When I got home from teaching summer school one day last week, I turned on the news to decompress. The first thing I saw was an Amber Alert running across the screen, which naturally grabbed my attention.
The story as given was basically that a guy named Matthew Slocum (who, the Amber Alert was sure to note, had swastika tattoos on both forearms) had killed his mother, stepfather, and stepbrother before burning down their home in New York State and fleeing with his girlfriend, Loretta Colegrove and their four-month-old son, Raymond. They gave Slocum’s car make and model (bastard drove a pretty sweet-looking Ford Mustang) as well as his license plate number.
Oh, and the Amber Alert stated that poor Miss Colegrove was being held against her will.
Anyway, Slocum was apprehended in the sleepy New Hampshire town of Gilsum, with WMUR reporting at the time that “the woman and child he had been holding for several hours inside a Gilsum, N.H., home were found safe”.
The story has changed a bit since then.
Police said they initially believed Colegrove was being held by Slocum against her will, but they believed otherwise after the surrender in Gilsum.
For now, investigators said she is not facing charges.
Colegrove’s family described her relationship with Slocum as volatile.
Cindy Colegrove, Loretta’s sister, said, “We didn’t like how he was treating my sister.”
Look, there is no question that Matthew Slocum is a monster. The details of the crime he stands accused of in New York are chilling.
Investigators said Slocum shot his mother and stepfather in bed and then turned the gun on his teenage stepbrother in the living room of their home.
After the killings, police said he dumped gasoline on the porch and set the home on fire.
“There are witness interviews (and) forensic evidence that (are) still processing. It’s being conducted at the scene, so there’s really a whole host of steps that need to be taken,” said Capt. Stephen James, of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. “Until that point occurs, we (are not really) in a suitable position to address matters relative to motive.”
And yet WMUR accurately noted that Slocum’s “peaceful surrender” in a New Hampshire town so small that it doesn’t even have its own …
… police department “stands in contrast to the violent crimes” he’s accused of in upstate New York.
There’s a lot that concerns me about this story (beginning with questions of what could possibly lead to matricide), but the Amber Alert with the 100% clear message that this psycho killer abducted his girlfriend and their baby son bothers me more.
It’s fairly clear that Colegrove went willingly with Slocum and, even if authorities didn’t know that right away, it seems like kind of an abuse of the Amber Alert system to me.
Whether Colegrove’s family approved of Slocum or didn’t like the way he treated her or whatever, their relationship was between the two of them, and Monday morning quarterbacking after the fact doesn’t change anything. If they were concerned about either Colegrove or Baby Raymond, a call to Child Protective Services would have been easy enough to do.
And the reality of Slocum releasing his girlfriend and son right away and giving himself up without a fight show that he cared for them on some level.
The Amber Alert portrayed Slocum as this armed and dangerous nutjob bedecked with swastikas who was holding his son and her mother hostage to allow himself leverage for escape.
In other words, an Amber Alert was used to catch a criminal that had absolutely nothing to do with a missing child. Said child was in the custody of his mother and father, and that does not constitute “missing”.
I think the Amber Alert is a valuable tool and has proven its worth many times over, but I also believe in the U.S. Constitution, and Matthew Slocum’s civil rights were trampled all over here by government trickery. (Jesus, I sound like a Republican)
This was entrapment, plain and simple, and it’s particularly disturbing that such a fine and noble system was allowed to do this.
Slocum is being charged with three counts of second-degree murder as well as first-degree arson, and I hope that he is found guilty. This sort of unspeakable crime is disgusting, distasteful, and unacceptable.
But there was no need for an Amber Alert in this situation … other than its convenience in catching an alleged criminal, and I’m pretty sure I’m uncomfortable with that. It might just be one step closer to “Big Brother” running amok.
Thoughts?
