I'm not saying that I've taked to several buddies who worked in three of the Departments involved in the case, but here's a couple of predictions.

1. The PC issue will hit big in a couple of days... a couple of investigators were so mad about the Chief clamping down on the race issue, that they leaked the ID's to the press, who went with the story and forced the Chief to reveal the ID's to the press at 11:55 pm (after the papers went to bed) so the story would not recieve much coverage until the next day. Of course, we now know that a citizen, hearing the "sensationized" story on the news, found the vehicle at a truck stop some 30 miles from my location and promptly called it in. No lynch mob here... Again, since they would not "know" the race of the snipers until they were arrested, they would still have had more than enough grounds to release that information after listening to the language and use of verb tenses in the suspect tapes, and written letters. And again, they were located three hours after a late night press release.

2. The "What did they know and when did they know it" story will soon become the day's news, much like Sept. 11th. (Example question: Unless the Bushmaster has the EXACT same lands, grooves, twist, ejector and extractor, magazine spring and loading lip system as the other .223 weapon manufacturers, they knew the make of the weapon by the first week, after they found the first three rounds and the single cartridge at the third scene. This would also indicate that that may have been the only time the sniper(s) fired from outside the car).

3. As much as I used to hate the press (even when I was the Department PIO), they closed the case when the Chief wouldn't/couldn't. As I noted above, a couple of units forced the Chief's hand, and the "sensationalized" coverage caused a man driving alone, at two oclock in the morning, to call in the tag. Ain't we a great country or what?

4. As to the other comments about the coverage, there were numerous times when I heard coverage detailing the Angry White Man theory on my TV, when I said to myself "Only f**king idiots will believe this" and just turned the channel...