Archive for August 1st, 2014

Vandalism is wrong, m’kay? Don’t do it.

Friday, August 1st, 2014

A day after former Bell Mayor Oscar Hernandez was sentenced to a year in county jail for his role in a public corruption case that nearly left the town bankrupt, the mugshot of Robert Rizzo — the man at the heart of the scandal — was tagged on the walls of his grocery store.

Seriously. Bad tagger. No biscuit.

Obit (sort of) watch: August 1, 2014.

Friday, August 1st, 2014

There’s a nice story in today’s NYT. And I wonder why I’m reading it there, rather than in the Statesman.

Background: Gary Lavergne wrote what is widely considered the definitive book on Charles Whitman, A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders.

Claire Wilson was one of Whitman’s victims. She was walking with her boyfriend, Thomas Eckman, when Whitman shot her in the belly. He then shot and killed Eckman. Ms. Wilson survived, but she was eight months pregnant; Whitman’s bullet killed the baby.

Ms. Wilson (now Ms. Jones) got in touch with Mr. Lavergne after the book was published (he was unable to find her previously) and they became friends. Sometime later, Mr. Lavergne began researching a question, and found the answer last year.

In November 2013, he was preparing the materials from his most recent work, “Before Brown,” a history of Heman Marion Sweatt’s efforts to integrate the university beginning in the 1940s. Mr. Lavergne revisited a database of nearly 23,000 graves at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, where Theophilus S. Painter, the university president of that era, is buried.

The end result is that Ms. Jones now knows where her baby was buried. And the grave has a headstone, paid for by Mr. Lavergne.

Pretty much everyone has acknowledged this, but: Dick Smith. A/V Club.

Flames, hyena, etc. (#17 in a series)

Friday, August 1st, 2014

Last man down.

Victor Bello, former city council member for the notoriously corrupt California city of Bell, was sentenced today for his role in the corruption scandal.

One year in jail, five years probation, 500 hours of community service, and $177,000 in restitution.

The prosecution was asking for the standard four years. Bello is sort of an exception, though:

Bello’s case was unique among the former council members because he alone had approached district attorney’s investigators about financial irregularities in the small city months before The Times exposed the size of the paychecks the town’s leaders were drawing.
Bello had written a letter on May 6, 2009, to the Los Angeles County district attorney with allegations of misconduct in Bell but was not interviewed until 10 1/2 months later.

So it’s at least kind of arguable that he was the rat in the case, and may deserve a light sentence more than the other guys…