Get Whitey: Come And Knock On Our Door…
…We’ve been waiting for you….
Late yesterday evening, it was announced that murderous former Boston crime boss, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger and his gal pal had been captured by the FBI. From the Los Angeles Times, Andrew Blankstein reporting [tip of the fedora to Wombat Socho's Live-At Five]:
Legendary Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, who has been on the run for more than a decade, was arrested Wednesday in Santa Monica, multiple law enforcement sources told The Times.
Bulger, 81, has been the subject of several books and was the inspiration for "The Departed," a 2006 Martin Scorsese film staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 as federal agents were about to arrest him in connection with 21 killings, racketeering and other crimes that spanned the early 1970s to the mid-1980s.
…
The arrest came as the FBI launched a media campaign in 14 cities to help determine Bulger’s whereabouts.
That LAT post has some good links to background info on Whitey, who had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for many years.
Boston Herald columnist and radio talk show host Howie Carr, author of The Brother’s Bulger [Whitey's brother, Billy, was President of the Massachusetts Senate and the most powerful pol at one time in the Bay State], has a quickie column up on the arrest [FYI: it has been alleged by one of his capos, Kevin Weeks, that Whitey ordered a hit on Mr. Carr back when the boss was still in power]. A highlight:
After all these years, how do the feds finally catch Whitey?
By running an ad on “The View.” Or “Rachael Ray.” Or some other silly daytime women’s TV show. Whitey, the president-for-life of the He Man Woman Haters’ Club, brought down by the likes of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.
And where were he and Catherine Greig living? Not in some dreary British tenement, but in Santa Monica, LaLa Land. And no Hollywood ending either.
Hey Whitey, in case you’ve forgotten, Oklahoma and Florida are death-penalty states.
The best part about this capture is that now our worst nightmare isn’t realized. His greedy little brother, Billy, does not get to step forward and claim the $2 million reward — one final thumb in the eye of the American taxpayer.
When I first saw the FBI ad campaign at the beginning of this week, I said to the wife that it wouldn’t work. After all, the picture Grieg was outdated and she was addicted to cosmetics, over the counter and surgical, but Mrs. B. said they would be caught because the ad campaign was aimed at women. She offered that women would notice someone like Grieg if they saw her in salons or at the doctor’s office, even if she had had some surgical enhancements – they notice things like that. Well, it appears the Missus was right. I stand corrected it would seem.
One of the reasons it will be interesting to see how this story plays out is what Aaron Goldstein mentions in his posting over at AmSpecBlog:
Shortly before moving to Boston in 2000, I remember Dateline NBC doing a story about Bulger and the complicity of FBI agents in its Boston office in his disappearance in 1995. Bulger had been an FBI informant but was given free reign to continue his life of crime. I remember thinking to myself, "Is this a city where I want to move?" But, in the end, it didn’t deter me. Crime, corruption and human folly are like the weather. It is everywhere.
The FBI has an awful lot to answer for. Their corrupt agents allowed many people to be murdered by Bulger and his partner, Steve ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi. I would hope that this will spur us to reconsider the enormous power we have let the FBI accumulate over the years.
Wag Jim Treacher had this comment in his The DC Morning e-mail this AM:
…So that’s two whitey bulgers caught this month.
He’s good.
When I initially read ‘Get Whitey’ I figured it was going to be a post about policy at Eric “My People” Holder’s DOJ.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
Liberty: My mistake. Now that I think of it, I should have made myself clearer, or at least saved the title for a DOJ posting – it would have been perfect.