{"id":43,"date":"2002-10-25T12:30:13","date_gmt":"2002-10-25T12:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2002-10-25T12:30:13","modified_gmt":"2002-10-25T12:30:13","slug":"the-clouds-have-lifted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"The Clouds Have Lifted"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday night, amid all of the
\nsniper<\/a> anxiety of the last several weeks,
\nsomething very interesting crossed the police scanner that rested in
\nmy wife’s hands. A call rang out, “Shots fired.” Gun shots
\nwere reported in the woods of Columbia and the activity on the
\nscanner quickly reached a crescendo.<\/p>\n

The chatter of weapons fire was quickly followed by a report of a white
\nvan along the roadside. Two individuals had reportedly bailed from the vehicle.
\nOrders were given to block the highways in the area and, if I’m not
\nmistaken, interstate 95 was one of them. The police response
\nwas swift.<\/p>\n

Luckily, this was a false alarm. Unluckily, the police did not have another
\nchance to catch the sniper. The gun shots from the woods were from
\na hunter; a hunter that evidently thought he was above a
\ndecree<\/a>
\nby the governor. The van in question had broken down. It’s occupants
\nhad left the vehicle to seek assistance. The situation was quickly
\ninvestigated and quickly resolved.<\/p>\n

That didn’t mean the whole incident didn’t grab the interest of the wife and
\nI. Is it him? Are they on the run? Speak up scanner. We need to know.
\nCould we be listening to the call that finally catches the killer?
\nUnfortunately, the answer was no. The
\nevents<\/a> of Wednesday
\nnight followed a similar path. This time, however, we watched
\nalong with the rest of the world as the events unfolded on national
\ntelevision.<\/p>\n

Reports stormed in about a
\nlink<\/a>
\nto Tacoma, Washington. The view from the
\nhelicopter showed the police cleaning up. Evidently, they hadn’t just arrived.
\nKillings<\/a> in Montgomery, Alabama were suspected to be related. Finally,
\nthe
\nfocus<\/a> of the police shifted from the ever elusive white van to something
\ncompletely different and much more specific. Police were seeking
\na 1990 Chevrolet Caprice and the men who were driving it. Names
\nwere given. Pictures soon followed. I looked over to the wife and said,
\n“They’ll have them by noon.”<\/p>\n

They did.<\/p>\n

A passing motorist noticed that not all of us had slept well the night before.
\nTwo men were rudely awaken at gunpoint. The car was searched. The weapon
\nwas
\nfound<\/a>. The evidence is damning. Hand shakes began.
\nThe clouds of the last several weeks that came in the
\nform a madman that stalked the innocent behind the scope of a rifle have
\nfinally been lifted.<\/p>\n

As the
\ndetails<\/a> slowly leak out, I’ll have a little battle with myself.
\nI’m intensly curious about the details of the investigation. What
\nwere the communications with the police? What did the police know
\nand when did they know it? However, I’m not so sure the public should be
\ntold. I’d hate to think that someone could learn from this killer’s mistakes.<\/p>\n

The terrorists of the world like to believe their acts are of courage and
\nbravery. I disagree. I can’t imagine anything more cowardly than
\nhiding behind a gun and firing on women and children. I hope the
\ncareful words of the past are replaced by shouts that
\ndenounce this act for what it was:
\na treacherous crime by a gutless chicken shit.<\/p>\n

Looking back (if, in fact, I can look back at this point), people
\nlike
\nAndrew Sullivan<\/a>, bring up some interesting
\npoints<\/a>.
\nI have one to add. I’ve found it rather sad that some of the horrible events
\naround the world were all but ignored by the major news networks during
\nthe sniper’s reign of terror.
\nTragic events such as the fiery
\nattack<\/a> in Bali or the ongoing
\nhostage
\ncrisis<\/a> in Russia should not have been regulated to a scrolling
\nupdate on
\nCNN<\/a>. These are major events. I understand that
\nour crisis at home was important, and, for that matter, weighed
\nheavily on my own mind, but we found out on September 11th that
\nterrorism is world news. It does effect us, rather we like it or not.<\/p>\n

The end of all this brings a nice, if only temporary, sense of relief.
\nPeople no longer need to approach the gas tank of their car like a
\ndeer stealing a drink of water from a nearby stream.
\nI may take a celebratory walk through the neighborhood just to
\nmark the occasion. No need to peer into the woods. It’s safe – at least
\nas far as we know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday night, amid all of the sniper anxiety of the last several weeks, something very interesting crossed the police scanner that rested in my wife’s hands. A call rang out, “Shots fired.” Gun shots were reported in the woods of Columbia and the activity on the scanner quickly reached a crescendo. The chatter of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}