Amateur Hour at MPD and Among the Media

It just keeps getting worse and worse. MPD is investigating to determine if yesterday's murder was hate motivated. The Post has some more information, including some sadly graphic descriptions of the crime scene.

MPD's liaison to the gay community, Lt. Brett Parsons sheds a bit of light on the crime:

The surviving victim told a detective that the attacker might have used an anti-gay epithet during the incident, Parsons said. But it would be "extremely premature" for authorities to definitively classify the crime as having been motivated by the victims' gender identity, he added.

"Until we're able to do a really detailed interview with the surviving victim, I'm not sure that anyone really knows," Parsons said.

So right now we don't know if it was a hate crime, because the surviving victim hasn't been interviewed in detail. It's important to remember that at this point not only is the survivor a victim, but also a witness to a murder.

The surviving victim was a witness to the incident, and D.C. police do not publicly identify witnesses. Parsons said investigators were not completely sure of the survivor's identity.

Except that the "authorities" already released the names of both victims! WJLA (Channel 7) has had those names posted on their web site all day. Way to protect the safety and privacy of the witness/victim.

Seriously, is everyone who handles these sorts of things on vacation or something? We've got the police releasing all sorts of information at the wrong time, including the identities of a key witness. What the hell MPD?

And at this point perhaps the media should refrain from publishing these names, except it's too late and the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Such confusion and incompetence across the board.