I am going to intrude upon our weekend bloggers to post a story on the aftermath of the arrest of Daron Dylon Wint, 47, for the savage murder of f Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife Amy Savopoulos, 47, their 10-year-old son, Philip, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57 in the family’s Northwest Washington home. According to CBS News, the five people arrested with Wint in two vehicles have been released without charge. Come again? Five people are found to be traveling with a fugitive sought by a dozen different police agencies and are found to have $10,000 cash in one of the vehicles. And they are released?
According to Wint’s girlfriend, he was returning to D.C. from New York in the midst of overwhelming television and other media stories about his being the most wanted fugitive in America. Police spotted him to a Howard Johnson Express Inn in College Park, Maryland and watched as two vehicles left together from the motel parking lot. They were stopped and discovered Wint in one of the vehicles. Two other men and three women were also taken into custody. They also found the 10 grand (a suspicious finding since 40 grand had been taken from the witnesses).
Generally, an accessory after the fact includes (to use the federal standard) “whoever, knowing that an offense . . . has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.”
Now, on its face, these people would seem to be conspiring to hide a fugitive or constitute accessories after the fact. Unless this was a complete coincidence and that they had no knowledge of Wint or his alleged heinous acts, there would seem ample reason to hold them. I am honestly confused. The release of the people seems odd and there must be more to this story. Perhaps some of our readers can find any explanation because if they, like most of humanity, were aware of Wint’s alleged crimes (including the murder of a 10-year-old boy), they would appear to be criminally involved, at a minimum, after the fact of the murders. If they simply taken to leave a motel at coincidentally the same moment as an alleged murderer and coincidentally drive in the same direction, they are clearly the most unlucky human beings on Earth. They could be precisely that. Either way, there should be some explanation from the police.
CBS may be wrong or there are additional facts to explain what on its face is a curious development.
Nick
Forfeiting time or doing time, prisoners typically do not stay voluntarily and most would escape if they could. It is about time. Regarding education and rehabilitation, this should be the focus of the society during that time. Regarding my rejecting religion, that is not completely true. I am in my own way religions, just not a follower of a specific sect that places their interpretation above those of others. Religious belief varies from that which I have to the other extreme which is running rampant over parts of our world. If religion improves a person, then it has value. If religion turns a person away from humanity as can be seen in the Middle East, Africa, and other places, then it has no value. There are underlying human conditions to religion just as there are to crime. Regarding my looking toward the government I see the government as the people and only as good as the people. I do not look toward this iteration of government as much as an iteration I would like to see improved. You may have noticed most of my ranting and raving has been directed at the oligarchical aspects of the US system of government. It is not quantity. It is quality.
Isaac, I appreciate your lengthy answer. I find the more I get you to talk the more I can see just how much you do, don’t know, on certain topics. You have taught me stuff I didn’t know about Canada, hockey and food. I have learned how little you know of some history[including European, you have me beaten badly on Canadian history and I genuinely appreciate when you discuss it], US Constitution, BBQ, etc. and now corrections. I surmised your death penalty stance was based on something personal. I was wrong. I am always willing to admit when I’m wrong.
Your first basic ignorance regarding corrections in saying people “forfeit time” the “most precious commodity” is on its face wrong. Inmates talk about “doing time.” Inmates will tell you they sometimes have nothing BUT time. The most precious commodity forfeited is freedom. An inmate has much time to read, watch TV, exercise, etc., but all within the very limited freedoms of the prison, and the rules of the institution. They forfeit some, but not all, of their Constitutional freedoms. Regarding education and rehabilitation. There is VERY little a correctional system can do to educate or rehab an inmate unless they want to change. The most effective conduit to this change I have observed, both inside the walls, and working w/ inmates in a halfway house, is religion, something you reject. Indeed, one of the most famous transformations in US prison history is that of Malcolm Little. Islam saved his life. Charles Colson is another that comes to mind. Both walked the walk after doing time to help people find the righteous path.
