To
@MsBetsy and also
@TIGER0822 who asked for my opinion yesterday, (but the thread closed before I had a chance to respond), I’m still on the road for another 12 days or so, mostly off the grid. It takes all night to catch up when I finally get service. In some respects, catching up at the end of the day allows me to move through all the ups and downs quickly without waiting for hours for news. The following is my opinion only:
As a retired LEO, I tend to support the police, but also know that mistakes can be made, that there are officers who should not be on the job, and that sometimes, despite your best efforts, things do not go as planned. I also know that justice is not always swift, that investigations can be frustrating, but that 99 and 9/10ths of all officers work their hardest for the victims of crimes and the public they serve.
When I watched the drama on Monday play out, I was frankly concerned and surprised. Why did the Sheriff not provide the support to AM’s search that he promised? Why were the sites of cadaver dog hits not secured? Why were video footage that may be important to the case not collected by LE? Was BM correct in his assertions that LE has mishandled the case from the beginning? I started to have doubts. What was going on? Of course now I know that some of the reporting was not true or incorrect, that hit sites were being analyzed, and that CCSO continues to do a massive amount of work together with their partners, principally the CBI and the FBI.
This search organized by AM with the help of
@ProfilingEvil was an extraordinary undertaking; an act of love by a brother who wants his sister found and to whom four months seems like a lifetime. For CCSO, who I really believe wanted to support this effort, this multi day search involving hundreds of volunteers was a logistical nightmare. We do not know what locations are significant to LE at this time. We don’t know where they may still be searching based on gps or cellular data. We now have hundreds of well-meaning folks who could potentially destroy or corrupt potential evidence. We have the problem of contamination or planted evidence. Cadaver dogs, as wonderful as they are, when not working a case together with LE, present their own set of problems as we saw on Sunday and Monday. I do believe that CCSO wants to support SM’s family, but does not want to jeopardize the case. They are between a rock and a hard place.
A lot of folks were concerned or angry when the question of budget came up. It’s not as if the CCSO has unlimited monies that can be spent as they choose. They receive their money from the county budget which is a finite amount. I have attached a copy of the CCSO 2020 budget. This budget allots
$12,000. for Criminal Investigations and
$75,000. for overtime for the entire year. This amount is minuscule in a months long investigation. It must also cover every other case that comes up during the course of the year. It’s not that they don’t want to spend the money, it’s that they don’t have it to spend.
I, like most others here on WS, wish I knew more of what LE has for evidence. It is particularly frustrating to me because I was the one who used to get that evidence to analyze. It makes me want to be an “insider” again. Knowing what goes on behind the scenes gives me confidence in the efforts of LE so far in this case. By virtue of the manhours involved, the inter agency cooperation, the searches conducted, and the tips received, I feel strongly that they continue to put forth their best effort in trying to determine what happened to Suzanne and who did it.
I’m not surprised at how things became derailed on Monday. There was so much hope when the search started. Everyone was high on hope. It was easy to become angry, defeated, depressed, and deflated when we didn’t get the outcome we wanted. It is common to lash out under these circumstances. “Look at all we’ve done. We’ve tried as hard as we could. Why didn’t we find the answers we needed?”
I didn’t want to come off as an LE fanboy in this response, but I guess I did. We know CCSO acted quickly from the very beginning. I don’t think they dropped the ball. In this case, so far, I’m still confident in the Suzanne Morphew Missing Person Task Force.