Color Blind

Two astronomers at Johns Hopkins University have just recanted their claim, announced in January, that the universe is a greenish shade of turquoise. Turns out it's really beige. If only the FBI were similarly color-blind, Joseph Charles Schultz might still have both of his cheeks.

Schultz is the 20-year-old Maryland man shot in the face by FBI agents who had mistaken him for someone else. Now, a week after the shooting, the agency has explained its error. Schultz, it seems, was wearing a white baseball cap and sitting in a red car. The G-men were looking for a bank robber who, they'd been told, was wearing a white baseball cap and traveling in a red car. So Schultz fit the profile.

The agents asked Schultz to leave the vehicle, prompting him to reach for his seat-belt buckle. This was interpreted as a threatening gesture, and Schultz received a jawful of lead. He survived this, though a fair portion of his face did not, and he is, the Baltimore Sun reports, "getting mad."

Give the FBI this much credit: They correctly identified the colors white and red. It's the next few steps of police work that eluded them.