convicted of buying crack cocaine from a prostitute gets re-elected as mayor?

I'll get off my rantbox now. If y'all are offended by the above, I'm sorry. But I needed to say all that to a (hopefully) sympathetic audience.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
In fact, said police chief was so opposed to said profiling that he ignored witnesses who claimed the sniper was dark-skinned and ignored the fact that the sniper's car had been ticketed repeatedly near the times & locations of the shootings.

Frankly this is just garbage. Eye-witness accounts are pretty much the WORST thing to go by in a criminal investigation. They are almost without exception unrealiable. This has been proven time and time again. Specifically in this case, NOBODY saw the snipers fire the gun, because they were shooting from the closed trunk of a car. Anybody who says they saw a black man, or a white man for that matter was just making it up or seeing what they wanted to see. The police were correct to ignore most of them.

And dexactly how many other cars do you think were ticketed in those areas ove rhte course of the weeks? And the Police were supposed to know this one was the bad guys? Come on. Give us a break please?

No, the cops got lucky, and the bad guys got stupid. Honestly this is how most if not all cases are broken. The good guys keep working and watching and wait for the bad guys to make a mistake. That's the way it works. It's no different there than anywhere else.

Geoschmo

[ November 15, 2002, 15:24: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[DirectorTsaarx]

I'll give you a break, geoschmo. You're right. It's not worth arguing about. The only criminals who get caught are ones who make mistakes. I'm just glad the snipers finally made enough mistakes to get caught. Too bad they weren't caught earlier.

[Kamog]

Hey, do you know if they ever found out who was mailing those anthrax letters? The Last time I heard, they still haven't caught whoever it is...