Grandma Killers

With all of the press coverage of the Sean Bell case, a little-known incident that occurred in Atlanta last November has seen an unjustly small amount of media coverage. First, of course, the backstory. It was first reported that a team of narcotics officers from the Atlanta Police Department surrounded 92-year old Kathryn Johnston's house in a run-down area of the city, announced themselves and burst open the door. Johnston, who thought that her house was being raided by burglars, opened fire, injuring the officers, and in return was gunned down in a hail of 39 bullets. It was reported that drugs were found in the house and that a confidential informant had bought drugs from the house on a previous occasion. Assistant Chief Alan Dreher called the incident "tragic" and "unfortunate" but did not say anything about any rules or protocol being broken. Boy, was he wrong. It turns out, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, that the narcotics team involved could not have been more corrupt and sleazy in their ways: "The officers planted drugs on a suspected street dealer and pressured him to give up a dope dealer. The officers then lied to a judge, illegally broke into Johnston's house, fired 39 shots at her and handcuffed her as she lay bleeding before they planted drugs in her basement." If this does not make you angry, I want you to picture your grandmother being handcuffed after being shot by a gang of corrupt cops as she bleeds to death and then is slandered in the media as a drug dealer and a cop-shooter (the injuries the cops suffered were from friendly fire, not from the grandmother).

As if the mental image that you conjured up doesn't make you angry enough, the fact that the cops will spend minimal time in jail for their actions might send you over the top. The man who faced the most charges out of the narcs is Jason R. Smith, who will serve 12 years and 7 months. His partner in crime, Greg Junnier, will spend 10 years in a federal penitentiary. A third person who has been charged, Arthur Tesler, will fight the charges (he is charged with only 3 felonies related to making false statements as opposed to Smith's 13 felonies which included 4 for the murder alone). Even before the officers' sentences had been set, Chief of Police Richard Pennington said that justice had been served. Pennington, who on Friday took time off from his troubled department to work on his house, needs to be putting in some overtime to fix the APD. He continues to deny any responsibility for what happened, despite the fact that he is the officers' bosses and thus in charge of making sure they are properly trained and are carrying out the law. No major changes have occurred at the APD, as the assistant chief who first defended the officers is still working there. I think Pennington's statement that justice has been served is quite premature. If a group of black people broke into a house, shot a white elderly lady who tried to defend herself, handcuffed her while she was bleeding to death and then lied about it, do you think they would get to plea down from murder to voluntary manslaughter and serve less than 25 years combined? (And don't try to say it's different because Smith and Junnier are cops, because they lost any credibility as an officer of the law when they began planting drugs on people and lying to judges to get bullshit warrants). No, they certainly would be facing life in prison, if not the death penalty (which Georgia has). Reaction in the neighborhood where Johnston used to live obviously has been negative. One resident had this to say: "They should get life; that's how I feel. If we kill somebody, we get life or the death penalty." One man actually felt sorry for the officers, saying "They are police officers and they are going to have it hard in jail." We can only hope. Peace.

Photos - Top to bottom: Kathryn Johnston (en.wikipedia.org), J.R. Smith (policecrimes.org), Greg Junnier (policecrimes.org)

The Best Lawyer Money Can Buy

Boston Police badge (Wikipedia)

We have seen time and again that police officers have been given preferential treatment in our justice system. The trend continues, this time involving a Boston police officer. Officer Paul Durkin pleaded guilty on Monday to shooting a fellow officer while off-duty. Apparently, Durkin shot Officer Joseph Behnke for the egregious act of offering the officer a place to stay for the night. You see, Durkin and Behnke had been drinking and Durkin thought it would be a good idea to drive home to Easton from West Roxbury, a 17 mile drive which involves navigating the 93/95 split in Milton which is construction-laden and involves numerous lane shifts. Behnke realized that this was a bad idea and offered Durkin a place to stay, but Durkin insisted on driving. At this point, Behnke pressured his friend to stay, but Durkin was having none of it and, according to the Boston.com article, "unholstered his service weapon and fired once at close range." What makes this story even crazier, is that once Durkin shot Behnke, he just walked away and arranged to stay at the house of another friend, leaving Behnke's wife to tend to her wounded husband. Durkin was given quite a light sentence - he must be on probation for 3 years and leave the BPD.

