Comment by fortran77
12 hours ago
The "three people in car" is a very useful tell for criminal activity. I've seen in home burglar rings (one driver, one lookout, and one person to enter the home), catalytic converter thieves (driver, lookout, and "saw man"), etc. Not sure why they need the same patter of three here, but I guess one person will be the one who goes to the hospital, etc.
It's like they all read the same "criminal" forums to learn techniques. From the article:
> Garrison would later recall, for example, that Alfortish had cautioned him to limit the number of passengers to three, because four might raise “red flags.”
In any event, given the extreme danger of a crime like this, the penalties should be more like that of a kidnapping (e.g., life in prison) and not just the 6 months suspended they'll see for insurance fraud. But that would never happen in Louisiana.
The New Yorker was refreshingly frank in this piece. I expected them to tap dance around several things they hit head on.
It's also a good reminder that in this day and age 360 degree dashcams are a must. If I were a professional truck driver, I'd have a bodycam, too.
Three people in a car is not a tell for anything except three people in a car.
Nor should it. You have to be realistic here - if we send everybody who ever did murder two up to Angola for life you would need like two more Angolas. Let’s not even get to kidnapping.
The prosecutors see slamming as "non-violent". Something is seriously wrong with them.
> Peter Strasser, the U.S. Attorney, was in his office when one of his prosecutors entered, looking shaken, and said that the key coöperating witness in the slammers case had just been murdered. “I would never have believed it, because this was a nonviolent case,”