BTK Killer: Hold the Back Patting

If you caught any of the news networks this morning, you saw the self-congratulation festival as every cop with a title who ever came near the Bind, Torture, Kill cases that have played out since the 70s without a capture came forth to pat themselves on the back.

I understand - I do - that police work is pretty damned tough. You can go a whole career of hard, honest work and not get a big salary or many thanks.

But hold the back patting on these cases where you didn't catch the killer for decades and then only because he basically starting sending you a map to his house to pick him up. And then, stop talking about all you went through when you can only imagine what it was like for the victims then and their families since.

Also, when you're a "higher up" in the case, there's a good bet you probably didn't lose a wink of sleep except worrying at how well your uniform looks for the press conference. The real work gets done by people who lose a lot of family time and sleep doing the grunt work.