If Jemma McGrath lay cold in the grave would Matt Baggott still say the UVF hadn't broken its ceasefire? Somehow, I suspect so.
The 24-year-old East Belfast woman shot six times in the stomach and legs by loyalists in September survived. But she could easily have bled to death.
Yet in an interview last week, the Chief Constable insisted the UVF ceasefire was intact and he differentiated between loyalist terror groups and "local crime gangs" operating in East Belfast.
Born-again Baggott was being Jesuitical with that distinction. The rest of us think the UVF and the 'crime gang' who shot Jemma are one and the same.
Bizarrely, the Chief Constable said politics wasn't his job. He must be "impartial and follow the evidence".
Which is exactly what he seems not to be doing for political reasons. The UVF supports the peace process. It's inside the tent and the political and security establishment want to keep it there.
The UVF, however, can legitimately argue that a blind eye should be turned if it riots, shoots or threatens people because the precedent to ignore paramilitary violence when it suits was set long ago.
The Provos went further than the UVF – they killed more than 20 people during the first 13 years of their ceasefire with few political repercussions.
What was good for the IRA goose, is now good for the UVF gander. In July 1999, the body of 22-year-old taxi-driver Charles Bennett was found in West Belfast with his hands tied behind his back and a pillow case over his head.
The IRA ceasefire had been "breached but not broken", Mo Mowlam ruled, letting the Provos off the hook.
So Baggott's creativity when it comes to the blame game is nothing new. These may be pragmatic political decisions but please let's not pretend they're moral.
Andrew Kearney rowed with the IRA's North Belfast commander in a bar in July 1998. A fortnight later, eight Provos burst into his New Lodge flat as his baby daughter slept on his chest.
They overpowered him with chloroform, dragged him outside, and shot him. He bled to death in his boxer shorts.
There were no concerned voices or even queries over the IRA ceasefire. It was three months after the Good Friday Agreement. Making a fuss wasn't helpful.
Just like Andrew Kearney, care worker Jemma McGrath is working-class. These victims have no political clout. Now were the UVF to shoot a banker or a businessman, there'd be a very different political and security reaction.
