Jimmy Breslin once wrote a book about a New York organized crime family, called The Gang That Coulnldn't Shoot Straight.
The political machine in St. Johns County and Northeast Florida is in the national spotlight -- New York Times, PBS Frontline, CNN, NBC Dateline -- a slow-moving, slow-thinking anaconda "caught in the headlights" (no deer here).
Our political machine is being watched worldwide. Why? Due to its loutish lawmen's mendacious mishandling of the September 2, 2010 shooting of Ms. Michelle O'Connell, the girlfriend of St. Johns County Sheriff's Deputy JEREMY BANKS. That investigation was botched by St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID BERNARD SHOAR, State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA, State's Attorney BRADLEY KING, and Medical Examiner PREDRAG BULIC.
Now we learn that yet another law enforcement officer's criminal investigation may have been botched by RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA, State's Attorney for the 7th Judicial District.
On July 20, 2012, 642 days ago -- more than 20 months ago -- Ms. Kathy McDonald, wife of Flagler Beach police officer Robert McDonald, was found shot in the temple.
She survived.
She is blind for life.
She lives in a Daytona Beach rehabilitation center.
Her husband has moved to East Tennessee.
Yesterday's Daytona Beach News-Journal (March 23, 2014) reported on the case, under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
This is yet another case from which RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA did not recuse himself, despite the fact that the officer in quo is one whose cases his office prosecutes. LARIZZA recused himself from the Michelle O'Connell case only after months of fiddling.
State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA needs to hire a criminal defense lawyer. NOW.
RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA must answer for his desuetude of law enforcement. NOW.
RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA famously ducked and refused to answer questions from The New York Times and PBS Frontline.
RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA must now answer questions -- or invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination -- before a Federal Grand Jury under questioning by the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and Criminal Division. So must Sheriff DAVID BERNARD SHOAR, State's Attorney KING and PREDRAG BULIC -- for their mishandling of the Michelle O'Connell case.
RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA also needs to answer for his delays in the McDonald case -- a slow speed chase for 642 days -- 20 months?
Failure to charge the husband with the shooting when the wife told the Daytona Beach newspaper that she was shot while doing laundry? Why?
Taking his word for it that it was an attempted suicide? Why?
The Daytona Beach newspaper interviewed the victim, Ms. MdDonald who said she was shot while doing laundry. Why was she not allowed to testify before a grand jury?
Her husband, Robert McDonald, now lives in Tennessee, having been paid while on leave and is now retired. The Daytona Beach newspaper reports he was fired from another police department and involved in alleged prior domestic violence cases elsewhere, and quotes a former spouse about his pulling a knife on her.
Michelle O'Connell is dead. Kathy McDonald is blind for life, lying in a nursing home in Daytona Beach. RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA thinks he and officers are above the law.
It strongly appears that our dodgy -- and apparently ineffectual, incompetent and perhaps sexist and misogynistic -- State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA delays and delays and delays when a police officer may be involved in domestic violence.
A former law enforcement officer, LARIZZA was elected with law enforcement support.
RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA's office won't prosecute official government misconduct cases.
I asked for a list last year of any such cases it ever brought: none were provided.
Is RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA's office truly "the gang that couldn't shoot straight," ignoring the sacred American legal motto carved in marble on the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.: "Equal Justice Under Law?"
Our one-party political machine here in Northeast Florida does not respect human rights. It works for developers -- "Temple Destroyers" who have clear-cut trees and destroyed wetlands in the name of greed.
In 2008, RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA and members of his law office performed at St. Augustine High School in "St Johns Got Talent," a benefit performance. They dressed in police uniforms, as they lyp-synced to the song, "Bad to the Bone." At the conclusion of the song, LARIZZA jumped from the stage, winning the contest, but breaking his leg. RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA was elected State's Attorney later that year, and was re-elected in 2012.
Our "Bad to the Bone" St. Johns County and regional political machine reflexively covers up crimes. St. Johns County was long considered the most corrupt county in Florida, under political bosses and caudillos like Sheriff LAWRENCE O. DAVIS.
Our "Bad to the Bone" political machine has no heart and no soul --it worships money, power and greed -- it is a stench in the nostrils of the Nation.
Alexander Hamilton wrote: "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parcmens or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity himself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Will there be justice for Michelle O'Connell?
Will there be justice for Kathy McDonald?
Will there be justice, and a Ddepartment of Justice investigation?
Will U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder immpanel a federal grand jury?
The whole world is watching.
What do you reckon?
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
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