Anniversaries and aftershocks
"We have all heard about "sick building syndrome," but the 9/11 contamination brings this syndrome to a whole new level."
---Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News Service
"If the government had said we're not sure about the safety of the air and it would be prudent for residents to stay away, I don't think I would have this cancer. I dearly hope that I am in a small minority of people who were so gravely harmed by the aftermath of the WTC attacks, but I fear otherwise."
---The late Etta Wise, who died of lung cancer, in an essay written for the Tribeca Tribune.
Yesterday was 9-11, the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place in New York City, Washington, D.C. and in the airspace over Ohio.
Flags were at half-mast and activities were held to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks. Then just as it was in 2001, came the days after. The days, weeks and months that pass between anniversaries and memorials. The days when people die or are struggling for life as a result of having been exposed to 9-11.
Deborah Reeves, who worked as a paramedic at the epicenter of what had been the World Trade Center did not live to see this anniversary. She died in 2006 at the age of 41, after suffering from what was diagnosed as Mesothelioma a form of lung cancer that was directly linked to exposure to toxic substances namely asbestos during her eight months spent working at the site helping the medical examiners identify body parts.
(excerpt)
Despite her heroics at Ground Zero, Paramedic Reeve, who worked at Station 20 at Jacobi Hospital, had to spend a year fighting the city for disability benefits. After her Workers’ Compensation claim was rejected, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System made Reeve the first city worker to get a line-of-duty-injury disability pension under the new 9/11 disability law, but she did not live long enough to receive a check.
“This should not be happening,” said Bahnken. “She should have been treated like the hero that she was. And it’s happening not only to our members, but also to construction workers and everybody that worked down there."
The Public Employees Press wrote this article about her and about other members of the Local 2507, three in all, who died from illnesses suffered as a result of the time spent working at Ground Zero. Two emergency medical technicians also died from lung diseases.
Last week, two New York City Police Department officers died of lung cancer, according to the New York Post.
(excerpt)
Officer Frank Macari, 51, died on Monday, after a five-year battle with the disease.
Macari, a 13-year veteran of the force assigned to Brooklyn, developed a tumor on his leg in December 2001, after working at Ground Zero. He leaves a wife and stepdaughter.
Officer Madeline Caro, 41, a 16-year veteran, succumbed to lung cancer in July. Carlo, assigned to the South Bronx, also spent days at the World Trade Center site. She leaves a son and daughter.
In the wake of these deaths and others, out of the 34,000 police officers who responded to the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks, only about 1/3 of them have been screened for medical problems as a result to exposure to environmental toxins, according to the New York Sun.
This article in the Village Voice tries to sift through all the information about diseases related to exposure to environmental toxins including lead, asbestos, burning jet fuel and other chemicals.
Here's some numbers cited in the article.
Number of primary responders at WTC: 40,000
Number of employees exposed to environmental toxins: 410,000
Deaths attributed to toxic dust cloud: 12 +
Number of FDNY firefighters retired: 600
Percentage of FDNY firefighters with asthma or reactive airway dysfunction: 25%
Number of FDNY firefighters with sarcoidosis: 26(half of these diagnosed within the first year post-9-11)
Number of police officers who have filed disability claims: 3,000 +
Number of those claims approved by NYPD: 116
Deaths according to a WTC Fatality Study: 170
A large study done by Mt. Sinai Medical Center determined that the respiratory illnesses impacting individuals who worked at Ground Zero after 9-11 was much larger than previously believed. About 70% of the 10,000 workers tested suffered respiratory illnesses that either began after 9-11 or worsened.
The New England Journal of Medicine released a study showing that people exposed to toxic dust at Ground Zero could be at a higher risk of getting certain blood cancers.
One of those already sick is Retired firefighter Lee Ielpi who spent months working at the WTC site hoping to find his son, a firefighter who had perished there. He now has a rare blood cancer, and is one of at least 100 workers to have become sick with similar cancers since 2001.
There are believed to be three stages of illnesses after 9-11 found in workers.
1) A chronic cough known as "World Trade Center Cough"
2) Chronic respiratory illnesses which cause permanent and progressive damage.
