Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1086
April 19, 2013
What is a "Public Safety" Exception?
Now that suspected marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody, it's time to turn our attention onto the next steps. Should he survive his wounds -- right now he's in serious condition -- he will most likely face charges and prosecution. But as a civilian criminal or a foreign terrorist?
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has tweeted -- several times -- to express his desire that Tsarnaev, an American citizen, be treated as "an enemy combatant" and pumped for information that could "protect our nation which is under threat from radical Islam." Graham is very much against Tsarnaev being read the Miranda warning:
The Law of War allows us to hold individual in this scenario as potential enemy combatant w/o Miranda warnings or appointment of counsel.
— Lindsey Graham (@GrahamBlog) April 20, 2013
He's now taken to several forms of social media to say so, issuing a joint statement with John McCain on his Facebook page that basically repeats what he's been saying on Twitter. His words are incendiary and ignorant, though he does have one point: there is a "public safety" exception to the Miranda warning, as the FBI's website explains:
The public safety exception is triggered when police officers have an objectively reasonable need to protect the police or the public from immediate danger. Because the standard is objective, the availability of the exception does not depend on subjective motivation of the officers. Legitimate concerns for officer safety or public safety prompting unwarned custodial questioning arise in a variety of contexts. A common factor that can be gleaned from the courts addressing this issue is the prior knowledge or awareness of specific facts or circumstances that give rise to the imminent safety concern that prompted the questioning.
The public safety exception comes up from time to time, usually when there's some kind of terrorist threat. At the press conference following Tsarnaev's capture, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz confirmed that the public safety exception was being invoked. That said ...
Obama admin is emphatic about putting the #BostonMarathon bombing suspect on civilian trial, per @petewilliamsnbc
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) April 20, 2013
Boston on Lockdown as Residents Are Ordered to 'Shelter In Place' While Cops Sweep Watertown
In an unprecedented move, the city of Boston, in its entirety, is being asked to shelter-in-place, with schools and mass transit closed. Nearby Watertown, where police and federal authorities are searching for the Boston Marathon bomber who is still at large, is in lockdown as Friday's manhunt continues.
At this moment, heavily armed members of the military, assisted by local law enforcement, are going door-to-door in Watertown, searching every house, garage, and shed for bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Here's the view from @franforman's front porch. Wartime twitter.com/franforman/sta…
— Kim Bhasin (@KimBhasin) April 19, 2013
In light of that, town authorities have apparently asked businesses to remain closed. According to the Boston Globe, all vehicle traffic is banned in that city.
Police are locking down Watertown. no vehicle traffic is allowed in and out of #watertown ask business not to open all transit shut down
— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics) April 19, 2013
In a press conference this morning, the governor of Massachusetts announced that everyone in Boston was being asked to "shelter-in-place;" that is, not to leave the house or answer the door. In Cambridge, which lies between Boston and Watertown, singer Juliana Hatfield woke up to this notice on her door:
i fell asleep to the sound of helicopters overhead and woke up to this on my front door--whoa twitter.com/julianahatfiel…
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) April 19, 2013
For many, there's nowhere to go, anyway. Taxi service has been suspended. The regional mass transit has been closed; in part, apparently, because authorities don't want crowds of people gathering together.
#MBTA ALL modes of transportation remain suspended until further notice.Do not wait at T stations. mbta.com
— Mass. Transportation (@MassDOT) April 19, 2013
Schools are on a delayed opening, and extracurricular activities have been cancelled. The Boston Globe outlines other closed institutions, including most regional colleges.
Maybe the most shocking thing on TV now is nothing--rush hour in Boston & streets near-empty
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) April 19, 2013
The Boston Police identify other towns with shelter-in-place orders.
#CommunityAlert: Residents of Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge and Allston Brighton reminded to stay indoors.
— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 19, 2013
A resident in the area describes how authorities are informing residents:
I got the emergency texts all night from MIT, and [a friend] had robocalls from Belmont PD telling us to stay inside, one just a minute ago saying town offices and buildings are closed.
Who Is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Man at the Center of the Boston Manhunt?
