Archive for May 15th, 2018

It’s Baltimore, gentlemen.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

The gods will not save your job as police commissioner.

The commissioner, Darryl De Sousa, 53, a career Baltimore officer, had been in the post for just four months. He resigned after being charged by federal prosecutors in Maryland with willfully failing to file income tax returns for 2013, 2014 and 2015. The charges are misdemeanors, with a maximum sentence of up to one year in prison and a $25,000 fine for each of the three counts.

Commissioner De Sousa was the third commissioner in three years. The previous two were both fired.

Posted in Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Bring me my extinguisher of burning hyenas…

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

The felony invasion of privacy charges against Missouri governor Eric Greitens were dropped on Monday. In the middle of jury selection, no less.

(Previously on WCD.)

It sounds like the case had become a freaking mess. The supposed photo that kicked off the case hasn’t been found, the victim is reluctant to testify, the judge disqualified some of the expert witnesses the prosecution planned to call, and the defense was apparently planning to call the prosecutor who filed the charges as a witness.

But don’t throw away the popcorn yet:

Mr. Greitens, only a year and a half into his first term in office, remains entangled in a legal and political thicket, and his future remains very much in doubt. A second felony charge, of tampering with computer data, awaits; prosecutors contend that he illegally obtained a donor list from a veterans’ charity he founded and used it for his 2016 campaign. And he faces a looming threat to his governorship from the Missouri General Assembly, which has scheduled a special session on Friday that could lead to a vote on impeachment.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Bonfire of the obituaries.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

I’ll wait until tomorrow to post the Tom Wolfe obits. I think it’s better to give these things a chance to shake out, at least overnight. And I expect some thoughtful retrospectives and corrections to the initial press coverage.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch (and other things): May 15, 2018.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

I decided to put the Margo Kidder obits here: NYT. WP.

Adam Parfrey, publisher of weird stuff under the Amok Press and Feral House imprints.

My feelings about baseball in general, and the New York Yankees specifically, are well known. But this is a nice story:

For the past three years, the Yankees have been quietly sending flowers to the families and police departments of slain law enforcement officers across the country.

…

While the flowers usually arrive without warning or explanation beyond the message on the card, the gesture can elicit strong emotions. In Fargo, when Officer Jason Moszer was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2016, his 11-year-old stepson, Dillan Dahl, was devastated. When the flowers from the Yankees arrived, Dillan took them to his room and watered them, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible, said his father, Tim Dahl.
“It was the first time he smiled in days,” Dahl said.

This is a good story, too, and one I didn’t have time to blog on Sunday:

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, Religion, Sports | Comments Closed