Hope this prediction is wrong...

In his recent novel, Phantom Prey, John Sandford, a former Pulitizer prize winning reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, has his character Lucas Davenport, criticize the local security preparations for the upcoming Republican convention. Throughout the book, Sandford's fictional cop gripes that there aren't enough local cops in Minnesota to do the job required. He fumes that local political officials simply don't understand the nature of the threat.

While Sandford himself can be an obnoxious liberal, he had his Davenport's character blow up at the politician in charge of convention security who's mantra is "Bush is a moron." Davenport chews her out good for dismissing the threat. Davenport lectures that it won't be about liberals protesting against Bush. It'll be about criminal rabble rousers looking for an excuse to destroy things and hurt people. Sandford's character goes on to predicts that as in Seattle in 1999, a large segment of the so called protestors will be dedicated anarchists bent on sowing mayhem and destroying as much as possible. He worries that while the downtown area where the visitors will congregate will be safe, homeowners and business around downtown area will be in peril.

I found this of note because Sandford has very good contacts among Twin City police officers. In the afterward of a previous Lucas Davenport novel, Sandford named several local cop bars as the models for a place featured in the story and noted that he had written in a cameo appearance by the actual St. Paul police chief, an old friend from way back.

While it happened on the other side of the world, I suspect the murder of the CEO of Bachman's Florists and Nurseries at the Summer Olympic games yesterday is going to put the police departments of St. Paul and Minneapolis further on edge. Everybody in the local power structure had to know Todd Bachman.