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THANK GOD the sniper(s) has been caught! It was a trying three weeks. Even I was looking over my shoulder when I got gas.
Thank God, too, that we are through with these profilers.
Like everyone else, I was glued to CNN Wednesday night as word spread that there might be two suspects in the case. And as we waited, that news network dug up every so-called "expert" it could find.
One woman, in a very know-it-all tone, declared that the sniper was unnoticed because he was going about his life as usual. This guy was going to work every day, she said, and playing with his kids like the average neighborhood Joe.
Yeah! Right! The guy arrested didn't have a job and was sleeping in his car. He and some teenager were allegedly driving up and down the interstate shooting people.
Another profiler said the sniper would never leave the D.C. area because that was obviously where he was from and felt comfortable there because he knew the surroundings.
Right again! The bozos in jail were from Tacoma, Wash., and supposedly had already shot two women in Montgomery, Ala.
One "expert" was asked if the sniper was panicking after his name was made public (a stupid question to begin with). The profiler answered that the suspect was almost certainly afraid that he was about to be caught, that he was probably at that very moment deciding how he was going to effect his end, whether by shooting it out or killing himself.
The two suspects were really agitated. They were found asleep in their car at a rest area.
Then there was the retired Philadelphia police chief who was very much against making the names of the suspects and the make of their vehicle public.
Four hours after the announcement was broadcast, the two men were in custody. Give the public a break, folks. We are not idiots.
Thursday morning, some lady profiler listened intently as a TV anchor retraced the steps of the two suspects.
"That is so typical of serial killers," she said, as if she had known the two suspects' names from the first shooting.
OK, lady! If you knew who they were, why didn't you speak up?
Well, maybe if she had, the police wouldn't have heard her. Let's not give them too much credit for breaking this case. If John Allen Muhammad or Lee Malvo hadn't all but identified themselves, the case still might not have been solved.
Five times the sniper called police and five times they hung up on him because he sounded like a kook.
Of course he's a kook! Do sane people go around shooting innocent people?
And what about this white van with ladder racks on top that everyone was seeing? Turns out it didn't figure in the killings at all.
Which brings us to the military. What are they teaching people in the armed forces these days, and whose side are they on?
Richard Evonitz was ex-military. Timothy McVeigh was ex-military. John Allen Muhammad is ex-military. Four soldiers at Fort Bragg are suspected of shooting their spouses.
Maybe anti-gun activists should start a campaign to take firearms away from the military. The deer hunters seem to be behaving themselves pretty well compared to former military folks.
A driving dilemmaI hope to God we never have another three weeks like the past three. But knowing people, we probably will.
Before we start these interstate roadblocks again, however, we need to develop a new protocol.
I had a friend who was at Kings Dominion the night of the Ashland shooting and it took her from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. to get home. The usual 90-minute drive turned into a nightmare.
The police gave people a few tips for surviving such waits, like having plenty of gas (the sniper was shooting people who filled up) and carrying blankets.
There is one protocol, however, that authorities failed to address. What do 10,000 drivers stuck in gridlock for five hours do when they have to go to the bathroom?
If you think I am making light of a serious situation you have obviously never had to spend five hours in a car while suffering from diarrhea or an over-active bladder. Sometimes when you've gotta go, you've gotta go!
So what do you do? This is not a rhetorical question. I want an official answer so I will be prepared if the need arises.
If you go on the roadside you might be arrested for indecent exposure. And if you try to hold it, well, you might bust.
This might be a good question for Edie Gross' transportation column, but I feel the public needs a more immediate answer.
One of the cleverest advertisements I have ever seen was a small sketch at the bottom of a Reader's Digest page. The ad, which appeared 30 years ago, showed a motorist driving along a heavily traveled prairie road without a single bush or tree in sight. A sign on the edge of the highway read, "Next rest stop 100 miles."
The caption at the bottom of the ad read, "Diarrhea can make even a strong man cry!"
OK, all you smart people out there, what do you do when you're caught in a massive gridlock and you have to go to the bathroom?
Maybe we should ask one of those brilliant profilers!
Illegal aliens and white vansI have only two more sniper comments.
I loved it when authorities begged illegal aliens to come forward with information--without fear of legal penalties. The day before, two illegal Hispanics had been making an innocent phone call at a gas station in Richmond when they were taken into custody at gunpoint, had their van confiscated and were turned over to immigration officials for deportation.
After that, I know I'd come forward.
Finally, after recognizing the sniper's car, the man who called police locked himself in--what else?--a white van.
As he waited, a lady at the rest stop reportedly was calling police--to report seeing that white van.
It figures.