This is a case that is not going to go away

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

The family of a man who was strangled in police custody after being arrested and accused of killing a police officer is asking for an autopsy. Yes, this case is still ongoing, and is being investigated by the Maryland State Police. And, no, it's not going to go away.

The family of a Prince George's County police officer slaying suspect who died in his jail cell wants to know why it's taking so long to learn the results of his autopsy.

Ronnie White, who was accused of running over a police officer with a stolen truck, was found dead in his cell more than five weeks ago. His death is being investigated by Maryland State Police.

White may have been an unsympathetic and unsavory character, but he was supposed to have his day in court. That's how our system works.

Controversy surrounds the case:

The preliminary report from the state medical examiner's office said White died of asphyxiation and had two broken bones in his neck, indicating that he had been strangled. The investigation became a homicide investigation, but no charges or suspects have been announced.

The medical examiner's office said the final autopsy report would be released in 30 days, but that deadline has passed, and there is no indication when the official determination of the cause and manner of death will be made public.

"The problem here with taking so long with this investigation: It is a disservice to the White family, it is a disservice to the Prince George's County community, it is a disservice to our state, because there are a lot of people who deserve an answer in this particular situation," said Bobby Henry, the lawyer representing White's family.

This issue generated a lot of discussion, most of which was based on the belief that the killer always gets away unless a vigilante who is brave and knows the system is corrupt can deliver "justice." Sound like any movies or TV shows you've seen? Sadly, that's what informs the public.

Over at the old site, if you click over and read the comment threads, there seems to have been a belief that he got what he deserved, the rule of law be damned.

Why do we continue to accept the violence and not fight back? This isn't a black, white, red, or any other problem. It is a humanity problem. It is a hateful world where everyone is entitled to do anything they want without any repercussion. So we'll continue down the road of the law where it matters to you and I. We'll continue letting the criminals thumb their nose to our societal rules. You're right, let's leave our rose colored glasses on and feel good about our law. That will make everything better.

That one part of the comment crystalizes the immature mind's inability to think of the rule of law. I don't think we accept the violence. I think we realize that, but for the grace of God go I. As in, if it was you in that cell, and if you were accused of a crime, you'd certainly prefer having a chance to prove your innocent rather than be strangled until you were dead by a vigilante.

How does that honor the fallen policeman? He deserves to be honored and remembered, and his killer does need to be brought to justice. How we go about that is how we determine whether we're living in a just society.

Here's a case, right here in the news and from the same website, that illustrates what can happen and why we need to remember that our criminal justice system is flawed.

A man convicted of first-degree murder in 1990 was freed from prison this week after his attorneys uncovered new evidence disproving witness testimony, according to the firm Venable LLP and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project at American University Washington College of Law.

Aaron Michael Howard was released Tuesday night. In 1990, he was convicted in the 1988 death of Bobby Parker.

"While I was not responsible for his death, I can only imagine how much pain it caused his family," Howard said in a statement released Thursday. "I extend my deepest sympathies to them."

Had Howard been strangled in his cell in 1990, would we have ever found out the truth? It's bad enough he has spent 18 years in prison. Should he have died as well? And don't get me started on what DNA testing has unraveled. As in, quite a few "airtight" cases.

See, this case isn't really about whether the guy was guilty. It's about letting someone be a vigilante.


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Attorney Pushes the "Suicide" Angle

The Attorney for the guards at the Washington DC jail where Ronnie L. White, the suspect in an incident where he was accused of running over a Laurel, Maryland police officer, claims there was a rush to judgement and that it could have been a "suicide."

An attorney for Prince George's County correctional officers said last night that guards did not kill the inmate who was found unresponsive in his cell last month, and she faulted county officials who she said "rushed to judgment" in labeling the death a homicide.

Clothilda Harvey of the Correctional Officers Association predicted that investigators will either find the cause of death for Ronnie L. White inconclusive or determine that he committed suicide.

"There aren't many possibilities," she said. "Was it a homicide, was it a suicide or was it inconclusive? They did not commit homicide. You will not find that."

The guards, she said, "did nothing wrong."