3) Cancers of the lung, blood and lymphatic systems and possibly other forms.
Other serious medical conditions, some quite rare are manifesting themselves as well.
(excerpt, WCBS-TV article)
Dr. Robin Herbert, the co-director of Mount Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, described the latest findings in an online audio interview.
"We know we have a handful of cases of multiple myeloma in very young individuals. And multiple myelomas usually present later in life. And that's the odd, unusual and troubling finding we're seeing already," Herbert said.
(excerpt)
New York City's health department released guidelines on how to treat respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases and post-traumatic stress disorder.
This article from Columbia Journalism Review details the battles between the New York Daily News and current New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to provide assistance for primary responders who were suffering from respiratory illnesses and other medical conditions after exposure to toxins after 9-11.
(excerpt)
According to Arthur Browne, the Daily News’s editorial page editor, the seeds for the campaign were planted back in January when the paper began investigating the issue after several first-responders died from respiratory diseases. Since 9/11 an estimated 12,000 people have reported lung-related health problems and a handful have died as a direct result.
In January, the Daily News published an editorial demanding an investigation into first-responder deaths due to respiratory illness. It followed up in February with another editorial calling for the city’s health department “to report publicly on patterns of illness, to analyze autopsies performed on first-responders who die … and to issue advisories to physicians about the best treatments for various ailments.” Despite these editorials, as well as pieces in the New York Post, the Village Voice, and the New York Times (subscription required), both the city and state governments continued to ignore the issue.
“It was clear that little or nothing was being done,” says Browne. “The more we reported, the more we saw how seriously people’s lives had been affected and how poorly government had responded.”
Democracy Now includes a transcript of a radio show done a year ago addressing illnesses suffered after 9-11 both among first responders and community members in close proximity to Ground Zero.
Firefighter Blog remembers 9-11.
After all, for many it's 9-11 every day of the year especially those suffering from related illnesses. And still, the leaders of this county who put their flags at half-mast and hold events commemorating anniversaries of this tragic moment in our nation's history remain slow to act in the face of another ongoing crisis.
Tasers have been hitting the headlines a lot lately, as the debate over their use continues in many different cities and states.
According to the Appleton Post-Crescent, physicians and police officers are at an impasse when it comes to the issue of "Excited Delirium", which has been labeled the cause of death on quite a few coroners' reports of individuals who died in police custody, often after being shocked by a stun gun.
Police experts believe one way.
(excerpt)
What excited delirium is, is a condition where a person gets a massive dose of adrenaline pumped into their body because their sympathetic nervous system is aroused," said Lt. Dave Nickels of the Appleton Police Department, who trains Fox Valley officers on how to recognize excited delirium.
Those affected quickly become extremely violent and paranoid and often act in bizarre ways, like attacking glass, Nickels said. The condition, which is usually spurred by chronic use of stimulant drugs or a mental illness, also brings "incredible strength and endurance."
"Their body does not seem to have the shut-off mechanism. That adrenaline dump and that superhuman strength just continue. It doesn't stop," Nickels said.
Without medical attention — and a sedative to calm them down — they usually die, Nickels said.
Some physicians interviewed for the article had a different definition.
(excerpt)
"Excited delirium is not a term that is recognized, so (in the case of) nonmedical people who use the term, it's very difficult to determine exactly what they mean," said Dr. William Narrow, associate director of the division of research at the American Psychiatric Association.
The American Medical Association, whose Web site returns no search results for the term excited delirium, defers to Narrow's opinion, said spokeswoman Lisa Bevilacqua.
Excited delirium may well exist but falls short of a medical explanation for a death, said Dr. Michael A. Williams, chairman of the ethics committee for the American Academy of Neurology and medical director of the LifeBridge Brain and Spine Institute in Baltimore.
What police officers and coroners are describing as excited delirium seems to be a syndrome, he said.
"A syndrome is just a collection of symptoms," he said. "A syndrome describes symptoms of behaviors or a typical series of events ... that seem to be consistent among a certain group of people.
