Is government incompetent to provide police protection?

Over at reason magazine, Ed Krayewski points outs that police are fighting a war on drugs while a neighborhood man, Charles Ramsey, saves women from slavery (Neighborhood Man Saves Kidnapped, Captive Women; Police Fight War on Drugs).  Ironically, Ramsey himself has a criminal record for wife battery, but perhaps he’s turned a new leaf and is making amends to womankind.

But look at the juxtaposition – a convicted wife beater saves three women from slavery, while the police, according to the neighbors, were incompetent to investigate repeated calls over the years that women were naked in chains and collars in the back yard.  (And this the same week that a government official charged with preventing sexual harassment in the military molests a woman in the service.)

This isn’t new.  Chandra Levy, the Congressional intern who disappeared in DC in the late 90s, was found, or her skeletal remains were, a few years ago.   (She lived in a pet friendly condo called The Newport as a renter, a few blocks from where I am writing this, and coincidentally across the street from Rahm Emanuel’s old home at 21st and N Streets NW.) Turns out the undocumented immigrant who is now accused of killing her was a serial killer. All the young women he killed were the same age, height, and were brunettes with similar hairstyles. But the police saw no pattern…because one was Asian, one was Latin, one was black, and Ms. Levy was Jewish.