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Empty threats

By swd

Our office is located in a building across the street from the courthouse, which is nice, in many ways. It reduces the appearance that we're "working for the State" and keeps us a little bit out of the loop, in a good way. We're in a big county, the second most populous in the State, I'm guessing. And we're located in a relatively major urban area, so its a good thing to lie low on the radar.

Pre-trial services is on the same floor as us. They monitor folk who are on bond, but need a little more supervision than the average criminal defendant. They get a fair amount of foot traffic. Oddly, the county's family law clinic is also on the same hall.

Last week, an employee of either the family law clinic or pretrial services discovered a legal pad which had a relatively long, rambling letter written on it. A warning, of sorts. I read a copy of the letter myself, and the writer stated that he was ready to die, and would be carrying out a suicide operation in which "hundreds of thousands of white people" would be killed. The date of this supposed operation is tomorrow, July 26. The person signed the letter with an Arabic name.

I call bullshit.

Full post as published by A Public Defender's Journal on July 25, 2007 (boomark / email).