Perhaps in part due to the continuing debate about the existence of "Excited Delirium", professional organizations are taking steps to track fatal incidents involving tasers.
The debate over this syndrome as some call it is pretty heated in Maryland which has seen five taser related deaths this year, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Some people say that more studies are needed to determine the safety of the "non-lethal" device.
(excerpt)
“The Taser may be an excellent tool, but the problem is that there has been no volume of independent research and its effect on people,” said Sheldon Greenberg, associate dean of the Division of Public Safety Leadership at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education. “All the research about the safety of Tasers has been vendor driven.”
Of particular concern to Greenberg is the use of Tasers not only by officers, but on them.
“I’m very concerned about the fact that police academies allow recruits to shoot one another with a Taser as part of their training,” he said. “I have a brother who is a police officer, and I don’t want 50,000 volts going through him until there is a body of knowledge that tells me they’re safe.”
The San Francisco Examiner published an article about the National Association of Medical Examiners establishing a nationwide database of fatalities related to these incidents. Coroners expressed frustration at what some of them have said is outside pressure not to include taser use as a cause of death in autopsy reports.
(excerpt)
“It’s just an effort to look at case reports, newspaper stories, whatever is out there and try to formulate some opinions as to what we need to do,” said Dr. Randy Hanzlick, chief medical examiner in Fulton County, Ga., and one of the database’s primary architects. “There are so many factors involved in some of these deaths — usually there is another explanation, but to cast off all doubts doesn’t make sense.”
The reluctance of some coroners to rule the devices as either the primary or contributing factor in deaths can be attributed in part to the threat of lawsuits, Hanzlick said.
“There have been direct statements at our meeting by the manufacturers: ‘You put that on the death certificate, and the company will sue you,’ ” he said.
Taser International, the predominant manufacturer of stun guns, did not dispute Hanzlick’s claims.
“We have held and will continue to hold medical examiners responsible for any untrue statements,” company spokesman Steve Tuttle said.
So is the company who sells the devices essentially controlling what the coroners and medical examiners place on their autopsy reports? And would any medical examiner who listed the taser as a primary or secondary factor in an individual's death be slapped with a law suit?
Pittsburgh's city council met to hear testimony given in relation to the issue of domestic violence in the police department. The special meeting took place after a huge outcry on the police chief's decision to promote three officers with histories of domestic violence allegations
(excerpt)
"Do we really want to go on record as being the city that condones, and advances the careers of, police who are domestic batterers?" asked Jeanne Clark, of the National Organization for Women. "You, frankly, are sitting on a time bomb."
Chief Nate Harper announced some changes that would be made within the next 45 days.
These include the following.
Thorough internal investigations of all family violence allegations against officers.
Involvement of his office in the handling of all such charges.
Disciplinary action when warranted.
More thorough background checks and polygraph testing of new recruits.
Better nonviolence training.
Bad news for Detroit's mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, when a jury awarded two fired police officers a $6.5 million verdict because it had determined that the Whistle blower Protection Act was violated, according to the Associated Press.
Yes, sometimes corruption in higher office does cost. Unfortunately, it will be the taxpayers who will be paying the bill, although violating a state law defending whistle blowers from retaliation is a serious offense of public trust.
(excerpt)
Michael Stefani, the plaintiff's attorney, said the jury sent the right message.
"The jury did what I asked - they put the blame on the mayor," he said.
Gary Brown claimed he was fired in 2003 because he was looking into allegations of drunken-driving accidents, falsified overtime records and a possible cover-up of incidents involving members of the security unit. He said he also was investigating claims from two former mayoral bodyguards that the mayor used his bodyguards to facilitate and cover up extramarital affairs.
Harold Nelthrope said he sued after Kilpatrick's administration released a confidential police memo naming him as a source of allegations of misconduct by other bodyguards.
Nelthrope said he was transferred out of the security detail and ultimately couldn't return to work out of fear for his safety and that of his family.
He described escorting the mayor to trysts with Christine Beatty, Kilpatrick's chief of staff, and other women. Kilpatrick, a married father of three, and Beatty denied the allegations in court.
