i am very familiar with LE as well...which is why i absolutely never, ever assume that LE has a GOOD reason or even an ACCEPTABLE reason. in fact, i know all too well how often the very opposite is the case.
reading the anti-DB rhetoric here, and the pro-LE postings.....it's clear that i am in the midst of people who have never found themselves sitting in a tiny, dark, moldy smelling room with LE, and only LE, accusing you of something you did not do, twisting your words, rewriting your entire lifetime, berating you, demeaning you, badgering you, threatening to take your children, threatening to steal your freedom, threatening to ruin your life.....unless you admit you're guilty when you absolutely aren't.
i've been there. and considering i happen to be related to some very well known, accomplished LE in my area, if it can happen to me it can happen to you.
it didn't start in the interrogation room. it started on a sunny afternoon when i heard a god awful noise, thought it was an explosion, and turned to see that instead, it was a dozen cops storming my home, weapons drawn and pointed at my face. it was beyond traumatic. i had no idea what was going on and they refused to tell me. they sat me on a sofa and didn't let me move, not even when i knew my youngest were coming home on the bus. the looks on their faces at the storm door will NEVER leave me. we were forced to sit on that sofa for four hours, listening to them tear the house apart, break my furniture, invade our privacy, our life, our freedom, and steal our sense of peace and security. when my phone rang with my mom on the phone, i was not allowed to answer it. when it continued to ring, they cut it off.
there were so many cars, it shut down the only way in to my neighborhood and remained that way through the evening rush hour. i saw neighbors going over to police officers in the street to no doubt ask what was going on. i still wonder, years later, what they were told. when i say the experience changed my life, changed everything about the way i view the world, i am not exaggerating even a tiny bit. i had been taught to trust LE. that day, i learned how dangerous and wrong was that lesson.
what do you think LE will do if they find out someone wholly untied to the family has committed this crime? do you think that they're all such good men and women, just by virtue of the badge they own, that when they find out they went after the wrong person they actually apologize? do you think they return to pick up all the papers, laundry, trash cans even, they threw all over your home? do you think they fix the furniture they broke in the bedrooms as you were shaking with your children, on the couch in the room directly underneath them? do you think they volunteer to return all of the belongings of yours they took off with, and in the same multi-car formation with which they first arrived, signs on top of police cars stating "we screwed up. we got it wrong. this woman is not guilty of any crime at all. please do not refuse to let your kids play with hers because of our stupidity?" do you think they even volunteer to return your stuff at all? do you think they care even the smallest bit about the many kinds of damage they leave in their wake?
are you kidding?
what if lisa's parents are truly innocent? and what if lisa is dead? what if you had to watch this passive-aggressive-assault that LE has waged on them via the press, knowing they were innocent? would you still be so quick to suggest they lay down and take it? do you really believe, in innocence, that a citizen of this country should undergo the sort of mental torture happening here just bc the public, in their own depravity, demands that or deems you guilty? my gosh.
about a week after cops invaded my home, i got a phone call, an abrupt one, telling me i was clear and could pick up my cell phones, computers, my kids computers, when it was convenient as long as i called in first. by then, i had been violated enough to be angry. i demanded the lead detective and his supervisor deliver my stuff themselves, apologize to my kids, and apologize to me. the lead detective balked, not for the first time. he was a bully, like many in LE. he made it clear he did not want to admit he'd screwed up. i couldn't help but think "what would these jerks be doing if i was a single mom, not living in the suburbs, not college educated, not white?" i threatened a law suit and suddenly that detective decided to get some decency. my stuff was delivered. i still worry they have it out for me and this happened many years ago.
this is the deal in the united states of america whether anyone likes it or not.....people are innocent until proven otherwise. LE doesn't need encouragement that supports their belief that they can do whatever they need to do break a case. sometimes that only results in breaking a person, and an innocent one.
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