Don’t Speed Near Federal Buildings

This seems to be the lesson from the murder of Miriam Carey in Washington DC, the woman who unfortunately did not heed such advice this week.

The woman who was shot to death after a high-speed car chase through the streets between the White House and Capitol Hill was still in her car, snagged on the curb of a grass-covered median, when the police fired at her, a Senate official said Friday.

Well, let me modify my advice: don’t speed and don’t stop near federal buildings.

Questions were also being raised about whether she posed enough of a threat during the fast-moving sequence of events that the police needed to shoot her.

I don’t understand why such questions are being raised.  She was speeding and stopping near federal buildings.

Initially, law enforcement officials said Carey had gotten out of the car when she was shot Thursday afternoon.

At least Ms. Carey didn’t get out of her car near federal buildings – on top of speeding and stopping near federal buildings.  Of course, her murderers already had two reasons to kill her, so the third was not really necessary.

Early accounts of such events are often inaccurate, however…

Of course, especially anywhere near any federal buildings.

Most police departments discourage or prohibit opening fire on vehicles.

I guess most police departments don’t have to worry about speeding or stopping near federal buildings.

With responsibility for safeguarding two of the county’s most significant landmarks, however, the Capitol Police and the Secret Service are particularly attuned to potential terrorist threats.

And you thought I was just being silly about the speeding and stopping near federal buildings stuff.

Car bombs are one concern, as evidenced by the restrictions on vehicles around the Capitol complex, and officials said that by remaining in the car, Carey might have heightened fears that the car was an explosive threat.

Wait a minute.  I must modify my advice once again.  Don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car near federal buildings.

Investigators were looking into reports from her boyfriend that she had been delusional and believed she was a prophet and under electronic surveillance by President Barack Obama.

They probably don’t need to spend a lot of government resources during the government shutdown on looking into that “electronic surveillance by President Barack Obama” thing. That one is known by the entire world to be a fact.

Another man who knew her, Majestic Steele, who is a neighbor of Carey’s mother, Idella Carey, said that a few years ago he saw Carey poised outside her mother’s Brooklyn apartment, clutching a Bible and wailing at the sky. “She was saying, ‘Help me,’ and ‘I need you,’ and she was quoting Scripture,” Steele said.

So don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car or quote Scripture, and you should be safe from federal murder…maybe.

Law enforcement experts outside of Washington said the shooting raised significant issues about the use of deadly force to stop Carey’s car as it traveled along one of the nation’s best-known routes, Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

This is because these doubting-Thomas law enforcement officials don’t have any federal buildings within their respective jurisdictions.

The episode occurred just weeks after a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard and in the midst of a partial government shutdown.

This is getting difficult: don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car near federal buildings; don’t quote Scripture; finally don’t do anything whatsoever within weeks of any mass shooting.

“The question should be, what was the threat that justified deadly force?” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.

Yes.  And the answer lies in the proximity to federal buildings.

Others who study law enforcement said the rules might legitimately be different for officials in Washington.

Of course, just as I have been saying – it is because there are countless federal buildings there.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., defended the officers in a speech on the Senate floor Friday. He said the decision to shoot Carey was “understandable” because the Capitol and the White House were often targets of attacks.

See!  It is the federal buildings.