WASHINGTON.
WANTED: a few good men – from the New York City Police Department.
Look, investigators down here are good, decent, hard-working law enforcers. But they have to get their act together.
“They are probably good men and women, but this is amateur-hour time,” said retired veteran cop Bo Dietl.
“It seems the investigation is all about [Chief Charles] Moose. Sometimes, he was on television three, four times a day saying nothing.”
Moose is a personable man, but he flipped out when reporters revealed the note the killer left on the back of a tarot card.
There was good reason for his anger. The tarot card was found in another county. The police there leaked it to the press, and he only found out about it when a reporter called him.
Talk about Keystone Kops.
Right now, there are five jurisdictions investigating this horror.
Add to the mix 750 FBI agents, ATF personnel, plus the offered assistance of the armed forces.
“There isn’t one freakin’ simple task force,” said Dietl, chairman of Bo Dietl Associates, one of the most active security and investigative companies in the country.
“I’ve been on many investigations, and there has always been a task force. During the Palm Sunday Massacre in Brooklyn, when 10 people were shot dead at close range on April 15, 1984, we had 200 of the best detectives from all over the city and the task force was in the 75th Precinct.
“Of course, we got the guy, and we did it right. But the one time Chief Moose talked about getting information, he was telling the world about two days of wasted investigation because of a phony eyewitness.
“All cops get those bum leads, including myself. During the Palm Sunday investigation, some guy screwed me around for three days.”
“We didn’t go to the press, but here’s Chief Moose telling the world and the murderer that because of this jerk leading him on a wild goose chase, he really has nothing. You tell a murderer you don’t have anything, all that does is embolden him.”
I’m not in the business of kicking guys when they’re down, but the very fact that there is not a single investigative body running this grim show tells me investigators down here have a righteous motive but the wrong plan.