Saint Augustine wrote, “An unjust law is no law at all.” The Times/PBS Frontline investigation shows two unjust elected lawmen's callous indifference to domestic violence here in Saint Augustine's Florida namesake.
This is a beautiful place that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called America's “most lawless” city.
America began in St. Augustine, Florida September 8, 1565 with 800 colonizers, with America's first Hispanics, first Catholics, first Jews and first African-Americans sharing Mass and a Thanksgiving feast with Native Americans. St. Augustine was a diverse and tolerant place long before witch-burning English colonists landed. We're welcoming the world to commemorate our 450th anniversary in 2015.
For 448 years, St. Augustine has survived – overcoming European religious wars on our shores, as well as genocide, sieges, arson (twice burned to the ground by the British), pirates, slavery, indentured servitude, Civil War, lynchings, KKK, Jim Crow segregation, mass arrests, hate crimes, mosquitoes, hurricanes, economic hard times, First Amendment violations, illegal dumping and environmental racism (refusal to provide sewer service to an African-American neighborhood and illegal dumping of 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir).
Our ancient City is now healing ancient wounds, righting wrongs.
I reckon St. Augustine and St. Johns County will also survive Sheriff David Shoar, State's Attorney R.J. Larizza and their coverups, just as America survived Richard Nixon.
As Justice Brandeis said, official lawbreaking “promotes disrespect for the law, and anarchy.” As a fourteen-year St. Augustine resident, I offer twelve reforms inspired by the O'Connell case:
We need more women Sheriffs. Male-dominated law enforcement culture covers up officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV).
We need early detection/deterrence of OIDV. Victims of OIDV are afraid, very afraid, to report concerns to the colleagues of their spouses.
We must enforce evidence preservation, recusal and conflict of interest standards and whistleblower protections for law enforcement officers .
Investigative reporting. Only the Times reported the whole truth about a 2010 shooting of a deputy's girlfriend, dedicating time and talent. We need more investigative reporting by local newspapers.
Ombuds. Our local governments need Ombuds to advocate for citizens' concerns. People without influence (like the O'Connell family) too often get ignored and bullied.
Inspectors General. Our local governments need independent Inspectors General to ferret out misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance, waste, fraud and abuse.
Competitive elections. Our St. Johns County Democratic Party has not run a Democrat in a partisan county-wide race since 2006. In his first election in 2004, corporations backed Shoar with $250,000, more than $1 for each county resident. Sheriff Shoar has never had a Democratic opponents and ran unopposed in 2008 and 2012.
Grand Jury. In 2008, Florida Governor Charles Crist asked the Supreme Court to appoint our nineteenth Statewide Grand Jury, but the statewide prosecutor ignored requests to investigate St. Johns County corruption.
County government oversight. Southern Sheriffs are political bosses.. Poltroonish County Commissioners coddle them. County Commissioners must do their job, without favoritism or fear.
Public protest. Decisions get made by those who “show up.”
Minimum age of 25 years old for police officers. That's what Chicago and New Zealand require. Deputy Jeremy Banks was apparently hired at age 20 – not old enough to drink alcohol.
Sheriff Selection. Elected sheriffs originated some 1000 years ago, in medieval England. As Justice Holmes said it's “disgusting” to have no “better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down at the time of Henry IV.” Reforms must be debated.
In 1898, Emile Zola's “J'Accuse” exposed the French Army's false treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, imprisoned on Devil's Island. Dreyfus was exonerated and freed.
In 2013, the Michelle McConnell case likewise documents government duplicity. As Chief Justice Warren wrote in 1956 in Mesarosh v. United States, “the waters of justice” in this “reservoir” are “polluted” and must be cleaned up. Federal investigation is required: Sheriff Shoar sent his false, misleading 150-page report to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, possibly a federal crime.
As LBJ told Congress after Selma, “We SHALL overcome.”
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
Ed, thanks for your courageous stance of speaking out clearly and boldly against the corruption and coverup surrounding this issue and for keeping it at the forefront of the public psyche.
ReplyDeleteI applaud your offered reform package — all of the issues you suggest do indeed need open and fair debate with resultant reform action taken — but only one of your proffered offerings, “public protest”, is at the present time a viable offering. The problem is that the entrenched system is so corrupt that on other than a few token issues people do not have any CONTROL OF POLICY. The electoral process is a blatant energy dissipating scam that insures the continuation of the NON RESPONSIVE TO THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE status quo.
Organizing that peaceful protest should be the focus of all who believe that Jeremy Banks is a murderer, or at a minimum, that the entire issue should be given over to a grand jury review and the systemic corruption that allowed these deceptive machinations to take place should also be addressed. Let me say publicly that given the overwhelming evidence submitted by Frontline and the NY Times, and my own personal past experience with the corrupt City of Saint Augustine government (which spawned, nurtured, and promoted opportunist David Shore in order to retain its iron grip on the city), lead me to the conclusion that Jeremy Banks is a murderer. I am not alone in my thinking, many other residents that I have talked to feel the same way. The good news, if there can be any in this sad issue, is that people are now speaking out publicly and expressing complete lack of trust in Saint John’s County law enforcement. It would behoove the good apple cops to clean out the rotten barrel, the public is clearly on your side.
NOT on the good cops and the public’s side, and conspicuously absent in condemning the gross Xtrevilism here, is the local business community and its media. In fact, the few milk toast articles that they have produced in response to the public outrage are classic lies of omission yellow journalism meant only to instill more confusion and fear in the public’s mind.
What ‘jumps off the page’ here is the need for a truth telling local people’s media, to keep this issue alive and promote and organize peaceful positive change. Folio Weekly once partly fulfilled that role but its new ownership has turned into an open sewer of corporate love. Come on people, get organized.
OH WHAT A TERRIBLE WEB WE WEAVE...
The Ben Rich letter (posted below) entitled “The Storm on The Horizon” speaks volumes about another method in which the status quo is maintained.
Ben Rich, in true lawyerly fashion, right up front obliquely and timidly sets aside his feelings on the “death” (not murder, not suicide, just a “death”) of Michelle O’Connell and instead focuses on the negative “exposure” and thereby clearly establishes that he is speaking to the elite of the merchant class that elects the politicians like himself.
His concern is that the exposure will damage our “struggling tourist industry” and could possibly lead to “federal authorities” taking notice and “other exposed skeletons” could get us into a bigger mess. He then goes on to to claim ““I can feel your pain.” I can, and it hurts, badly.”
Ben also states his credentials as a long time government pol and thereby, not so transparently, offers up his service for remedial action.
The point here is that Ben Rich is addressing his appeal to the same crooked foxes that created David Shoar and benefited greatly from that creation. In doing so; he validates them as the proper ‘legal’ agents for change (they are not), he suggests that he can control the issue in the same old established corrupt ‘rule of law’ system, and at the same time he deflects from the far more fair court of public opinion now in session by declining to “express my feelings” on the matter of the death.
Where was Ben Rich when David Shoar was created, formed, shaped and trained for confiscatory service by the gangsters that run America's “most lawless” city?
Stop hiding behind a blog. What kind oof people live down there. Don't talk about it, be about it!
ReplyDelete