1. To Virginia And Back In One Bound: Palczynski managed to get away with criminal stunts which made him look like some sort of real-life Hannibal Lecter. After committing three murders at the apartment complex of his ex-girlfriend, he got to Virginia, broke into a home, stole a gun and some other assortments and managed to get back to Chase, MD, in a period less than a day. Were the police sitting on their hands in the meawhile...Seems like it. This was to be the local law enforcement's first slip in the entire drama.

2. No Stakeout--Talk About Duhh!: Palczynski shoots his way into Lynn Whitehead's home last week. And not a bleeping cop was stationed there looking over the place! Even movie logic, half-assed at best, establishes that all possible destinations of a fugitive be staked-out in expectance of the fugitive showing up. And this oversight wasn't because they didn't have enough men to do the task--almost every Baltimore County cop was looking for Palczynski. They didn't think to look in the most obvious place of all?!

     3. A Neighborhood Taken Hostage: When the local police learn that Palczynki has taken hostages on Lange street, what do they do? Close-out the entire neighborhood, leaving people either stranded away from home or locked in like jailbirds...for 5 days!! These people weren't even brought food by the police...meanwhile they used motorized robots to bring Palczynski and his hostages chow every night. Talk about goofing up!

     4. A 5 Day Game And Counting: A man holding three people hostage in a duplex has got to a)eat b)s**t c)sleep. And when he does, you sent in the SWAT team and hit him harder than an AMTRAK train splatting a wayward cow. It doesn't take 5 days to do this--Unless you're a department with no real experience of criminal blowouts and you want to be overly cautious. Beating about the bush shouldn't constitute as a police tactic

     5. Where Was The Ex-Girlfriend?: Palczynski yelled until he was blue in the face about wanting to speak to his ex-girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead. The woman was nowhere to be seen during the entire hostage crisis, even though it was her mother about to be blown away in that house. I only saw her tonight on TV offering some lines about domestic abuse. You think negotiators might be inclined to use her to defuse the situation, but I guess that would be too "forward thinking" of them.

     6. Jump Out The Window And Leave Your Son Behind!: Palczynski finally drops exhausted and what do you see? Lynn Whitehead and boyfriend leaping out of their first story window like "sacks of potatoes", as one witnesses described it, leaving the man's 12-year old son behind. The media has only now begun to catch this baffling cowardly action after the initial impact of the violent resolution receeded somewhat. A writer for the Baltimore Sun said that unless we were in their situation, we shouldn't judge this strategy. That kid could've been killed in the hail of bullets the SWAT team brought with them when they stormed in!! These grown hostages ended up looking like bottom-dwellers by demonstrating such selfishness. And this from the kid's own father! Let me bite my tongue before I go into an incendiary diatribe about cowards and the sacrifices fathers must make for their children.