Not to let the local law enforcement off the hook, but I think these type of failures by the first responders are in part due to the fact that these types of small towns and counties don't usually have experience dealing with these situations. Whether it's Boulder CO, Mitchell County/Colorado City TX, Parsons/Decatur County TN or wherever. The question is...what can be done about that? It would be nice to see more of these localities undergo training for these moments of serious criminal crisis but there are so many of these small, usually safe towns/rural counties all over the country and training has to be paid for and kept up to date. The problem is that you don't know when one of these type of crimes is going to randomly happen somewhere.
Still, every locality large or small should be very alert to complacency and any erosion of professionalism in it's day to day operations. I know how that from my own line of work...I worked as an analytical chemist and geochemist for many years and it's easy to get complacent with your quality control procedures and documentation. That stuff is tedious and often seems redundant because it usually turns out the same, but you do it for the one time out of 100 when things are unusual, not the other 99 times when they are routine.
And as for them releasing more info...maybe they really don't have any other than the blood, lunchbox and cell phone. I'm sure LE have their suspicions about local creeps, people who may have had friction with Holly or the Bobo family, maybe even people close to Holly like some here think or whoever. But maybe nothing solid so they can't going to come out in public and name a POI.
Good points about the training, and I agree with all of that part. There should be enough money from Homeland Security for most places to have updated training on how to handle an abduction situation, I would think, because I had heard so much about how money was being given to LE departments from this type of fund. But whether each small town got money or not, that is a good question, and whether each town used it all for the same reasons, etc. They all probably have different needs, and maybe more dire needs like new police cars or something become important to them. But, anyway, I do agree they should have the training, as it is important.
IMO, regarding releasing information, I don't recall LE releasing practically anything. It wasn't until the intereviews and the Jackson article where we started hearing some more details about some things, but this is quite different than LE giving a statement. Because people could be mistaken or had forgot some things or maybe even purposely left out some critical things. I would love to have LE confirm some things and release all the facts of this case, in some sort of media event, which could possibly help this case. If nothing else, it would help to bring more focus to the case, after a year already.
Here's a hypothetical. Wouldn't it be something if it went something like this with LE speaking at an advance notice press conference.......
"Hello ladies + gentleman.....We are here today to release all the facts of this case as we know it, with the hopes of helping to find Holly. And we will be taking questions afterwards.
First, we will be releasing the actual 911 calls + Sheriffs calls we received that morning in their entirety (play tapes). Now, we want to begin with the reported statements as reported to us that morning, and we have provided a copy of those statements to the media. Next, we want to state all the evidence we have uncovered that are proven to be owned by Holly and exactly where they were found, and what day they were found. We searched them for fingerprints, and the results were....
We also found small amounts of blood (explained in full exactly how much and where exactly it was found). We tested that blood and it proved to be (explains who it belongs to). We feel this blood was (either fresh or not fresh).
We also......(explain anything + everything else you possibly can here).
Thank you all for coming today, and please help us find Holly. Now, we are ready for ALL questions"
