...by any other name

Can someone please explain to me the current police standard of saying - usually to a bank of microphones - that someone is not a suspect - when we all know they ARE!?

I get saying that there's not enough evidence to charge them with something.

I get saying that your case may still be in the early stages of evidence gathering but come on... give us a break.

OF COURSE, the mother who's claiming she left her sick 2 yr old son in the car when she ran allegedly out of gas and walked with her 4 yr old daughter to the gas station, only to find the baby missing when she returned - OF COURSE she's a suspect!


I looked up 'suspect' (as a noun) last night, only to discover that Webster was not as finely taught as I was and, in a manner that would have appalled my high school Honors English teacher, Joanne Higgins, the word was defined by use of the word itself.

Suspect: one who is suspected of having committed a crime.

Really, That's it?

Let's do this the RIGHT way and not use the word itself.

Suspect: one who is believed to have responsibility for committing a crime without accompanying proof .
There ya go.

Of course these parents of missing children - all the kids populating Nancy Grace land - are suspects!!

You don't need to shrilly call in a 'team of experts'.

As parents, they have care, custody and control of their children; they are responsible for them.
Their children are missing, unaccounted for and they have no logical, rational or valid explanation.
The children are too young to fend for themselves, hence they're at risk.

At the very least, you have child endangerment which is a crime under most states child abuse laws therefore - you have parents who are suspects - without accompanying proof in the form of a dead body or details - yet.


Can we please, stop skirting the obvious - and tell it like it is.