White, 19, was found with no detectable pulse June 29, two days after he was charged in the slaying of a county police officer, Cpl. Richard S. Findley, 39. Jail officials said at the time that they could not rule out suicide.

The next day, however, the state medical examiner's office preliminarily ruled the death a homicide. At a news conference, county officials said that White, who had two broken bones in his neck, had been strangled and that only guards had access to his cell, where he was held in solitary confinement.

Given that there hasn't been ANY justice whatsoever, I'm betting on "inconclusive," even though the possibility that White strangled himself is, well, ludicrous. It's also possible that the DC guards did not strangle him, but were guilty of looking the other way so that someone else could. Was there anyone from Findley's police department at the jail at the time of the murder?

I guess this is what counts for justice in America. Life is cheap, vigilantes are celebrated, and you better hope and pray you're not the next suspect who finds themselves in the custody of these jailers.

--WS

They Won't Cooperate?

You know, one way NOT to honor the sacrifice of Officer Findley is to let someone get away with killing the man accused of killing him. This isn't 1908, or 1808, or even 1008. This is not something that people should just shrug off--this is something out of the Dark Ages.

Several Prince George's County correctional officers who had access to a 19-year-old inmate found strangled in solitary confinement Sunday have initially declined to speak to investigators of the slaying, a source familiar with the interrogations said.

The Maryland State Police and federal agents were investigating the death of Ronnie L. White, who was killed less than 36 hours after he was booked into the county correctional center on first-degree murder charges in the hit-and-run death Friday of county police Cpl. Richard S. Findley.

It wasn't clear why the correctional officers reportedly declined to answer questions. Sgt. Curtis Knowles, president of the county's correctional officers union, said the union's position is that its members can be interviewed only during work hours and with a union representative or attorney present, unless a criminal investigation is underway.

[SNIP]

Sources close to the investigation, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said county police collected most of the forensic evidence from White's cell Sunday, before state police took over the investigation at the request of county officials. An attorney for White's family called on the Justice Department, which has launched a civil rights probe, to be a partner in the criminal investigation.

"This did not happen on some dark, abandoned, lonely road," Bobby G. Henry Jr., the family's attorney, said at a news conference. "This happened in broad daylight, in the custody of county officials. Everyone who has someone or knows someone who is in the county correctional facility should have a problem with that."

The problem is, the US Justice Department already purged the Civil Rights division--thanks to the efforts of Brad Schlozman.

It is not, however, quite over yet.

Justice Department lawyers have filed a grand-jury referral stemming from the 2006 U.S. attorneys scandal, according to people familiar with the probe, a move indicating that the yearlong investigation may be entering a new phase.

The grand-jury referral, the first time the probe has moved beyond the investigative phase, relates to allegations of political meddling in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, these people say. Specifically, it focuses on possible perjury by Bradley Schlozman, who served a year as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Schlozman left the Justice Department last year after he was challenged over his hiring of conservative lawyers at the civil-rights division and his decision later as U.S. attorney to bring voter-fraud charges against members of a left-leaning voter-registration group days before the 2006 election.

Schlozman, an inept character who’s almost amusing in his clumsiness, has a very serious problem on his hands, which will not only lead to the likely criminal prosecution of a former top official in Bush’s Justice Department, but once again bring into focus how the Bush administration operated.

We are ruled by incompetents and thugs.

--WS

Murdered in Police Custody

Are we still living in America?

The Maryland Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death of a teenager, who was in custody on murder charges in the death of a police officer, was a homicide.

Ronnie Lionel White, 19, of Laurel, died Sunday morning in his jail cell. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Prince George's County police Cpl. Richard Findley. Police said White was the driver of a pickup truck that struck Findley on Friday.

Law enforcement sources said White died of either strangulation or asphyxiation. He had suffered two broken neck bones.

"The surrounding circumstances that we take a full and complete look and pull all the evidence together, and we'll make a decision at the end of that process," said Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn Ivey.

Prince George's County jail spokeswoman Vicki Duncan said White was found unconscious in his cell about 10:30 a.m. Sunday. She said White was alone in his cell and there were no signs of trauma.

