Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,misc.legal,alt.law-enforcement
From: [r--nd--s] at [nyx.cs.du.edu] (Mr. Nice Guy)
Subject: Buchanan on Koon, Reno, and Waco
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 06:04:19 GMT

The following is Patrick Buchanan's column as printed in the Denver
Post Aug 8, 1993.     They are not my views.
 
"For Rodney King, those 19 extra seconds of beating on his legs,arms
and body have led to fame and fortune.
 
For Stacey Koon, they have meant the end of an honorable career,
bankruptcy, destitution for his family and five years of hell, the
last two-and-a-half in prison.
 
Because, as officer in charge, he made a bad call.
 
But consider another bad call by a person in authority, who, unlike
Stacey Koon had weeks, not seconds, to respond.
 
Janet Reno was officer in charge at the Waco siege.  With her
approval, the FBI blared 24 hours a day of hard rock music and the
sound of rabbits being slaughtered into that compound.  Did not that
violate the civil rights of the innocent children there? After 51 days
of siege Reno ordered non-lethal gas pumped in.  For hours, eyes
burning, throats seared, choking, those children must have gone
through the tortures of hell, before the firestorm ended their
suffering -- and their lives.
 
That, too, was a bad call by the person in charge.  It resulted in
scores of adults and 17 children losing all their civil rights,
forever.
 
Stacey Koon asks a fair question: Why is he being made to pay the
price of a bad call that resulted in Rodney King getting a few lumps,
while Janet Reno, who made a far worse call, is a heroine? "
 
end of quote



--
Rod Anderson  N0NZO         | "I do not think the United States government
Boulder, CO                 | is responsible for the fact that a bunch of
[r--nd--s] at [nyx.cs.du.edu]      | fanatics decided to kill themselves"
satellite  N0NZO on ao-16   |        Slick Willie the Compassionate