This morning, after a chaotic evening saw his partner in crime (and apparently his older brother) killed and as a city locked down to find him, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev emerged as the name of the man in the ongoing manhunt in Boston Friday. According to information culled from multiple unconfirmed reports, Tsarnaev is a 19-year-old reportedly from Kyrgyzstan who has been living, for the past year, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here's everything else we think we know about "Suspect No. 2" — a.k.a. the one in the white hat, the one authorities apparently saw drop a bomb-laden backpack in security footages — based on the flood of incoming reports:
His name is Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev:
BREAKING: AP: Surviving Boston bomb suspect identified as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass. -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 19, 2013
Dzhokar Has Been Living in the U.S. for at least one year:
BREAKING: AP sources: Boston bomb suspects from Russia region near Chechnya, lived in US at least 1 year. -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 19, 2013
Where's He From?
New reporting from @petewilliamsnbc: DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV, born July 22, 1993, was born in Kyrgyzstan.
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) April 19, 2013
Pete Williams of NBC News reports that Tsarnaev "entered the United States with family in 2002 or 2003, and that Tamerlan Tsarnaev became a legal permanent resident in 2007."
The City of Cambridge awarded "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev" a $2,500 scholarship in 2011, according to Boston.com report. "The city is awarding the $2,500 scholarships to 45 students using contributions from citizens and businesses. About 35 to 45 scholarships are awarded each year, according to the city," reported Boston.com's Brock Parker. Tsarnaev was a senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School then. This time frame would make sense if the AP is reporting that Tsarnaev was in the U.S. for at least a year.
Under an alternate spelling of his name, we found a "Djohar Tsarnaev" on Russian Facebook, who lists the Cambridge Rindge and Latin school as the last school he went to — and Boston as his current city.
The age and name match up, with the suspect as well as his school. He was checking in with social media yesterday. One more photo.
Here Is His Wanted Poster:
He's not Sunil Tripathi. "Sunil Tripathi" was muttered on the police scanner last night. Tripathi is a student at Brown and has been missing since March 16. Because of Sunil's perceived resemblance to the blurry shot, that he's currently missing, and his name being muttered on the police scanner, Sunil is being brought up as a terror suspect. Sunil is not the Boston bombing suspect.
Ben Greenman: What I Read
How do people deal with the torrent of information pouring down on us all? What sources can't they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts, and the literary world to hear their answers. This is drawn from an email exchange with Ben Greenman, 
Boston Marathon Suspects Are Brothers; One Dead, One on the Loose
Following a chaotic night of mayhem and a police shootout, one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings was shot and killed by police. The second suspect (who has now been named) is on the loose and police are actively searching the area of Watertown, Massachusetts, in a growing manhunt.
This is a breaking story and we'll continually update throughout the morning, but for a full recap of last night's drama, the first update at the bottom of this post will bring you up to speed.
THE LATEST (8:13 a.m. ET): An update from NBC's Lester Holt, who is on the scene in Watertown. We also have more on the state of tension in Boston right now, which is on total lockdown. Bus, train, and taxi service have all been suspended, to both protect the citizens and prevent the suspect from moving.
Bus loads of Boston police officers arriving in Watertown. A ring of blue to cut off bomber's avenues of escape. twitter.com/LesterHoltNBC/…
— Lester Holt (@LesterHoltNBC) April 19, 2013
(7:59 a.m. ET): Governor Deval Patrick is updating that situation right now. Authorities are asking the entire city of Boston to "shelter in place" and not leave their homes for the time being.
Police have also released the name of the injured transit officer, who is Richard H. Donohue Jr. He was shot last night by the suspects and is still in the hospital.
(7:57 a.m. ET): Here's everything we know about the missing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, so far.
(7:46 a.m. ET): Pete Williams has updated his report to say Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was actually born in Kyrgyzstan, not Chechnya.
(7:42 a.m. ET): Wesley Lowery, reporter for The Boston Globe is on the scene in Cambridge, where police are reportedly moving in on an apartment shared by the brothers. He reports that a woman in the apartment (or the apartment building) is being arrested.