The message this sends to the residents of Boston, who are experiencing a spike in gunplay recently, is underwhelming. Here is a cop who was playing around with his government-issued gun while he had a few too many and ends up shooting his friend. This is not some novice policeman; Officer Durkin has been on Boston's police force for 27 years. He is able to court, strike a deal with the prosecutor and get no time whatsoever in a state penitentiary. His probation alone is shorter than some jail sentences that the Boston area has seen in the past involving non-lethal shootings. Not only does Paul Durkin get to avoid jail, but he also gets a city pension because technically he will be voluntarily resigning from his position.

Boston Police car (Hill Holiday's Flickr)

No one seems to want to talk about this case, as Police Commissioner Edward Davis declined an interview and gave a generic "Violence is bad," statement, Durkin would not answer the phone at his home, Durkin's lawyer declined to comment and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley did not want to be interviewed. No surprise there, as everyone involved most likely knows that Durkin is getting off way too easy and they do not want to draw attention to themselves in the context of this injustice.

It's insulting that Durkin won't end up in jail, and it's just throwing salt in the wound to give him his pension. How are Boston's police expected to control gun violence in the city when their own officers clearly have little regard to the responsibility involved with owning a gun and the courts refuse to punish them when they abuse their power?

Where Are They Now? II

It has been a while since I have followed up on all of the stories I have brought up and so I see fit to get to that. So, without further ado let's get to the nitty gritty.

That cop who tried to get down with a boy over the internet, Brian O'Hare, is (hopefully) more than likely in jail, looking forward to 5 years of supervised release and the mandate that he get signatures anywhere he moves. No word, however, about whether he has started his prison sentence.

Alfred Trenkler, the man who inadvertently killed a bomb squad officer and seriously injured the cop's partner in 1991, was resentenced in Boston at the beginning of April of this year. His original sentence, life in prison, was ruled illegal and was reduced to 37 years. Again, people pointed the finger at Trenkler, who never even meant to kill the bomb squad officer, for the resentencing snafu and not the judge who neglected to follow the law the first time around or the U.S. Attorney's Office who ignored orders to argue against the resentencing.

Rudy Giuliani is still a hot-headed politician who few people who know him personally like. However, the American public continues to let Giuliani's actions post-9/11 blind them from the real Giuliani. Then there are those who are not big fans of the man, and those who are able to see what really happened during Giuliani's reign in New York. So, maybe there is hope.

The detectives in the Sean Bell case have, surprise, surprise, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and assault charges in the murder of the 23 year old man. The detectives' case is moving at the typical American justice system's sluggish pace, but that isn't stopping one of the detectives from having a good time. Meanwhile, as the New York 1 article says, both sides are complaining of tainting of the jury pool, but it seems that the smears against Bell are false while the cops' are true, and you can't tell me that Michael Oliver's actions aren't bringing criticism upon himself.

Remember Joseph Gray, the cop who killed an entire Brooklyn family after a day of boozing on NYPD property and a prohibited strip club? Well, after being denied parole he complained that he was being treated too harshly because he was a cop at the time of the incident. Maybe it hasn't really sunk in that he killed a whole family and is a sleazeball because he tried to say it was their fault. Or maybe he hasn't seen the trend of cops getting it easy because of their badges. Gray obviously does not realize the gravity of his selfish actions and does not deserve to be back in society until he does.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad returned the British sailors that his forces had captured in Iranian waters that border the Iraqi waters in what he called an Easter gift to the British people. Tony Blair, who had been diplomatic towards Tehran throughout the whole process, suddenly turned into a tough guy when he knew his prisoners were coming home, being quick to point out "possible" links between Iran and terrorism. At least it wasn't another Iran hostage crisis.

David Charlow is no more at Columbia University and the student body isn't really complaining and - shocking - Columbia's administration's ignorance of the facts are being criticized. Meanwhile, the Student Loan Xpress case continues to widen.

Dante Pingitore, who was caught scoring coke and then rammed his car into a police cruiser in a scene eerily reminiscent of Sean Bell's murder, has been flying under the mainstream media radar, as I have yet to find a picture of him or any other follow-up news article.

Columbia's bureaucracy is still horrible. Just today I went to do laundry and the whole swiping apparatus that had ripped me off before was broken, as a piece of paper declared those who needed quarters could walk across campus to get them or drag their dirty clothes to the building next door to do laundry. How accommodating.

Tom Suozzi, who prefers to be driven around in a car with nice emergency lights, seems to have survived Shea-gate, but it also has come to my attention that Mets' opening day is not the first time he's been criticized for use of county cars. Also in that article, it says that Suozzi seems to have become an enforcer in the realm of county car privileges, which seems a little hypocritical given his use of the cars.

