In 1989, a jogger was attacked and raped in New York's Central Park. At the time, 5 young black men were arrested for the crime, and they gave confessions after long (up to 28 hours) interrogations by the police. This was the attack that taught us all about "Wilding" - young boys our running around causing havoc - and which captured the attention of the nation for a while.

The boys were convicted, even though by then they had renounced their confessions, and for the most part, people assumed we'd heard the end of that case.

Apparnetly that's not even close. A new investigation into the case has been underway for a while now, ever since an inmate confessed to having committed the crime by himself. DNA testing has shown that he did, in fact, have sexual contact with the jogger, lending much credibility to his story. The testing also showed that none of the physical evidence in the case matched that of the boys convicted for the crime, though it is technically possible for someone to commit a rape and leave no obvious DNA behind - especially with as much time as has passed in this case and the belief that the case itself was closed

One odd note in the whole story is that the man who has confessed to having raped the jogger has also confessed to having raped another woman 2 nights before.  Whether it's because she was not as badly injured, or because her story lacked the "shocking" element of the Wilding teens, her story never made the news - at least not in the same manner the jogger's story did.  The first rape had been handled by the Sex Crimes unit, but because it was believed that the jogger might not survive, her case was handled by the Homicide division.  As noted in the New York Times article on this case:

For reasons that are not clear, investigators say, there is no sign that the information about the April 17 rape was turned over to the detectives handling the attack on the jogger.

And this is where I get a bit lost.  How is it that with a case being as widely publicized as the jogger's case was, no one in the Sex Crimes unit thought to call up the Homicide division and say "hey, we've gone one a lot like your's".  Had that happened, odds are good that the police would have discovered that the teens they'd arrested probably were not involved, since apparently the first victim did not suffer the memory loss that the jogger has.  Knowing her case had only a single attacker might have helped refocus the investigation into the jogger's case.  Unfortuantely, we'll never know for sure.

This goes right along with my earlier comments (in my "Shadowed Souls" blog, which deals with both true crime and crime fiction) about both the Columbine shooting and the WTC/Pentagon attacks: In both cases, there were warning signs, and had the various bits and pieces held by different agencies been somehow coordinated, is possible that the tragedies could have been prevented. 

I suspect this "compartmentalization" of information is one of the greatest problems facing our country today.  We are almost more at risk because of our inability to get all of our pieces talking to each other, than we are from outside threats.

Bush declares war may be 'unavoidable'. The US president says he may have no choice but to go to war with Iraq¸ as EU and Arab leaders stress their continuing differences with the US. [BBC News | Front Page]

Does President Bush actually expect us to find this at all surprising?  Does he expect us to believe him?  If war with Iraq is "unavoidable" it is because of all that Bush has done to ensure that we push the situation to that point.  I'm not denying that Saddam Hussain has done some pretty awful things, but I don't see him as the most immediate threat to our security right now. 

On September 7th, during a press conference, Bush stated that a report from the the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated that Saddam was within 6 months of being able to make nuclear weapons, and asked how much more proof was needed.  Since then, the IAEA has denied that they published any such report.  When it was reported that no such report had been published by the IAEA in 1998, Bush's press office said that it must have been their 1991 report that it came from, which IAEA also denies.  Of course, my question is, even if the reports were true, even if we had known in 1991 or 1998 that Saddam was 6 months away from obtaining nuclear weapons, wouldn't that mean that he should already have them by now?  And if he did, then why didn't Bush go after him immediately upon coming into office, why wait until just before the mid-term election to push so hard for this?

I have no doubt that Bush will ensure that we end up having no choice but to go to war with Iraq.  He wants this war and is determined to have it any way he can get it.  My only wish is that he'd be honest about why.  It truly makes no sense to claim that we must go to war against a man because a report that was never written supposedly said that between 4 and 11 years ago, Saddam Hussain might have nuclear capabilities in 6 months.  It also makes no sense to be heading into this kind of a war with other countries, who have previously backed us when we have had a legitimate reason for invading a nation, are refusing to do so now because they don't feel it is necessary.  It makes you wonder what the real reasons are, you know?

4 new articles at The Bitch Queen

• A Lack of Common Cents - What happens when a collection agency tries to sue for 18 cents.
• Big Bucks for Stupidity - Phillip Morris ordered to pay $28B in tobacco lawsuit.  Um, why?
• Gender Myth Shocker! Women Want Men Who'll "Be There" - It's amazing!  Women like men who are sensitive and reliable!
• That's Entertainment? - DJ plays cruel "prank" and the station tries to excuse it as a "misjudgement" that was not meant to be "hurtful or malicious".
  

1 new article at Shadowed Souls

• Columbine: What did they know and when did they know it - New information indicates that more may have been known about Eric Harris' potential for violence than has previously been reported.