Now in Cambridge, outside of apartment believed to be shared by suspects. State police have street blocked off twitter.com/WesleyLowery/s…
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) April 19, 2013
(7:34 a.m ET): Police in Watertown are continuing their sweeps as most of the Boston are remains on lockdown.
More SWAT twitter.com/LaurenWBZ/stat…
— Lauren Leamanczyk (@LaurenWBZ) April 19, 2013
(7:31 a.m. ET): The New York Times says the other brother has been identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but gives his age as 26. Again, he would the be the suspect in the black hat, who is now deceased.
(7:28 a.m. ET): There's another new wrinkle in the case as NPR is reporting that a third arrest has been made of "an accomplice, not a suspect."
(7:23 a.m. ET): Your new "Wanted" poster (via CBS):
(7:20 a.m. ET): Police near Kenmore Square in Cambridge are reportedly about to do a controlled explosion. The suspects allegedly dropped several bags before, during, and after the chase.
(7:19 a.m. ET): CBS News says the suspects were identified using "State Department records."
(7:13 a.m. ET): Overseas reporters are already reaching out to their sources in Chechnya. This is Miriam Elder, the Moscow correspondent for the Guardian.
Spokesman for Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya, has conveniently switched off his phone.
— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) April 19, 2013
(6:46 a.m.): The AP is the first to report a name:
BREAKING: AP: Surviving Boston bomb suspect identified as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass. -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 19, 2013
Police work a crime scene Friday, April 19, 2013, in Watertown, Mass. A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
(6:43 a.m.): Pete Williams says the suspects have been identified, but is being told not reveal their names yet. He does say they are brothers and live in Cambridge. One is 19, one is 20. The AP says they are from a Russian region near Chechnya.
(6:28 a.m.): And another shot, from the other side of the house. No word from police on what the situation is at this house.
Swat is out on laurel st.#mitshooting #boston #mit twitter.com/AKitz/status/3…
— Andrew Kitzenberg (@AKitz) April 19, 2013
(6:22 a.m.): There were reports earlier that police on radio scanners said the Sunil Tripathi, possibly identifying him as the suspect. Tripathi is a student at Brown University who has been missing for over a month, but according to (again) Pete Williams, Tripathi is not one of the two suspects.
(6:18 a.m.): A resident of Watertown just tweeted this picture that appears to show SWAT teams surrounding a house with guns trained.
View from my house...crazy #watertown twitter.com/shawna_england…
— Shawna England ⚓ (@shawna_england) April 19, 2013
(6:16 a.m.): More from Pete Williams: The man whose SUV was hijacked told police that the suspect told him that they had just killed a police officer and they were the same men involved in the Boston Marathon bombing.
(6:04 a.m. ET): Pete Williams of NBC is reporting that two suspects have not been positively identified, but it is believed that they are "foreign nationals" who might have received military training and have been in the country for over a year. Williams adds that they are "legal permanent residents" and may be from Chechnya, but were living in Turkey before coming to the U.S. Boston police commissioner Ed Davis tweeted the most recent surveillance photo of the missing suspect that was taken last night, before the shootout.
Latest picture of suspect. Taken tonight. twitpic.com/ckdlym
— Edward Davis (@EdDavis3) April 19, 2013
Davis also said this about the suspect in a statement to the press: "We believe this to be a terrorist. We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody."
(5:45 a.m. ET): Here's what we know at the moment. Around 10:30 last night, the suspect in the white allegedly robbed a convenience store in Cambridge. Not long after, an MIT campus police officer was shot and killed while in his police cruiser. (NBC News describes the shooting as an "ambush.") Shortly after that, two men carjacked an SUV, briefly holding the driver hostage. Police began a pursuit, during which the suspects began firing at police and reportedly throwing explosives out of the car. The chase led police to Watertown, Massachusetts, where a gunfight ensued. One of the two suspects was shot and wounded. (And also possibly injured by a bomb blast that he strapped to him. NBC also reports that the suspect may have been run over by a police vehicle.) A transit police officer was also shot and wounded in melee.
