The last place that I generally would ever look for insight is the comments section of the St. Pete Times generally. Actually, that's not fair. The level of racist comments against blacks, Arabs and Muslims is relatively low in the Times compared to what you'll see on any quasi-controversial story on the Tampa Tribune's TBO.Com.
Having said that, some very interesting remarks appeared today on the Times website after the St. Pete Police Department opted to demolish the site of Monday's incident in which two SPPD officers were shot and killed.
As of early Tuesday, police haven't said whether the fugitive whose body was found Monday afternoon, Hydra Lacy Jr., was killed by police gunfire or by his own hand.
St. Pete Police say that the house was not safe to search, so they opted to tear it down. According to the Times, police spokesman Mike Puetz said, "The rubble will be spread out and examined at an off-site location." He admitted it wasn't the ideal way to search for evidence.
That would be an understatement.
The visuals of officers looking through that rubble for evidence were bewildering. Apparently I'm not the only person to be a bit surprised by this, though a colleague told me he saw it happen in Seattle after a similar incident.
Here's a flavor of some of the comments on the Times website:
