NOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

US Secret Service: "It was a good kill"
by MSNBC Campbell Brown 4:15pm Sun Jul 22 '01

In a perverse and almost surreal openess, NBC reporter Campbell Brown records the comments between Secret Service agents at a hotel bar in Genoa. Apparently when not being entertained by strippers, these guys have time to bond at the bar and muse over "a good kill".

Full story at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/603536.asp

Excerpt below:

WALKING WITH another female White House press staffer, I made my way to the warehouse that would serve as press headquarters. At the first security checkpoint, an Italian police officer began pulling out all the contents of our bags for inspection.

He held up our underwear from the night before for a closer look. We watched patiently as he put the undies back in our bags. We both politely said, “Grazie.”

Walking away, the White House staffer said to me, “I can’t believe I just thanked an Italian man for looking at my panties.”

Welcome to the G8 summit.

Protests are now de rigueur at world economic summits. We know going in that issues and substance, especially for TV reporters, will take a back seat to any explosions on the street. Day one in Genoa begins just as expected, with violent clashes between demonstrators and police. But for the first time since the demonstrations were unleashed with the debacle at the Seattle World Trade Organization meeting, a protester was killed in the violence.
       
A FATAL TURN

Italian police shot him twice in the head, then ran over his body with their van. Photographers on the scene captured the sequence of events, including the protester about to throw a fire extinguisher at the police van.

At the hotel bar that night, Secret Service agents analyzed the photos, debating among themselves whether Italian police had gone too far.

“It was a good kill,” one agent finally said.

Genoa posed an especially tricky scenario for the Secret Service. The agents do not trust the security teams from other countries. While world leaders were housed on a luxury cruise ship in Genoa’s harbor, the Secret Service insisted President Bush stay in a separate hotel. The Italians were furious. The Service did not back down, and Bush stayed tucked away at the harborside Jolly Marina hotel. The agents however slept on a separate cruise ship docked nearby.

Given the pressure they were under with the demonstrations, they apparently felt entitled to a little after-hours fun. Every evening on their ship, a group of Italian women arrived to “perform” for them — no touching allowed. The agents watched the women dance each evening until 2 a.m., when the ladies promptly left the ship. It wasn’t quite clear how the agents would expense the “entertainment” — perhaps as a gift from the Italian government?