The suspect was captured and transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Doctors there say they attempted to revive him, but he died of his wounds.
According to The Boston Globe, the deceased suspect is the suspect wearing the black baseball cap in the photo released by police on Thursday night. The other suspect (the one in the white hat) is still on the loose, possibly in the outlying Boston-area suburb of Watertown. An active manhunt is underway.
The entire city of Boston, and especially the neighboring city of Watertown, are going into lockdown mode. Watertown residents are being advised to stay in their homes and not answer the door to anyone but a clearly identified police officer. ALL vehicle traffic in and out of Watertown is suspended. Businesses are closed and citizens are advised to stay home work. About 5:45 a.m., the MBTA, Boston public transit authority, announced that all bus and train service is suspended until further notice. Harvard University and MIT in Cambridge have canceled classes for Friday. The missing suspect is being described as a "terrorist" who police believe is actively trying to hurt people.
April 18, 2013
In a Night of Mayhem, Boston Bombing Suspects Standoff Against Cops
3:30 a.m.: More details of the night's chronology have come into focus. Simply speaking, a series of violent events culminated in Watertown, Massachusetts late Thursday night after two unidentified suspects engaged with police from a Mercedes SUV. As many as 100 police officers faced off against the two suspects, who were armed with explosives and firearms. While fleeing, the suspects in the SUV lost control and crashed the vehicle and made their way out of the situation by tossing a bomb towards authorities. The bomb exploded, and the suspects continued to flee, later dropping backpacks that police fear may contain explosives. After police ultimately got one suspect in custody, the bomb squad moved in on the backpacks with a robot. The other suspect is still free.
On top of it all, a transit worker was shot just after 3:30 a.m. in an incident "related to the rest of the mayhem this evening," to borrow the words of The Boston Globe's Jennifer Peter.
Update 3:09 a.m.: CNN showed footage of a naked man being loaded into a police car:
Update 3:00 a.m.: There was a mention on police scanners recently that the suspects in custody are Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi. The latter is a missing Brown student who was identified on Reddit as a possible suspect earlier this week. However, the chatter is not confirmed.
Update 2:55 a.m.: CNN is reporting that a second suspect is in custody. Gabe Ramirez described the suspect as having "dark hair, short cropped dark hair." Meanwhile, video from the earlier shootout has been posted:
Video via Starkness
Update 2:47 a.m.: Police scanners indicated that a white suspect in a grey hoodie was on the loose and he "could have IED explosive on him so please use extreme caution." As heard on the scanner: "One suspect has been shot, according to one law enforcement source, and FBI is responding to multiple crime scenes.... We're going to see increased federal presence... Undetermined at this time"
Update 2:25 a.m.: The Boston Globe reports that one of the marathon bombing suspects is in custody, after a daring chase through Cambridge. State police later said that they couldn't confirm the link and the total number of suspects was unknown. At least one suspect remains at large. Meanwhile new photos of the suspects have been released.
Original Post: MIT issued an emergency alert at 10:48 on Thursday night reporting shots fired on the university campus. MIT's school newspaper, The Tech, reports, "Shots fired near 32 Vassar St (Stata Center), police officer down. Please stay inside." That report is backed up by CBS News's Bonney Kapp who reports hearing "officer down" on the police scanner just before the MIT alert went out. The Tech followed up a few minutes later, reporting that the injured officer was a member of the MIT campus police and was taken to Mass. General Hospital. According to the Massachusetts State Police, the officer died from his wounds just before midnight.
Not long after midnight, there were reports of a car jacking at a gas station on Memorial Drive. The suspects took a Mercedes SUV. Minutes later there were shots fired in Watertown. Then an officer said "they have explosives and grenades." There were also reports of a Camaro and a Honda Accord being involved. After the exchange of fire, police scanners reported an officer down. The chase continued and there were reports of automatic gunfire and explosives being thrown out of a car. Minutes later police took one suspect into custody, and the other fled. Police then set up a perimeter and as many as 50 officers searched for the suspect in Watertown near Mount Auburn Street and Lloyd Road. Officers were told to power down their cell phones, and a stand off ensued.
