The dangerous silence surrounding the accused White House shooter

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By Colbert I. King, Friday, November 25, 8:16 PM

____ Shootings at the White House are rare, so this most recent incident, and the circumstances surrounding it, tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully. There are good reasons to believe that others knew or had reason to suspect that when (Oscar Ramiro) Ortega-Hernandez left his home in Idaho, he was up to no good with respect to the president of the United States.

Ortega-Hernandez, who was arrested Nov. 16 and charged the next day with attempting to assassinate the president, apparently was so obsessed with hatred for Barack Obama that he drove across the country for a chance to act on his contempt. That’s the conclusion to be drawn from the federal arrest warrant and criminal complaint filed against him in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia . . .

Beyond the question of motive is the issue of means.

How did this 21-year-old, who was reportedly on two years’ probation for resisting arrest and obstructing justice stemming from an arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia, get his hands on a Romanian semiautomatic assault rifle with a large scope mounted on it, as the complaint says? Or on the three magazines loaded with 7.62 x 39 mm cartridges, or the several boxes of similar cartridges that federal agents say they found in his car?

Even more intriguing is why Ortega-Hernandez was not brought to the attention of authorities when, as the federal complaint asserts, three witnesses in Idaho knew of his intent to harm the president. Knowing that Ortega-Hernandez had both a motive and the means to endanger the nation’s chief executive, why did they apparently hold their tongues?

The federal complaint sheds light on what they knew . . .


read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dangerous-silence-surrounding-the-accused-white-house-shooter/2011/11/25/gIQArBp6wN_print.html