Thank you for the effort you put in on your response. As I said, I respect those who are pro capital punishment. You showed that you have considered the salient points and your thought and feelings have evolved over time. I would expect nothing less from a thoughtful person such as yourself. I do like your discussion about how choices on how to use resources can be arbitrary and be life and death decisions. All resources are limited. Being a libertarian, I like it when an individual has the most freedom in how to allocate limited resources. You look more toward the govt. As we both know, that is a point on which we will never agree. C’est la vie.
Sarren,
I have repeated issues with the weekend set up.
AGAIN
You have me blocked. This has been going on for a month now, and the only reasoning I get is, “It must be the filter”. Well Darren, clean your filter out. Mr. Turley’s allows me through.
Nick
Firstly, I am not ‘all things European’. I am all things common sense. Some, not all, things in European countries are superior and more advanced vis a vis some, not all things in the US. European countries have been forced by circumstances, circumstances that the US has not experienced, to advance, evolve socially, or however one wishes to call it. Some of these changes are restrictive and not necessary in the US. Some are simply better and the US would do well to observe and perhaps learn. We discuss a relatively few ‘things’ on this blog. Perhaps it just seems that way to you.
Secondly, because I learn from the world around me, the world as great as I can experience either in observation and/or participation, my perspectives and positions are only based on what I have observed and/or experienced. Regarding the death penalty, of course, I have only observed.
What I have observed is that given the performance of the human being in governing itself causing the deaths of some is inevitable. People die due to judgement calls by many government departments. The speed limit is raised to satisfy the desire to get from point A to point B in an almost negligibly quicker time and the number of deaths due to traffic accidents rises. Death warrants have been issued. The society would rather spend money on some superfluous activity instead of safety and protection and death warrants are issued. Amtrak is a prime example. This judgement calling is found in building departments, education departments, and most other departments. The result may be direct or indirect but it is no different than calling in an air strike on an enemy knowing that some innocents will probably be killed. All of this goes on daily but we don’t or more correctly can’t recognize it.
Where we are forced to recognize it is when it comes to the death penalty. There are two, often given, reasons for abolishing the death penalty. The first is the chance that an innocent person will be killed. This is important but is more related to the negligence and corruption of the justice system. What if a person is sentenced to life in prison and dies there after fifty years of knowing he or she was innocent, every day? The other and only pertinent issue is how it reflects on us as a society. Whether the source is religious or intellectual, we seem to feel that we are or should be more evolved than putting our own to death for crimes. All statistics aside regarding deterrence by being part of a group that kills someone for killing someone we seem to feel that makes us killers. We are killers as was pointed out in the beginning of this explanation.
There comes a time when a person commits crimes so atrocious and does so so willingly that that person should forfeit his or her right to exist in society. I feel that there is a point that when crossed establishes a fact that such a person is lost, cannot be retrieved, should never be allowed to infect others. I feel that in this instance that person should be removed completely from all societies. Prison should be an attempt at teaching both the criminal and the observer what happens when certain transgressions are made. The main ingredient in this lesson is forfeiture of one’s most precious commodity, time. An almost equal ingredient should be an education and rehabilitation to safeguard against that person making as serious a mistake again. There are success stories and failure stories. We as a society take responsibility for this education. We, through judgement calls, ignore it and allow it to be what it is, a failure. Yet with the death penalty, comes a circus so bizarre that we are brought to focus on this one great failure, allowing this person to commit so atrocious a crime. There is a shared guilt.
