It's been one year since Andrew Mitchell murdered Donna Dalton. He was a Vice officer, working alone, got her in his car, parked it with the passenger side door to a wall and the child safety locks on, and killed her. The Mockingbird has been following this case since the first day.
Police have a term for murdered sex workers. The term is “Less than Dead.” This is the literal station house and locker room phrase and has also been used to describe the level of zeal when a crime is committed against sex workers. It was not suprising hearing those words echo from the bushes in Upper Arlington this morning. Viewing this latest case, and the context and the official reaction makes the echos loud.
This summer has been a public relations nightmare for the Columbus Police. It is hard to get the public to believe that you are doing good things when your number one copsplainer is in jail awaiting trial on multiple child pornography charges. Seriously uncomfortable questions might be asked if they promote the 2nd shift Special Victims Unit Sgt Terry McConnell who pays minors for sex, or maybe not.
Led by the People's Justice Partnership and relatives of Henry Green and Tyre King nearly 200 people took over City Council Chambers during their weekly meeting to demand justice. City Authorities had prepared new roadblocks to public participation for the event including requiring photo identification to enter the building and extra police on hand. New rules were in place limiting the total number of people permitted to attend the meeting to fewer than the total number of seats in Council Chambers.
On July 14 a forum on police community relations was held at the New Birth Christian Ministries on Refugee Road. The turnout, which included City Council Staffers and off duty police was less than half the size of recent local protests against police murder. There was a panel discussion which included a Westerville police department representative, City Council President Zach Klein, three representatives of the Columbus Police Department and Civil Rights Attorney Sean Walton.
“We do not come to this plaza to mourn where he fell, we come to you, we return to the living. There were others before him remember? Yes, you remember. But then the blood was hidden, it was so far. The South's rain washed it from the Earth, far far away. The People's death was as it has always been, as if no-one had died, nothing. As if they were stones falling to the Earth.