REALITY CHECK

Some statistics on the D.C. Police Force’s record in solving crimes. In 1999, according to a superb investigation by the Washington Post (which proved an exception to the usual rule in criticizing a mainly black police force two years ago), nearly two-thirds of murders remained unsolved after a year. Bottom-line: if you want to murder someone, you are twice as likely to get away with it in D.C. as you are likely to get caught. I quote from the Post: “A year-long Washington Post investigation has found fundamental flaws in D.C. homicide cases: poor supervision of detectives scattered in districts across the city, hundreds of missing and incomplete case files, and dozens of cases closed without arrests under unclear circumstances. The disarray has persisted despite repeated promises of fixes, a precipitously dropping homicide rate and the arrival two years ago of a police chief brought in to reform a troubled department.” And missing person cases are some of the hardest to solve of all. So be prepared for this trauma never to find a resolution. Can Fox News keep riding Chandra’s presumably dead body through 2002?