Osler's Razor

 On Christmas morning, a 63-year-old white suicide bomber, Anthony Quinn Warner, blew up his RV in front of an AT & T switching station in Nashville. He was the only one killed, but communications in the Southeast were affected for days.

 It was a strange incident. But the latest developments really have me baffled.

 Apparently, the suicide bomber's girlfriend had recently told the police a straight-up truth: that this guy was building bomb's in his RV. She apparently had a pretty good description of the whole operation.  This was confirmed by an attorney who said that Quinn frequently talked about making bombs.

 So what did the police do? They knocked on the door. They drove by. And then they dropped it.

People I know in the law enforcement business have had a uniform response to this story: She should have told them he was a black guy growing pot in there-- then they would have gotten a warrant. Which is true, and not funny. 

To get a warrant, you need either an informant with a good track record, or a new informant with corroboration. Here, the second applies. Yet, they didn't take action.

 There is a larger picture here, and it is an important one. Our police forces are largely focused on answering 911 calls and arresting people for drug crimes. It's kind of what they know how to do, so they keep doing it. And, of course, it's ineffective-- there are as many drugs as ever out there, in every kind of community, and answering 911 calls rarely prevents a crime. 

"Defund the police" was a dumb mantra, but "rethink the police" would be better. We need to rebuild and retask police forces so that they are more effective at preventing crime. There are ways to do that-- I've written about that a lot, as have many others-- but the first step is to consider doing things differently.

# posted by Mark Osler @ 1:00 AM