Posts Tagged ‘Amy Bishop’

Amy Bishop Followup: It’s Not the Political Connections, It’s The Massachusetts

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Following up on the previous post, Jules Crittenden suggests that it wasn’t Amy Bishop’s mother’s political connections that got her off, but merely the fact she lived in Massachusetts:

That kind of thing actually happens a lot around here. Killers and rapsists being let off, and going to to kill or rape again. It’s our special gift to the nation.

Updated: Of course, it could be both.

Delahunt to Checkmate Self Over Bishop?

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

So, let’s see if we can detect a pattern in the following events:

  1. On Friday, Biology professor Amy Bishop goes on a shooting spree over being denied tenure at University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three people and wounding three others. (It’s interesting to note that spree killers (or, as the police call them now, “active shooters”) are almost never women.)
  2. On Saturday, it comes out that Bishop had shot and killed her own brother in 1986, but had been released even before facing charges. Why? The police received a phone call from then-district attorney William Delahunt telling them to let her go. That would be the same William Delahunt who is currently a U.S. congressman from Massachusetts. Oh, and did I mention that all the files on the case are now mysteriously missing?
  3. Later that same Saturday, Congressmen Delahunt says he’s considering retiring. Strangely, the article announcing this in the Boston Globe makes absolutely no mention of Delahunt’s role in the still-hot Bishop case. As the Church lady would put it, “How con-ven-ient.” And did I mention that congressmen Delahunt gets an F from the NRA and a 100% rating from the gun control enthusiasts at the Brady Campaign? Not to mention his penchant for palling around with Hugo Chavez.

Following Scott Brown’s campaign victory, Delahunt was already considered vulnerable, but the timing on this seems just a little too convenient, don’t you think?

Then there’s this paragraph from that LA Times story about Bishop and her husband: “They were outspoken Northeastern liberals whose political yard signs stood out a little on their suburban lot.” If we were just discussing the Alabama shooting itself, i would call it dirty pool to bring that information up; I don’t think being a liberal makes you any more or less likely to become a spree killer; some people just snap, and politics has nothing to do with it. But I can’t help wondering whether politics may have played a role in her not being charged in 1986. Was she not charged because she, or more likely her relatives or friends, were somehow politically connected to Delahunt? Why is the case file missing, and who took it?

Why did William Delahunt let Amy Bishop get away with murder?

Updated: Belmont Club has more on the story, including links to the DA report in the comments sections, and critiques of same.