As police searched for the missing suspect, networks struggled to connect the shooting at MIT, the car jacking in Cambridge and the shootout in Watertown. Underneath all of this is the ultimate connection to Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon. The presence of the FBI supported some these hypotheses, but very little is actually known about the incidents and possible connections. The FBI was on the scene in Watertown. "This is still extremely dangerous," said the bureau.
There is an active incident ongoing in Watertown. Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes. More details when available.
— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 19, 2013
Stay tuned for live updates from ABC Boston below, as well NBC Boston here, the Boston police scanner, plus several local reporters on the scene.
Local news reported that this was the gunman:
Image via Twitter / Akitz
The suspect remains on the loose and considered armed and extremely dangerous. Meanwhile, the university's ordered all students and staff to remain indoors.
Image via Twitter / Matt Tomlin
The following photo of the scene of the shooting is graphic:
Image via Twitter / The Tech
Building 32 is circled in red:
An Entire Town in Illinois Is Being Evacuated a After Levee Breach
London Mills, Illinois is being evacuated after flooding turned from bad to worse on Thursday. No, we're not talking about a few blocks of the town. Police are ordering the entire town out their homes. London Mills is not a big town — it's actually more of a village with a population of 390 — but the prospect of the entire community being swept away by floodwaters is just another extraordinary disaster in an extraordinarily disastrous week.
The weather situation in Illinois isn't isolated to London Mills. Heavy rains across the state have been causing problems all day as streams swelled into rivers and rivers grew into lakes in this mostly flat part of the country. The National Weather Service estimates that three to seven inches of rain have fallen on the Chicagoland in the last 24 hours. (April showers?) The storm corresponds with a 98-year-old water main breaking in Chicago. The break in the water main led to a breach in the sewage system which ultimately sucked up all of the surrounding soil. This created a sinkhole that swallowed three cars, injuring one person.
The trouble isn't yet over. The water in London Mills is expected to continue rising through Friday morning, though hopefully the residents will have moved to higher ground by then. The situation in Chicago is calming down but clean up is bound to be complicated as many tunnels under the city have filled up with water, not to mention countless basements, streets and viaducts. It's a mess.
Who else is ready for the weekend?
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Meet the Man Who Witnessed Both the Boston Bombing and the Waco Explosion
It's been a pretty tough week for everybody in America, but it's been other-worldly Joe Berti — and not in a good way either. The Texas native witnessed both the Boston Marathon bombing and the Waco explosion. "I'm like, 'Honey, what is with your luck? Why are you in all of these places?" his wife told the Associated Press. "Maybe he just needs to stand in an open field."
Berti could use some peace and quiet. The 43-year-old ran the Boston Marathon for charity and crossed the finish line only seconds before the bombs went off. Luckily, neither Berti nor his wife Amy was hurt by the blast, though a woman standing next to Amy lost her leg. Having lived through the chaos that followed, he was happy to return home to Texas. On Wednesday, Berti — who lives near Austin — was driving home from Dallas when he saw smoke on the horizon near Waco. Seconds later the explosion that registered as a 2.1-magnitude quake on seismographs shook his truck. Berti couldn't believe it: "I was just like, 'I can't believe this!'" He thought, "I just want to get out of here and get away from all these explosions."
Some might call this bad luck, but Berti disagrees. After all, it's pretty extraordinary to be so close to two massive explosions like those we've seen this week and walk away unscathed. He's one of kind, one luck son of a gun! Well, not exactly. "You know who's not impressed by the guy who witnessed the Boston bombing and Texas explosion?" Gizmodo's Sam Biddle tweeted after the AP published its story on Berti. "This guy."
While Google's Eating Apple's Lunch, Facebook Is Feasting
Google's latest quarterly earnings report arrived on Thursday evening, and it reveals as much about broader shifts in the tech sector as it does about Google's relative success. And that success is relative. In the first quarter of 2013, Google brought in $3.3 billion in profits, a 16 percent increase over the same quarter last year. Revenue grew by about twice as much — 31 percent, to be exact — to $14 billion which is an impressive number, but it still falls short of analysts' estimates. As such, Google's stock price dipped by half a percent following the news and is hovering around $770 in after hours trading.
