Left, Right and Center
We’ve inherited a number of readers from a teriffic site; proteinwisdom.com contributor Dan Collins saw us mentioned by Paglia and then wrote a provocative piece on the Wone case shortly after. You may also have seen some of his smart takes lately in the comments section.
Dan also penned a great post over there on another DC freakshow case: The deaths of NY nightlife impressario Dean Johnson and the 26 year old Jeremy Conklin. Both died within days of each other under strange circumstances in September 2007, in the same apartment of Steven Saleh.
From there Dan’s reader Little Miss Atilla posted “What the Hell is Going on in Washington, DC?” on her site. We welcome the attention, diverse opinions, and the sober treatment.
A former member of Pajamas Media as far as I can tell, Dan’s site is well read by many from the right-of-center and Libertarian communities. We noticed a couple Free Republic visitors who drifted over after seeing Dan’s post. Normally that would raise a red flag, but I’m happy to report they were well behaved. We’ll hook the Freepers up with S.D.I if it becomes an issue. Thanks Dan and keep up the good work.
-the editors
If it is provocative because he misspelled Victor’s name, then that is a rather protean definition of provocation.
Corrected – there is a shortage of good copy editors now a days.
the editors
Not surprising for what you guys pay 🙂
-Craig
So I’ve enjoyed Dan’s posts here, but his commenters at proteinwisdom are simply loony. How could someone extrapolate from this case that we are being “Europeanized”? I am sooo sick of economic libertarianism, first b/c it got us to the pathetic situation we’re in now and second b/c it’s just become boring after 30 years of non-stop indoctrination. And no, I’m not promoting a rival ideology here. I’m just sick of ideologies full stop.
oh gowd….don’t bring it over here!
Gotcha Nick – You’ve offered some good stuff here. Offline conversations with Dan confirm that he’s a cool and smart guy with a genuine interest in the Wone case. I don’t make excuses for some of our commenters and I don’t expect Dan to make excuses for his. But I’m sure his “loonies” over there would love to hear from you. 🙂 Craig
You have to wonder how pervasive the “boys will be boys” mentality is, when it comes to the gay community (a la Jeffrey Dahmer). If anyone remembers, one of JD’s victims escaped and ran naked through streets, crying. The police were called and when JD arrived at the scene, JD explained it away as a drunk and upset boyfriend….I’ll take him home….sorry.
It was a 14-yr old Laotian boy who was not only naked and dazed, but also bloody. Dahmer convinced the police that it was just a lover’s spat, and the boy was brutally tortured and murdered soon thereafter. Very sad case.
That would be the one.
Thanks for the link; I’m concerned that there’s a link between the “boys will be boys” mindset as it might lead into the “hookers will be hookers” (or even “NHI”) strain of thought. That was why I thought Dan’s parallels between the 2-3 murder cases was interesting.
Certainly, from across the country these three cases are shocking to the sensibilities.
NHI? “no humans involved”?
The GLBT community is equalized as marginalized as prostitutes are. You can look at the myriad cases of prostitute murder and see the same casual approach police departments take regarding those deaths. Until they stumble upon a literal pile of corpses, does the media take notice and, subsequently, the police department begins to take serious action.
The Green River Killer (prostitutes) and the I-70 Killer (gay men/gay prostitutes) cases were handled pretty much the same way……with indifference/limited resources……and many of the I-70 killings were never even closed.
It goes all the way back to Jack the Ripper, although in fairness the Victorians didn’t have our technology or our “best practices” approach to multiple-homicide cases.
I guess what I find so maddening is the idea–and I do not, of course, know nearly as much about this as the rest of you–that there is a special “gay/lesbian liaison” in D.C., yet these cases are still going virtually uninvestigated.
I want to disabuse you of any conception that the Gay and Lesbian unit is an effective law enforcement idea which has been started for the betterment of the gay community. The irony is that the “boys will be boys” attitude you previously mentioned has been the philosophy of how that unit has operated. That is real shame. The former police chief just wanted to have the gay thing “covered” and give himself “cover” thereby. But except for the head guy, all the rest of the people involved seem to have unfortunate attitudes towards the community. Not hostile, but patronizing, along the lines of “boys will be boys”. A friend of mine was being
stalked by a nutty guy in the neighborhood who is a gay business owner. This guy has done this to others. When my friend found out who the creep was he even tried to handle it by asking
someone who would know him to tell him to stop and get some help. Bad idea. The creep got
weirder in his attention. Eventually my friend
was forced to go the police and ended up with the Gay unit. Their attitude was a mix between
“boys will be boys” and a sheer ignorance about the what stalking was even about. But my friend
stuck to his guns and eventually they called the creep about it. The guy lied through his teeth with a blatant fabrication saying that he was never even at his place of business in the neighborhood , so he couldn’t be stalking anybody in the neighborhood (he had another place of business elsewhere too.) But such a blatant lie did not engage the mind of the police officer in its obvious contradiction. The point is that if they are not clever enough to see through a very obvious prevarication, like a business man saying he is never at his own business. How are they going to solve something more subtle and perplexing? Again my friend felt that the “boys will be boys ” attitude was under the whole thing. Anyways after the call to the creep he stopped his stalking, but word has it that he has gone on to do it to other guys. My friend wishes he could have had the guy prosecuted. So much for the Gay unit being able to help the community deal with its problems.
When I read that your friend was directed to the “gay unit” I cringed. The “liason” should be remained the “marginalization branch.” It makes me sick.
I’m not 100% sure about this Joy, but I don’t think the gay/lesbian unit gets involved in detective work. I thought their mission was something akin to a police beat 50 years ago.
I do think though that part of their job is to shill for the MPD to the gay community. An acquaintance of mine was killed by a cop last year (he had a knife, they had a gun!), and all of a sudden the liaison unit was out there justifying what happened. I felt a bit sorry for them, they must have divided loyalties a lot of times.
Considering the amount of street crime in Dupont Circle and especially around 17th Street, you’d think the “liason” wasn’t even around. Oh! That’s right….they aren’t!
Reactive NOT proactive. Call us when you get your brains caved in.
That’s if they didn’t steal your cell phone.
Hey, Nick, it’s all right that you disagree with much of the PW community on economic issues. Doesn’t seem much to affect the investigation of Mr. Wone one way or another, as Craig says.
Anyway, it’s axiomatic that equally intelligent people can look at the same evidence, more or less, and come to quite different conclusions, without either party interpreting in bad faith.
As for me, I’m happy to be part of the discussion, so thanks, good people.