When I first heard about the police shooting out in Washington state yesterday, I did my standard unfounded guessing on what might be the story behind it.
I have a fairly decent record of this. When a nutcase took a Hillary Clinton campaign office hostage with a bomb threat, I went out on a limb and said that it would end up a fake bomb and end peacefully — and it did. I also said up front that the Fort Hood shooting was likely an Islamist.
On the other hand, I completely botched the London subway shooting. My first reaction was that the London police had been justified. I based that on actually believing the London police — when it turned out they were lying, I ate a bit of crow.
Anyway, my first thought was that this was, in all likelihood, not another case of Sudden Jihadi Syndrome. The Mighty Warriors of Allah, when they carry out their brave operations, most often target civilians or other unarmed people. Shooting four on-duty, armed cops? Not as likely. Those cowardly shits almost never go after those who they think might fight back.
The second thought was that it was one of those hateful, racist, violent Tea Party people acting on super-secret subliminal orders from Glenn Beck or something. But then it came out that the guy was black, and we all know that no black people (especially “real” black people) don’t cotton to that whole movement, so that was right out.
My thoughts were leaning in two directions. My first thought was gang-related. We’ve all heard the urban legends about gang initiations involving killing people, and some of the gangs around are dumb enough that they might try to “show the cops who’s boss” by ambushing and killing several of them. So that was one possibility.
The second one I had was some sort of personal grudge. Not some guy with a beef with the government, but someone who had a problem with at least one of the cops and finally snapped.
I briefly thought about the notion that it might have been some nut, but for some reason that theory just didn’t “stick” for me. And the possibility that it would possibly a nut who had crossed the path of a former (and, potentially, future) presidential candidate and would drive a stake through Mike Huckabee’s ambitions… that caught me completely flat-footed.
I feel pretty confident, though, in saying that if the suspect were white, liberals across the nation would be doing all they could to hang him around the right’s necks.