It seems that Edward Davis is not budging from his plan to put officers on the street sooner than expected which means more cops on Boston's streets for the summer, but also with less training.

Virginia Tech continues to mourn the victims of last week's rampage by crazed gunman Cho Seung-Hui as classes resume today in Blacksburg. Cho's family has spoken about the tragedy briefly with reporters, but, understandably, most likely want their privacy.

Governor Jon Corzine's condition was updated, as he is no longer listed in critical condition and was transferred out of the Cooper University Hospital ICU. Additionally, Corzine's driver, Robert Rasinski, may have been upset about an ongoing dispute with a local Jersey cop over a woman and may have even been communicating with the bitter cop at the time of the accident. No word on whether Rasinski was wearing a NASA-approved diaper.

Those are the updates I have for the stories I've done since the last Where Are They Now?. As always, if there is any information regarding these stories or any others that I have somehow missed, please let me know and I'll get on that. Peace.

Photos top to bottom: Rudi Giuliani (www.ontheissues.org), David Charlow (wikicu.com), Boston Police Bronco (www.geocities.com)

Safety First (UPDATED)

As much of the nation knows - but has more than likely forgotten due to the Virginia Tech tragedy - Jon Corzine does not believe in seatbelts. Yes, it stinks that he got hurt and it's too bad that it happened, but the most important thing is that it could have been prevented on more than one front. First, and most importantly, is the seat belt issue. New Jersey law "Applies to all passengers, who are at least 8 years of age but less than 18 years of age, and each driver and front seat passenger of a passenger automobile, operated on a street or highway. All occupants are required to wear a properly adjusted and fastened seat belt system." For clarification, Corzine was a front seat passenger of a passenger automobile at the time of the accident. Corzine, who remains in critical condition today at Cooper University Hospital, was not wearing a seat belt when the accident occurred. This, of course, is highly dangerous and risky and the governor has been labeled as "lucky to be alive" by one of his doctors. When all the factors of the accident are taken into account - namely the lack of a seat belt and the high speed of the rollover prone SUV - Corzine is, in fact, very lucky to have survived such a crash. But it's not like Corzine forgot just this once, in fact it turns out that his staff has tried to persuade him to wear a seat belt before giving up when the governor adamantly refused. While the governor maintains that laws in his state should be upheld, I guess you don't really have to if you don't want to.

What is even more disturbing than Corzine's disregard for a law that has proven to save lives (i.e. the two people in the car who actually wore one), is the attempted cover-up by the New Jersey State Police. While at first Corzine's SUV was "forced off the road" by an "erratic driver," it has recently come to the public's attention that the driver who swerved and "caused" the accident was actually trying to get out of the way of the SUV that was travelling a cool 91 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone. Must have been quite the emergency, especially since the SUV had it's emergency lights on. So where was the governor headed? Home, to his governor's mansion in Princeton, to host a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team (not really seeing the Corzine connection in the Imus debacle, but apparently it was important). As can be expected, Corzine will not be ticketed and his driver Robert Rasinski will not see any type of repercussions for his Nascar-esque driving style. Maybe he should, considering it is his fourth accident overall and his second on duty. Now the citizens of New Jersey have paid for Corzine's SUV, his medical care, and the brief, precautionary medical care of his staff due to continued irresponsible driving, bullheadedness in not wearing a seat belt, and unnecessary use of emergency lights. Mayor Bloomberg has called Corzine's use of high speeds and emergency lights to get to a photo-op "inappropriate" and it's hard to argue against that. So in the future let's have state troopers sans preventable accidents on their records driving the governor around the state in a reasonable, non-emergency manner (unless it is a real emergency, not the governor being late to something) and have the governor wear his seat belt, but more than likely he will need little convincing after this harrowing experience. Peace.

UPDATE 6/21/07: According to 1010WINS, the New Jersey Star-Ledger has reported that a committee investigating the accident that nearly killed Governor Corzine has concluded that Trooper Robert Rasinski, the man behind the wheel at the time of the accident, was at fault and could have avoided the incident altogether. There will be a press conference later this afternoon discussing what, if anything, will be done about the debacle and if Rasinski will face any disciplinary action from the New Jersey State Police.