If a person kills, as did this person or persons in kidnapping, ransoming, and then disposing of a father, mother, child, and housekeeper, in my mind they are so broken that we should make the statement that they themselves do not deserve to live. Regardless of whether it is seen in a biblical sense or straight equation of equal and opposite reaction, the person who plots and commits crimes so monstrous has lost all their value. The value that they have to those against the death penalty is found in those against the death penalty. For me they have no value of themselves nor to myself. Punishment does not enter into it. I have given this much reflection, at one time I was against the death penalty and felt good about not being one of those that would put another to death. However, I am a part of those that condemn people to death in so many other ways, what is the difference. I sincerely feel that the US and those Western European countries that created such dysfunction in the Middle East and Africa should be striking surgically to kill the nut jobs who are killing the innocents. This is no different. To me there is no difference between the killers of the most recent family slaughtered for money and the killers who decapitate innocents who happen to have a different point of religious view. We have evolved as a society but we have not evolved out of our responsibility to eliminate those who are simply too far gone and way too dangerous.
One can play god from either perspective. After all we are the god that we created that created us in its own image. The key word here being image.
DC let 5 people go while Waco TX arrested 170 bikers. This article covers some of the problems the prosecution may have with convicting any of them.
http://abovethelaw.com/2015/05/just-how-badly-are-authorities-screwing-up-the-arrest-of-170-bikers-in-texas/
Isaac, I don’t do death penalty debates. I do find it curious you are such a proponent of the death penalty, being all things European on most every issue. Were you or someone close to you a victim of a violent crime? It seems quite visceral. I’m not being a jerk here. I’m genuinely curious. I understand and respect people who are in favor of capital punishment. I just respectfully, and quietly disagree. But, I do make inquiries of people who I think have the ability to formulate a substantive response. Hopefully, I did not misread you on this.
Who knows why the others were released. In the convoluted structure of laws and procedures, necessary to protect innocents against lazy and corrupt legal components, the reason(s) could range from strategy to tied hands. There could also be a heightened sensitivity regarding the trampling of rights of blacks. The fuzzy arm of the law. That being said, anyone complicit in this should get the death penalty. The cold blooded perspective of the perpetrators ‘erasing’ the evidence by killing a mother, father, child, and housekeeper is reason enough. The black/white issues exist but don’t change the heinous aspects of the crime. Somehow anyone involved in this ever getting out of jail seems to be the biggest crime.
Another factor, perhaps, is that D.C. does not have a particularly sophisticated police dept. The pay is low, the turn-over high, and we regularly read about D.C. cops being arrested for crimes such as pimping, drug dealing, and other low-life offenses. I think that the standards for hiring must be fairly low. In short, the DCPD isn’t a sophisticated outfit like NYPD or LAPD, but they do a sufficient job because in complex or high-profile crimes, the federal law enforcement agencies step-in to help them out.
If you are poor, rural, and white living in a double wide you are about the same as a black person as far as media is concerned. We actually deal w/ race better than we deal w/ class in this country.
A lot in that CBS report was wierd. Employees of this innocent victim collected $40,000 and left it in a package on the doorstep, and no one thought that something might be odd and called the police or looked into why they were doing it. Pure and innocent victim? Maybe, but someone who has employees who act like that does not sound all that pure and innocent to me. Normal people don’t call their employees and say “Bring $40k and leave it on the doorstep,” and employees of normal people don’t do that without asking a lot of questions.
DHS/police were getting ready to bust into the hotel room and decided to follow the car and van which were “moving suspiciously near the hotel” on a hunch, not knowing if the suspect was in it or not? That’s sort of a Keystone Kops routing right there.
The pizza delivery guy left the pizza on the doorstep without thinking, “Hmmm, that’s odd.” Customers have their pizza left on the doorstep to get cold all the time, don’t they? Why? Because they just got out of the shower and don’t want to put on a robe?
Too many dirty secrets in this ol’ US of A. It’s time to air the dirty laundry… It should have happened a long time ago.
Here’s a little story that needs some attention and don’t be so sure that what happened in DC isn’t connected. There’s a lot of covert surveillance of which many are unaware, and it’s driving crime and violence, in too many instances:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-is-playing-chicken-with-nsa-spy-program-white-house-says/2015/05/22/796e3574-00af-11e5-833c-a2de05b6b2a4_story.html
“Our forefathers would be aghast.” -Rand Paul
And that’s an understatement, knowing what I know.
