Possumblog

Lot going on today.

Long meeting, as usual, and then I come in and find out they've arrested a couple of yutes here in town who have been accused of the church arsons of late.

Amazing what you can learn from the Internet. Although details are kinda sketchy on the news reports, I looked through the Birmingham-Southern website and found that the two suspects in custody were both theater students, which strikes me as kinda odd. And the other guy who's still on the loose been caught this morning did go to Southern last year before transferring to UAB. B-SC must be getting a lot of hits right now, because they've taken down the school directory, but there's always the Google cache of things.

As I've speculated before, given the way in which the events surrounding the fires unfolded I suspected it was going to be a bunch of stupid kids. However, I don't think I would have figured it would have been a bunch of theater students from a private, Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college.

If these young men are responsible for these crimes, I hope they receive sufficient jail time to make them understand the gravity of the acts, rather than just getting a slap on the wrist.

Idjits.

And then, I heard this story on the news last night

TRUSSVILLE, Ala. -- Trussville police are searching for two men who they said robbed a woman and then abducted her Tuesday evening.

Two men took the woman, her purse and her truck at about 7:30 p.m. at Food World on Main Street, police said. [...]

--that's the store right down at the foot of the hill from my house. And it happened at 7:30 at night. I'm not incredibly freaked out by it, since I have long known that bad things can happen anywhere (which explains why I was so put out with myself a couple of months ago when I was getting gas at Sam's Club and got snuck up on by the attendant while I was daydreaming), but obviously it does concern me. Our little downtown area isn't easily accessed from the Interstate, so it's not like this could have been as much a crime of opportunity where escape would be quick--it seems much more planned, and that's for some reason more worrisome to me. I don't feel any more unsafe than before, but I can guarantee you I'll be looking around a whole lot better.

AND, I got my hairs cut last night. Without incident.

Now, back to work.

UPDATE: Criminal complaint filed by US Attorney of the Northern District of Alabama in church arsons here (.pdf file).

Posted by Terry Oglesby at March 8, 2006 12:16 PM