“All of which would have been merely comical, had it not also reflected a very serious reality: most such officials, in their zeal to treat every criminal event as a chance to display supreme control of social order, had forgotten that lawbreakers most often operate quietly and in the shadows, places where men wearing body armor and military helmets not only were out of place, but made the task of investigating the dark deeds that take place in those shadows all the more difficult.”