White was admitted to the jail at 12:24 a.m. Saturday and given a medical assessment before being placed in a cell.

Jail officials said he had been classified as a "high-profile offender" and was being housed alone in a maximum security cell. Guards checked on him every 30 minutes.

Guards had checked on White about 10:15 a.m. Sunday. At the time, he was sitting on the edge of his bunk and appeared alert, according to a press release.

When they returned at 10:30 a.m. with his lunch, corrections officers found White "sitting on the floor" of his jail cell, unresponsive, the release said.

I have no sympathy for cop killers. I do believe in the rule of law. And the rule of law lost.

--WS

So What Do You Think Happened?

Just curious what people think of this story:

A 19-year-old man charged in the slaying of a Prince George's County police officer has died in custody, police said today.

Ronnie L. White was pronounced dead at Prince George's Hospital after being found unresponsive in his jail cell, according to an internal Prince George's police email and police sources. He was not breathing, and there were no signs of trauma to his body. The cause of death is under investigation.

White had been charged Saturday with first-degree murder in the death on Friday of Cpl. Richard S. Findley. Two men in a pickup believed to be stolen hit Findley in a parking lot near the 14700 block of Laurel-Bowie Road in Laurel.

Findley and other officers from an elite squad had been attempting to box in the suspects when White, who police say was the driver, rammed Findley's cruiser, according to the charges. Findley got out of his cruiser and White hit him, dragging him on the front of the truck, police said. Findley, 39, suffered massive head trauma, and he died a short time later at Laurel Regional Hospital.

White was being held in a single cell at the Prince Georges's Department of Corrections, police said. The internal police email said the county fire department received a call from that facility at 10:38 a.m. requesting assistance for a 20-year-old male who was not breathing. Sources said the email got White's age wrong.

You can leave your guesses in the comment thread. Mine? I'm not telling...

--WS

If you let the fox guard the henhouse, expect a lot of dead chickens everywhere

In case you were wondering, no, you shouldn't let the fox guard the henhouse:

The tax manager charged as the mastermind of the biggest fraud in the District's history helped play a role in designing the agency's computer system while she was allegedly stealing millions of dollars a year, current and former employees said.
Following Harriette Walters's input, officials left her small unit out of the new software system, making it easier for her to escape detection as she allegedly produced fake checks that prosecutors say amounted to $50 million.

Directors in the scandal-plagued tax department now want to scrap the $135 million system rather than try to upgrade it to make it more secure. The chief financial officer's technology manager says the system, installed between 2000 and 2004, is too outdated and clumsy to be worth fixing.

Before her arrest in November, Walters was a 26-year tax employee known among her colleagues as a problem solver with a knack for finding solutions by using the department's antiquated and balky computers or finding a way around them. Although she did not have final say over the new Accenture Integrated Tax System, Walters contributed to the decision that her unit, which handled real estate tax refunds, be left out of it.

Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi has budgeted $10 million for a search for a new program that can process the city's income, business and real estate taxes. The Accenture computer system is not directly to blame for the embezzlement scandals that have racked the agency, officials said. Rather, the fault lies with the decisions of what was left out of it.

"It was the things that were not included that cost us," said Mike Teller, who took over as Gandhi's technology chief in 2005. "The specification did not include things that, in hindsight, should have been included."

Those decisions by officials were made under dire conditions, and with an alleged mole in their midst.

Walters's guidance came at a critical time in setting up the computers, which were designed to help lift District finances from the 1990s nadir of near-bankruptcy.

The convoluted way that the District of Columbia has to govern itself without being an actual "city" with a clear and defined relationship to an entity like the State of Maryland or the State of Virginia between it and the Federal government--or, better yet, actual STATUS as a STATE--means that this kind of thing will continue into perpetuity. Having a state government above it between it and the Feds wouldn't solve every problem, but it is nice when a regulator can pop in from time to time and encourage the city to do things that actually make sense. Like keep the tax manager under some kind of scrutiny. And, you know, audit the finances. And, maybe, just maybe, catch the people who are robbing the city blind. For years on end.

Or not.

--WS