Verdict: Likely Assassination

It’s not so often that I have an opportunity to dine on the sweet flesh of corvus corvidae (no accident though I remain human and I do sometimes fail to apply that in dubiis non est agendum maxim) – so here goes: the most likely suspect in the recent killing of a Seattle police officer is likely an assassin and not a murderer in the traditional sense of the words:

We now know that Monfort was deeply interested in government and social justice issues—like police misconduct, jury nullification, and the loss of rights under the Patriot Act—but it’s still unclear what allegedly drove Monfort to make the leap from being a loner college student interested in policing and justice to, as police have said, a “terrorist.”

So far, it sounds quite a bit like Monfort saw himself as an anti-government patriot akin to Timothy McVeigh. The American flags left at the two scenes, his alleged manifesto written to police, and the numerous college paper articles and school projects all seem to indicate that Monfort believed our government, or at least law enforcement system, was fundamentally flawed or broken.

In the coming weeks we’ll find out more about Monfort, what made him tick, and hopefully, what (allegedly) pushed him over the edge.

- Anatomy of a Murder
by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee
2009-11-09 18:35

It will be intriguing to see where the trial of Monfort goes – obviously the guy had a couple screws loose if he was leaving calling cards and blowing up police cars (the calling card link was neglected in news reports until now).

So my initial statement implicating a bad-cop-kills-good-cop murder can safely be considered incorrect (and, based on a dearth of information, it should have come with a real caveat). The evidence is heavily stacked against Monfort (which is not to say it would be impossible to frame the guy, but the likelihood that he would be framed is extremely low: no sufficient police record to draw the attention of those who would be in a position to frame him, et cetera).

Still, Seattle has no lack of dirty and brutal cops.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 23:12:47 and is filed under News.

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