More fascinating than those bottom line numbers, however, is the figure that shows how Google's reacting to the larger shift from desktop to mobile. As Google consolidates more and more market share with Android's expansion and gets better and better at selling mobile ads, investors are flocking to the GOOG and abandoning the once invincible Apple stock. "Over the last 12 months, Google's share price has climbed 26 percent," explains Claire Cain Miller at The New York Times, "while Apple's has fallen 36 percent as the company faces flat profits, slowing growth and growing competition from Google's Android phones." In other words, Google is eating Apple's lunch.
But there's another Silicon Valley company — it's not hard to guess whom — that's eating everybody's lunch. Heck, they're practically ransacking the cafeteria at this point. That company, of course, is Facebook. The social network is keeping its promise to become a mobile company and absolutely reinventing the online advertising business in doing so. The Facebook-led increase in advertising real estate, among other things, has actually driven the average price of online ads down. Year-over-year, the price per click for a Google ad has dropped 12 percent, and it's still falling, albeit a bit more slowly.
Google is doing a pretty good job of holding onto its intimidating market share, but Facebook appears to be prying its fingers open. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Facebook boosted its mobile ad sales by 40 percent. Even though Google still controls 55 percent of the total ad spending on mobile devices, Facebook still brings in more revenue for mobile ads at the moment, and analysts expect Facebook's mobile advertising revenue to "soar" this year. None of these figures takes into account the new Facebook phone, a hotly anticipated product that's getting strong reviews and stands to give Facebook even more leverage in mobile.
Meanwhile, Apple's sort of just hanging out, watching its stock price sink. "We look at Apple and say, 'Hey, where's the next round of growth coming from?'" an analyst from BGC Partners told The Times. "You look at Google and say, 'Hey, these are some pretty big markets they're chasing after.'" You look at Facebook and say, 'Hey, is Zuckerberg going to leave some cheese for the rest of us, when he's done feasting?
The Elvis-Impersonating Ricin Suspect Swears He's Innocent
Despite a small mountain of incriminating evidence stacking up in front of him, Paul Kevin Curtis isn't miffed. The ricin suspect's lawyer said on Thursday that he "maintains [his innocence] 100 percent." And yes, it was definitely ricin that was in the letters Curtis allegedly sent to politicians. The FBI just confirmed that fact.
Curtis appeared in court briefly on Thursday, and though he didn't enter a plea, it looks like that plea will not be "guilty." This, despite the fact that the ricin-laced letters Curtis is accused of sending to the president, Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge — who apparently sentenced Curtis to six months in prison a few years ago — are signed "KC." The initials could be a coincidence, of course, but the similarities don't end there. Curtis apparently set up a website to harbor his conspiracy theory about a black market for organs and body parts. At the bottom of the page is the message "This is Kevin Curtis& I approve this message." That's more or less the same sign-off that's on the bottom of the letters to Obama, Wicker and the judge.
Those are only a few strikes against Curtis and to dwell too long on the particulars of the case would be disingenuous. (We're not a jury and hardly have all of the evidence in front of us.) Based on the profile of Curtis just published by the Associated Press, it's glaringly obvious that Curtis is a character, one who suffers from mental illness and one who has a violent past. We've pulled a few lines out of the AP piece to bring his character to light:
Curtis suffers from mental illness - "'He is bipolar, and the only thing I can say is he wasn't on his medicine,' his ex-wife, Laura Curtis, told The Associated Press."
Curtis maintains a potentially unhealthy fascination with body parts - "In several letters to U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, and other officials, Curtis said he was writing a novel about black market body parts called 'Missing Pieces.'"
Curtis thinks the government is against him - "In 2007, Curtis' ex-wife called police in Booneville, Miss., to report that her husband was extremely delusional, anti-government and felt the government was spying on him with drones."
Curtis admits to sending letters - "In one post, Curtis said he sent letters to Wicker and other politicians."
Again, we're not trying to cast judgement. But things aren't not looking good for our man from Mississippi.
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