Murder of Seattle Gun Violence Opponent Linked to US Attorney Scandal

On October 11, 2001, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales was murdered in the basement office of his home. At the time it was reported that

Federal investigators and Seattle police are trying to determine a motive for the death of Tom Wales, 49, but several sources said the case has all the markings of a deliberate hit.

Wales was working at a computer in the basement of his home shortly after 10:30 last night when a gunman apparently went up to a basement window at the back of the house and fired at least five shots.

Two of those shots hit Wales, one in the neck and the other in his side. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he died at 1:17 a.m. today, according to the hospital.

A senior federal law enforcement official said the incident does not appear to be random and based on what investigators know now, Wales was a target and the shooting was "no doubt deliberate."

In addition to being an Assistant U.S. Attorney Wales was a well know gun violence opponent. He had enemies both among those he had put away in his work as AUSA and among pro-gun supporters.

Naturally, solving his murder was a major priority for the FBI in Seattle. The FBI worked the case hard, but have been unable to find the killer. Finally, in June of 2003 the FBI cut the number of agents assigned to the investigation. The murder is still unsolved.

Fired US Attorney John McKay was outspoken in his demand the DoJ assign more assets to the investigation. It seems his demands rankled feathers at main Justice.

Yesterday Rep. Mel Watt asked James Convey if John McKay's request for more resources to investigate the Tom Wales murder had any thing to do with his firing. Solving the Wales murder is very, very important to the Seattle law enforcement community.

This morning Josh Marshall posted a comment from a reader--a prosecutor in Seattle. As Marshall says the comment speaks for itself. Here is part of it, but you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.

A pro-gun control federal prosecutor was shot and killed. John McKay was agitating for more resources to bring his killer to justice. That pissed off DOJ, who apparently thought that McKay should spend his time going after bogus voter fraud prosecutions rather than solve the murder of a guy who was in favor of gun control. If you don't think the fact that Tom Wales' political views weren't taken into consideration by the higher ups at DOJ when they decided to punish McKay for fighting to find his killer, you haven't been paying attention to the way these guys have operated for the last 6 years. Every single thing they do is about politics, and the political views of those they help or hurt.

Now do you understand why we can't allow the Department of Justice to become politicised, Karl Rove style. Even if the decision to cut back on the investigation had nothing to do with politics, the prosecutor in Seattle, and probably most of the Seattle law enforcement community, think the cutbacks were political. That is corrosive.

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Educating Congress One Representative at a Time

The Seattle Times has printed its periodic update of the goings-on of Western Washington's Congressional delegation, and there's, unfortunately, not much to discuss. Other than some bland entries about Rep. Inslee and Sen. Murray trying to secure Boeing an Air force tanker contract, and Maria Cantwell breaking the ice on the Today show, it doesn't look like the Washington delegation is rousing much of the rabble. However, the entry at the end of the article amused me.

Dave Reichhert (R WA-8) squeaked by the last election in what should have been a cakewalk for him. His district is made primarily of upper-middle class professionals and Microsoft Millionaires who love tax-breaks on their income, their spending, and their SUVs, and care little for much else. His democratic opponent, Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft exec, ran a pretty pathetic campaign against him - nothing substantive, just pictures of Reichert with Bush. As a junior member of Congress, he wasn't in a position to do much while in the majority, and by and large, his voting record was in-step with his constituency (small government, low taxes, and generally environmental). Other than claiming that, perhaps, he didn't actually catch the Green River Killer, Burner was cursed from the outset.

However, Reichert pulled a classic Republican move when asked about his position on global warming; sure, it might be happening, but is it really our fault? Well, it seems as though Congressman Reichert has decided to get to the bottom of the whole "debate" and is trying to set up a meeting with none other than AL GORE to try to figure it all out.

Rep. Dave Reichert , whose questioning comments on global warming were derided by environmentalists during his re-election campaign last fall, wants to learn more about the issue.

His preferred teacher: Mr. Global Warming himself, former Vice President Al Gore.

Reichert, R-Auburn, has asked [Rep. Norm] Dicks to set up a meeting with Gore, whose global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" became a national sensation.

During a campaign rally in Seattle in October, Gore scoffed when told that Reichert said he was unsure of the role humans play in global warming.

Dicks humorously suggested a couple of months ago that Reichert and Gore talk, and now Reichert is ready with his notepad. No word yet from Gore.

Seriously.

Last week I noted that a local school district had put a moratorium on viewings of An Inconvenient Truth, due to perceived (and in my opinion, ultimately unfounded) biases in the film. I can only hope that this endorsement of Gore and his film by a Republican Congressman will finally put to rest the bull-shit claim that An Inconvenient Truth somehow skews the scientific consensus regarding this pressing problem.

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An Inconvenient 'Moratorium'

The Federal Way School District - located about 20 miles south of Seattle - has put the viewing of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth on moratorium until the superintendent has an opportunity to review the district's regulations on biased materials in the class, per Seattle Times reporting.

I don't take issue with the policy per se, but rather, the assumption that Al Gore's film might be biased. First, I don't think that bias is that big a deal. It's impossible to avoid bias in one's writing, research, reporting, or rhetoric - everyone has normative values and assumptions that inform one's interpretation of data and events. What's important, however, is the identification of one's potential biases, and whether or not one's research methodologies take such potential biases into account. The scientific method has been developed in such a way as to mitigate one's bias as a potential variable which might effect the interpretation of possible outcomes. A district policy which attempts to preempt the politicization of youth by teachers by way of their instructional materials is certainly appropriate, as the goal of educational institutions is not to necessarily convince students of a point of view, but rather, to give them the skills to come to their own reasonable conclusions given evidence and theory.

The rub: One of the pertinent district policies

"states that, 'when it is necessary to use historical or literary works, periodicals, and technical journals which show bias, staff members have a responsibility to point out the biases, and present additional information and perspectives to balance those biases.' "

For those of you who have seen An Inconvenient Truth, it is pretty obvious that Al Gore isn't using a lot (if any) normative judgements. He cites firm scientific consensus, and builds his argument around firm statistics and data well within the constraints of the scientific method. Science, by definition, cannot be biased. Global warming isn't a liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, issue - it's a scientific issue. Data cannot be considered biased, it simply is what it is. Al Gore has a hypothesis - that human activity contributes to global warming, and that unless something is done about it soon, the effects might very well be unadaptable. He explores this hypothesis soundly, and uses theoretical frameworks which have been well accepted by the scientific community via study replication by numerous scholars and scholarly institutions. This documentary does not fall under the cited district policy. Assuming it does, then the district had better reconsider showing March of the Penguins or any number of Carl Sagan's Cal Tech astrophysics documentaries.

Given the negative reaction the district has received from the community at large, I'm sure that this controversy will end with the vindication of Gore's film. It's just unfortunate that the Federal Way School Board caved in so quickly to the demands of a vocal, and misinformed, minority.

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