Well, that was easy

On Monday, I pondered the significance of the murder of recently retired NY Times reporter David Rosenbaum on a quiet Washington street, just as we were learning that the NSA wiretapping story was just one of many that the NY Times had been sitting on while the destruction of our constitutional government continued.

Well, case closed.

A 23-year-old maintenance man from Southeast Washington was arrested last night and charged in the robbery and slaying of New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, police said. They also were seeking one other person.

Michael C. Hamlin was arrested shortly after 6 p.m. when he walked into the 7th District police station in the 2400 block of Alabama Avenue SE, which is in the block where he lives, and asked why "my face is on TV," police said.

Only an hour earlier, police had released to the media images from surveillance videotapes taken at a CVS store in Southeast Washington and an auto parts business in Prince George's County. Police said the tapes showed Hamlin using or attempting to use Rosenbaum's credit cards shortly after Rosenbaum was robbed near his home in Northwest Washington on Jan. 6.

Hamlin walked into the police station last night wearing the same dark jacket, with his first name sewed onto a chest patch, that he had been wearing in a surveillance tape, police said.

Police drove Hamlin to the department's violent crimes branch, where he provided detectives with a statement on the slaying, police said. He was charged with felony murder.

"It did wrap up rather quickly," Detective Anthony Paci said during a news conference last night outside the violent crimes branch.

Like I said on Monday: "Nothing suspicious here." This couldn't possibly be a mentally-impaired individual framed to take the fall, now could it? He walks into the police station and asks why he is on TV. A black guy trying to use credit cards with the name Rosenbaum. (Okay, possible, but not bloody likely.) Heck, the mentally-impaired angle could be part of the setup. Whoever might really have been behind the hit may have had something on this guy, and got him to play-act this scenario. The mental-impairment angle buys him a favorable plea bargain (rather than facing an insanity plea); he spends a year or two in an obscure mental facility and then disappears, far better off than if he'd been prosecuted for whatever they really had on him. And whatever story David Rosenbaum may have been about to break goes to the grave with him.

Jeez! Four years of blogging has made me suspicious!