THOUGHT CRIMES: THE CASE OF THE CANNIBAL COP review
I watched an HBO documentary called Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop. It’s a bizarre case of a clearly not-right in the head (former) cop who started going on dark fetish sites to share intricate fantasies about abducting, raping and cannibalizing women.
Because he was a cop, he used the confidential crime/government database to drum up info on the women. And he posted pictures of the women on the site for his psycho-buddies to share the fantasy. The would-be victims were all women he knew from life: college and high school friends — and even his own wife. Like I said, completely not-right in the head. He was convicted of improperly using police equipment and a conspiracy charge (he was writing this stuff in conjunction as a share-crime with two other sociopaths), but it was overturned because — in legal terms — there was no victim or crime committed. Hence the title’s tag of being a “thought crime”.
Each legal expert they interviewed made a good point, which basically bounced from (point) this guy was premeditating some pretty sick shit and needs to be off the street to (counter-point) can the government use a fantasy (as ugly and twisted as it is) to convict you of a crime that hasn’t been committed yet. Not really easy stuff to answer over a glass of iced tea and some buffalo wing flavored chips.
The only part of the documentary that sucked was the filmmakers would show Buddy the Psycho Cop eating or cooking as much as possible. Yes, guys, we get it: he fantasized about eating people and here’s a shot of him eating bacon. Or a Cuban sandwich. Or making his mom a pretty decent omelet. Brilliant subtlety.
