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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

What do you do when law enforcement doesn't enforce the law
Posted by Jill | 4:43 AM
As if I weren't angry enough over the murder of Dr. George Tiller, this segment from last night's Countdown made me want to just run down the street screaming:



If law enforcement is going to be selective when dealing with the threat of violence at funerals and medical clinics, when local police refuse to protect physicians and women from violence from terrorists, when protection is only for the insane who call themselves "Christians" and "patriots" and other false monikers of the extreme right, then there is no law. If the right to self-determination can be taken away at the barrel of a gun, then there is no right. And then all the talk about preserving Roe is preposterous. Because where women are concerned, we are now allowing individual white men with a grievance and a gun to decide our destinies. For women seeking to control their reproductive destiny, there is no equal protection under the law in many states. The rights of men to channel their rage over watching their world change into violence against women and their doctors trump all.

And if you think I'm being overly dramatic, Blue Girl has unearthed the information that Scott Roeder, the terrorist who murdered Dr. George Tiller, vandalized a women's health care clinic the day before he murdered Dr. Tiller:

Scott Roeder was no stranger to law enforcement, and in fact, he should have been under surveillance since he was caught with bomb making supplies in the mid 90s when he was involved with the "sovereign citizen" movement and militant anti-abortion groups.

On May 23, he vandalized a clinic in Kansas City, Kansas then returned on Saturday morning, May 30 to vandalize the clinic again. The clinic manager filed police reports in both instances, and on Saturday, about 24 hours before Dr. Tiller was gunned down in the foyer of his church, the clinic manager gave the FBI Roeder's license plate and a description of his car.

He had a radical, militant history that ought to have drawn flags all over the field.

I don't know about you, but I would rather police resources be spent tailing and infiltrating the circle of guys like Roeder, who had already threatened a physician in the KC area, where he walked into a clinic, asked to see the doctor and waited patiently for him to come out to talk to him. When the doctor came out, Roeder stared at him for about 45 seconds before saying "Okay, I've seen you now," and turning and walking out. He had also posted on the Operation Rescue website that he wanted to confront Dr. Tiller in his church.

All the warning signs were there, and he had escalated his direct actions recently. His previous bomb-making conviction and ties to domestic terrorist groups should have popped up the minute his plate was run, and agents should have made a visit to his house and brought him in for questioning and held him in the clinic vandalism and this whole tragedy could have been avoided.

But in Kansas, it's clear that the law enforcement apparatus didn't WANT this tragedy to be avoided. And it's quite clear that in the state of Kansas, terrorists are allowed to run freely, vandalizing clinics and threatening doctors, because in Kansas, the police only enforce the laws they want to.

That's a notion that should scare us no matter where we live.

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2 Comments:
Anonymous Charlie O said...
Jill,

Your post is a classic example why no one in this country should ever expect law enforcement in this country to "keep them safe." No can do that. Only YOU can keep yourself safe. This where I diverge from most liberals (and I'm pretty darn liberal). I believe wholeheartedly in my right to arm myself and protect myself. And that includes protecting myself from the police and right wing nutball. Both of those groups have guns, lots of them. When the police are kicking down your door and armed to the teeth, who ya gonna call, more police? No thanks, I'll defend myself. I rather die on my feet with a gun in my hand than on my knees subdued by some POS cop.
6/3/09, 9:26 AM  
Blogger Comrade Misfit said...
Note that the assassin of Dr. Tiller planned the killing and ambushed him inside of a house of God.

Kansas is a death penalty state. That kind of killing is, in most states, a death penalty charge.

But not this time.
6/3/09, 8:36 PM  
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