Potential Terrorist Hoarding Bomb-Making Material Given Bail In Florida

[Jimbo101]

Crooks And Liars

Brandon Russell, 21, is a self-professed neo-Nazi. His roommates, who shared his beliefs, were aware that Russell was stockpiling ammo and bomb-making materials in their Tampa, Florida apartment. He surfed white supremacist websites and kept a picture of Oklahoma domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh framed in his room. Among his friends, in real-life and online, Russell fantasized about blowing up government buildings, like his hero McVeigh.

The story takes an odd and dark turn. One of Russell's roommates, Devon Arthurs, 18, at one time shared these beliefs, but at some time in the last year converted to a militant form of Islam and found the bigotry and hatred of Russell and other roommates Jeremy Himmelman and Andrew Oneshuk (bigotry and hatred he agreed with not that long ago) intolerable. Arthurs killed Himmelman and Oneshuk for making fun of his newly-found Muslim beliefs.

At the time of his arrest, Arthurs told the investigators of Russell's stockpile in the garage and his open desire to wreak destruction on the federal government. Russell was arrested and indicted for bomb possession, for which he plead "not guilty" in a federal court and requested release on bail.

And Federal Judge Thomas McCoun granted it, stating there was no clear and convincing evidence “the defendant represents a threat to any person or community.”

[HAB911]

1. White boys can't be terrorists

in Florida at least, LOL

[DefenseLawyer]

2. It's called due process.

Would you prefer that he be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Gitmo?

[nycbos]

3. I think the point is that someone who isn't white wouldn't have gotten bail.

[Igel]

4. That's the assumption.

All we have is anecdotes, individual examples and they all show "brown or Muslim, no bail; white and non-Muslim, no bail."

On the other hand, the examples are picked to show this and the occasional counter-example that surfaces here tends to plummet, unnoticed. We don't know if the "brown or Muslim" instances are 1%, 50%, or 100% "no bail". We don't know if the "white and non-Muslim" instances are 1%, 50%, or 100% "no bail." We don't know the ratio of "brown or Muslim" to "white and non-Muslim" instances. I consider these "known unknowns." Some probably think we see all the data.

But we do know that of the instances we do know about--a handful--there's a bias. So we generalize the bias over all the unknown information. It's hard to account for all the information you don't have in an analysis; it's even harder if you really believe you have all the data. People like easy.

I personally believe it's less likely that a person who isn't white wouldn't have gotten jail. But I know it's a belief, not even a hypothesis, because it's built on a few non-random instances, a few anecdotes. A hypothesis would require actual data.