Photos from top to bottom - New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine (wikipedia.org), Corzine's SUV after the accident (www.usatoday.com)

A True Tragedy

Virginia Tech mourners (IBTimes)

Being a college student, the recent events that occurred at Virginia Tech on Monday hit particularly close to home. The shooting deaths of more than thirty students on the Blacksburg campus at the hands of Cho Seung-Hui comes as shocking news to a nation who is exposed to daily violence through the mainstream media. As information continues to file in from various news outlets, a resounding theme is emerging: Seung-Hui was a disturbed individual. The main evidence for this is the man's plays, which describe disturbing images of violence and sexual scenes. These pieces did not go unnoticed, as the former chair of the English department at Tech pulled the student from the class he was in and taught him one-on-one to try to help him. She also referred him to psychological counseling, but was unclear whether he actually took advantage of the offer. News reports have come out saying that Seung-Hui was on prescription medication for a psychological purpose, but this was unconfirmed. If this is true, then Seung-Hui had to be seeing some kind of doctor, but it appears that it was not enough.

The point I'm trying to make here is that while Cho Seung-Hui has done a terrible, despicable thing, it is obvious that he, too, was a victim. Obviously someone who was capable of something like this is someone who needed help, and badly. To be desperate enough to cold-heartedly murder 32 people and then turn the gun on oneself is incomprehensible to believe and no matter how hard we try, we will never know how that feels. While many have pointed to administrative shortcomings - the fact that the campus was not locked down as it was when an escaped con who had killed two people was rumored to be around campus - I feel that Lucinda Roy's attempts to reach out to Seung-Hui (the aforementioned English chair) should be applauded. She saw a problem and, in addition to trying to personally help the troubled student, passed on the relevant information to police. However, because there was no explicit threat in Cho's writings, the police could do nothing. He was referred to psychological services at the college, but, as I said before, it is unclear whether or not he went.

This is where the problem lies and there is a substantial gray area that is hard to navigate. Seung-Hui needed help, there is no doubt about that, but could you make him go to counseling? According to Virginia Tech's counseling website, no. It states "In all situations counselors are NOT able to initiate contact with students. Students need to contact the Cook Counseling Center for services." Therefore, unless Seung-Hui voluntarily went to the counseling center himself, no contact could be made between the two parties. This is a problem. While Lucinda Roy is most likely very intelligent, she is not a mental health professional and thus not qualified to deal with a problem as grave as Seung-Hui's. That was a job for a counseling professional who most likely have dealt with shy, "loner" students who are reluctant to going to any type of counseling or therapy.

Cho Seung-hui (Wikipedia)

While it could very well be that Cho Seung-Hui chose to not go to counseling because he was very anti-social and very determined to not ask for help, there are some roadblocks preventing students from getting help from their university's psychological care. As was reported in Psychology Today two years ago, many colleges have become more concerned about lawsuits than student health and have resorted to kicking kids off of campus who appear to be a threat (read: depressed/suicidal). Because of high-profile lawsuits involving students who have committed suicide, many colleges feel that depressed or suicidal students are more of a liability than a person in need of help. They send them home where, as the Psychology Today article pointed out, not all students have the support system that a college can provide. Of course, there are cases in which taking a leave from a school would be beneficial for the student and, as more information surfaces about Seung-Hui's past, it seems like he should have been asked to leave the school for a bit, whether for psychological or disciplinary reasons. But the goal, at least in my mind, is that college counseling centers - and any counseling center, really - should be to get a student help before their depression/suicidal behaviors/mania/whatever you want to call it gets out of control, as it obviously did in this catastrophe. On the other end of this argument is the ideology that more lawsuits could result if those students who would normally be asked to leave due to cautionary psychological procedures stay on campus and commit suicide, because the student's families would argue that the school did not do enough to prevent the suicide. This, however, points to the tort-happy culture of America and the anger surrounding a tragedy.

Going through the Facebook groups and scrolling through photos of Virginia Tech students and families grieving, it is obvious that this tragedy is highly emotionally charged. Many may point to my comments about Cho Seung-Hui and be tempted to attack me for defending him. Let's clear up something right now: I am not defending Cho Seung-Hui's actions in any way, shape or form. I am simply saying that he was a disturbed individual who needed help that he never received. Having been an EMT in Boston for over a year, I have seen my fair share of psychologically disturbed patients, many with violent histories. I've found myself in situations in the back of an ambulance only inches away from patients who have threatened their siblings with knives or assaulted friends or family members, and beneath all of the madness and the mental illness and whatever it is that drives these people to hurt others, there is a human being. So while the cowardly acts of Seung-Hui are his and his alone, he was a man who needed help but could not receive it because he was not in the right mind to submit himself to counseling, which he should have done, and the staff of the counseling center were severely limited by the school's rules regarding psychological practices. While it is too late to bring back the 32 people murdered yesterday, along with the gunman, maybe these tragic events will cause some colleges to take a serious look at their psychological procedures, make some changes, and hopefully prevent such a horrible tragedy in the future.

