American Sclerosis
The American knack for reinventing the procedural impediments of medieval Europe – how to keep anything from happening – never fails to force a little gasp. How could the land of the free and the home of the brave be the depot of the dumb? For eight days, according to William Yardley’s story in the Times, Tania Rider lay pinned in her Honda at the base of a ravine in a Seattle surburb after sliding off the road. For eight days, her husband, Tom, tried to enlist local authorities in a missing-person search. But rules and regulations vitiated his appeals. It was not until Mr Rider offered to present himself as a suspect, knowing that he was innocent of any guilt, that investigators paid attention. They turned on their cell-phone tracing thingies and eventually found his wife within five miles of a transmission tower. Her kidneys were failing, and there were a few broken bones, but youth and good health promised a solid recovery – assuming that Ms Rider will ever be able to overcome the horrible memory of lying helplessly and unhelped at the base of that ravine.  It’s true that the police cannot be expected to open investigations every time someone doesn’t make it home for dinner. Men presumably still tell their wives that they’re just going down to the corner store for a pack of cigarettes,  knowing in their hearts that they plan never to return. But hard and fast rules governing the opening of investigations are inappropriate. Police officers need to be better listeners; and I have no objection to helping them out with obligatory GPS transmitters on all vehicles. When a man comes into the precinct house to report that his wife and her car are missing, attention ought to be paid, because the guy is either telling the truth or he’s a murderer. Either way, it’s a big deal, and no time for parsing the rule book