"After she ran him down, she gunned it, and she just went screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue."

"They were busy calling on their phones, on the radios. It was like poking a hornet nest. There were guys everywhere. I didn’t see anyone with their guns out, but they were sure busy."

What was this all about? The woman is dead. Will we never know?

A young child was found in the car, the authorities said. It was not clear whether the woman was armed when the authorities fired on her.

“We have no information that this is related to terrorism or is anything other than an isolated incident,” Chief Dine said.

Here's what I thought when I heard about it: There's all this heated rhetoric around the shutdown. That's American politics, and we have freedom of speech. But there are always human beings out of balance. They hear what they hear and who knows how it sounds to them? It feels like a war or like existential desperation. We can't shut up just because there are people out there with distorted thinking, but let's contemplate what it takes for those of us who are sane to behave with good character.

ADDED: To those in power, here's a word: demagoguery. Stop it. Let's see some maturity.