Not the Best of Ideas

As anyone in New England, especially the greater-Boston area, probably knows, Boston is in the midst of quite a spike in the number of homicides in recent years. Boston's city administrators are fully aware of the high crime rates in the city, but the problem seems to be that they have little power to control it. This is very disconcerting, especially for Menino as he was mayor for the majority of the "Boston Miracle," in which murders dropped from 152 in 1990 to 31 in 1999. As many can remember, the crime rate in Boston was a huge issue in the governor's race this past fall and when new police commissioner Edward F. Davis took over the BPD, he promised to lower the crime rates in Boston. Four months later, as crime continues to increase in the city, Davis has come out with a plan for reducing crime on the streets of Boston. While promising innovation and creative ways to battle violent crime, Davis has proposed a rather mundane solution: put more cops on the streets. However, this solution is not as easy as it sounds, as Boston police recruiting numbers are down despite several attempts to boost them. This is where Davis' proposal gets risky.

What Edward Davis wants to do is to take the recruits that are currently in school and have them graduate early so that they can be on the streets before the summer begins, which is a time that crime tends to rise with the temperature. But this is not like graduating from college early - when you get enough credits to graduate before the allotted four years that a typical undergraduate takes to graduate. The police recruits will be graduating early because classes and training will be cut to make sure that they are on the streets, which means that they are less trained than the police already on the streets. Edward Davis is playing with fire here. Remember what happened last time Boston cops were untrained? Additionally, while many have justifiably pointed to racial profiling in numerous cases of police shooting unarmed men in New York, those who defend the cops who kill unarmed men in New York point to, among an array of things, a lack of training. Boston has a very rough past in terms of race relations and putting these recruits out into the streets without all of their training is not a good idea, as the past has shown that a low amount of training can lead to police brutality. With Boston's crime rate so high and the city so volatile, the last thing the police department should be doing is adding fuel to the fire by sending out under-trained cops onto the city's streets. Peace.

Photos - Top: Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis (internet128.com), Bottom: BPD police car (www.freefoto.com)

Emergency at Shea Stadium

Tom Suozzi (Wikipedia)

Monday was a big day for the Mets, as they rallied back late in their home opener to beat Jimmy Rollins, his big mouth, and the Phillies.

But the Mets were not the only ones who enjoyed a good time in Queens Monday, as Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi and his 9 year old son took in the game in a field-level box. Suozzi claims he paid full-price for the tickets and that the Mets had invited him to the game and there is no reason to doubt this. Additionally, there is nothing wrong with taking your son to Opening Day and I actually encourage it to everyone who can afford it, which is a dwindling number recently.

So where does the problem lie? Suozzi's transportation to the game. Did he take the LIRR or the 7 train to the game, like the Mets website advocates? No. Did he drive and pay a ridiculous price to park in the limited parking lots? Negative. He decided that he would have the taxpayers of Nassau County pay his way, as he took not only a county car there, but a detective for a detail, too according to a Newsday article published yesterday.

What was Suozzi's reasoning for needing both a car and a detective? He claimed that he did not make the decision and that he is a high-profile figure who has enemies lurking in the world. So who made the decision for Suozzi? Why, the detective who joined Suozzi and his son to Shea.

To tackle the first point: while people may not like Suozzi (especially after this little incident), a Nassau County Executive has never been assassinated nor assaulted in recent memory. Also, if someone were plotting to assassinate Suozzi, Shea Stadium would be the worst place in the world to do it with cops crawling all over the place, especially on Opening Day.

For the second excuse: of course his detective felt that he needed special protection during the Opening Day of the Mets, because he not only got to go with Suozzi and his son, but also got paid for it. "Oh, but he had to stand," you might say. So what, pay me what the detective got paid to see Opening Day from a field-level box and I'll stand to watch the game. There is no reason that a regular officer already on detail at the stadium could stand behind Suozzi and his kid, protecting them from all of those crazed lunatics who a) know who Tom Suozzi even is and b) dislike him enough to want to physically harm him. A pretty clear waste of taxpayer money.