Friday, March 12, 2010

Life in a small town [With Update]

We are still waiting to hear more details about the ATM crooks. One thing that has the town abuzz is that the news reported on Wednesday that they had confessions from four more guys, three of whom are 18. For some reason, the news has since blacked out and none of the three names have been made public. This despite the fact that the first two 18-year-olds caught had their names on TV, radio and newspaper immediately.

There was one paragraph about the story on one of the three Madison TV stations Wednesday, and it contained exactly the same information that had been posted online that same day, including the names of the two Dells boys. The other stations posted nothing, at least nothing on their websites. The newspapers in Baraboo, Portage and Reedsburg -- all within less than 20 miles -- carried nothing. The Dells Events newspaper comes out tonight, and maybe something will show up there. But they have posted nothing at all online, not even the original story that was issued by the Dells police department.

So naturally we are all wondering whose kids are being protected.

The last I heard (still rumor mill) is that over a period of months, the group had taken $40,000 from ATMs in the Dells-Lake Delton area.

UPDATE: There are still details coming out, but photos and the names of more of the boys have been released. Interestingly enough, one of the two originally named is the son of a local police sergeant, and the police did not conceal that name at all. Seems there may be a couple more guys involved.

One thing -- no one seems to have been physically hurt in any of these burglaries, but the four ATM machines were all damaged beyond repair. So far $10,000 of the stolen cash has been accounted for, but the police are keeping quiet about the rest while the investigation into other [alleged] participants is in progress.

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