I wondered the same thing when I heard about this, why they let the others go without even taking them in for questioning. I chalked it up to the complicated overlay of laws governing the District of Columbia. For some purposes. D.C. functions as a state, and is allowed a certain amount of autonomy; for other purposes, D.C. is a federal enclave and is operated by the federal government under federal law. That’s why federal agencies were involved in the capture of the suspect, because D.C. criminal cases are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney, even though D.C. has it’s own police dept. And to make matters even more complicated, if D.C. doesn’t have a law on its books governing the matter, they revert to Maryland law, because D.C. occupies land that was taken from Maryland in order to create the “federal city.”
The suspect was spotted in a hotel parking lot in Maryland by the U.S. Marshall’s agents. They followed him and his compatriots over the border into D.C. before arresting him, presumably to avoid having to later extradite him. He had $10,000 in cash, which leads me to speculate that there were four assailants and they split the $40,000 ransom. I would think that a police dept would have taken all the suspects in, questioned them, and let them go, one by one, if appropriate. But the U.S. Marshall is a federal agency and does not possess state police powers. They are only empowered to get the guy they were sent to apprehend.
A lot of dynamics here. Daron has people helping him in torture/murder crime, police investigation is ongoing. Savvas’s company with current and former employees with axe to grind.
Wash DC AG better start talking about these irregularities. Who wants another riot on Obama’s door steps?
Here’s a dirty secret. If a black kid overdoses on heroin, real good chance the investigation is cursory. If a white kid overdoses, there is an extensive investigation and charge filed against whomever sold the drug to the victim. If it’s a rich, white, kid. It’s a red ball baby, and that dealer better get a good attorney quickly. In the allegedly progressive City of Madison, heroin use has exploded the past 5 years or so. That has occurred nationwide as getting opiate pain meds becomes more difficult and more expensive. When white kids overdose, doors are knocked down finding the dealer. When it’s a black kid, not so much. That said, do not try and parlay what I just said into the shooting of Tony Robinson, Jr. That was a righteous shooting.
Good thing one of these Duggar people weren’t w/ him. Seriously, if you don’t think police are hinky now after all the screeds hurled against them, here and elsewhere, then you’re denying reality. I heard the DC Chief say 2 of the 5 were relatives. I don’t think that should be germaine as to why they were released, but she felt compelled to mention it. As I said previously, she seemed sharp. But, I doubt she made the call on releasing these 5 people. It did seem odd to me but the first thought that crossed my mind is cops are erring on the side of being culturally sensitive.
Let’s be honest here. JT, the press, and the nation are focused on this case because the victims are rich and white. I worked some pretty heinous cases where the victims were black. They never got much more than a quick, short, news story.
Nick – you are absolutely right about how the public reacts or used to react to certain crimes. Some time back a black female child disappeared in South Phoenix and the police did little to look for her. To this day she has never been found. About a month later, a white female child went missing in north Phoenix and every cop in Phoenix was out looking for her. Full press coverage, etc. She was finally found with her abductor.
Paul:
I’d be paranoid enough not to leave a pizza on the step lest it be stolen, but currency? (BTW where do you live and where is this mat?)
Al O’Heem – I live next door to a guy who works for Homeland Security and is a registered arms dealer.
The area is patrolled both by a private force and the local PD. And timing is everything. You have to get to the mat before I do. 🙂
Never heard of him….I guess I’d be innocent too….
Not all of humanity was aware of this crime, and maybe that was the reason there were let go.
Another unanswered question: Didn’t the personal assistant find it unusual to drop off $40K in cash outside of the home?
Al O’Heem – I agree dropping off the money outside is odd, but I have my rent checks put under the mat in front. So, I am not one to question too closely. Besides, haven’t we all done at least one odd thing for a boss in our career?
If they were helping Wint turn himself in then I do not see a problem. Remember they never charged the driver in the Great O.J. Simpson Freeway Chase.