Back home in River City, the city council held a workshop to discuss what the electric rates charged to consumers should be in light of the recent vote to revoke a previously approved multi-tier rate structure.
Most of the people who appeared and spoke at the workshop were business owners who feared the impact that the rate increases would have on them. Still, it looks like the repeal of the rates is but a brief reprieve.
(excerpt)
The best way for Riverside Public Utilities to slash its energy costs is to get the biggest residential users to cut back on their consumption, Wright said.
The council agreed that the concept of a tiered rate structure made sense, but members could not agree on how many tiers would be best.
The higher rates were passed by the city council last December. Don't be surprised say some cynical people if the city government celebrates the anniversary of that raise by voting in another rate hike.
More election forums in Riverside, from Belo Blog.
City Council runoff candidates get forums
The League of Women Voters of Northwest Riverside County is planning candidate forums this month for the four runoff elections for Riverside City Council.
The forums for the races for Wards 1 and 3 will take place on Monday at the Main Library downtown, 3581 Mission Inn Ave.
The Ward 1 forum with incumbent Councilman Dom Betro and challenger Mike Gardner will be at 6:30 p.m. The Ward 3 forum with incumbent Councilman Art Gage and challenger Rusty Bailey will be at 7:30 p.m.
The forums for the races for Wards 5 and 7 will take place on Sept. 19 at the La Sierra Library, 4600 La Sierra Ave.
The Ward 5 forum between Chris MacArthur and Donna Doty Michalka will be at 6:30 p.m. The Ward 7 forum between incumbent Councilman Steve Adams and challenger Terry Frizzel will be at 7:30 p.m.
--Doug Haberman
dhaberman@PE.com
Attend them if you can or at least the one impacting your ward. They are free and can be very educational.
Last night's city council meeting wasn't the shortest on record but they were intent on vacating the building by 7:30 p.m. because one of them had to get somewhere. It checked in at a crisp 45 minutes.
The consent calendar item on the University Avenue Charrette was pulled and will be heard in the discussion calendar in two or three weeks. Individuals including City Councilman Andrew Melendrez were surprised or even shocked at some of the recommendations put forth by the combined efforts of the University of California, Riverside and the city's Development Department.
Here is the city's report on that agenda item.
Some residents of the Eastside said that the plan presented differs greatly from what was presented to the community and the only aspect of it which appears to address the Eastside's residents is the component that has its children cleaning up the area. Besides the obvious issue of having Eastside children do that work for a project that largely benefits UCR students, there was some concern that labor laws might be violated.
Councilman Art Gage said that his voting process in the latest appointment of a commissioner to the Community Police Review Commission. He said that he admired latest appointment, Chani Beeman's knowledge and experiences, but that he was adament in his opposition of voting people on the CPRC with ties to law enforcement in general and the Riverside Police Department in particular. He said he hadn't even known that Beeman's son was a police officer in Riverside until near the end of her first interview back in March. He added that he might not be a fan of the CPRC and he's certainly shown that, but he did say that as long as it existed, there needed to be commissioners on there that the community could see as truly unbiased and not tied to law enforcement or the police department.
He was also concerned about how her son would be treated by other officers because of decisions his mother had made or that her appointment would make things difficult for him, even as he admires the police officers in the department a great deal.
More intrigue on As the County Turns here. Never a dull moment. And given that Riverside, the city is morphing into the mini-me of Riverside County, several sobering moments as well.
More aftershocks of the Lake Elsinore 4.7 earthquake continue to shake the region. In terms of the "big one", seismologists had this to say.
(excerpt)
"With all of these large faults in that region, you can't say when a major earthquake will happen. It could happen tomorrow."
---Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News Service
"If the government had said we're not sure about the safety of the air and it would be prudent for residents to stay away, I don't think I would have this cancer. I dearly hope that I am in a small minority of people who were so gravely harmed by the aftermath of the WTC attacks, but I fear otherwise."
---The late Etta Wise, who died of lung cancer, in an essay written for the Tribeca Tribune.
Yesterday was 9-11, the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place in New York City, Washington, D.C. and in the airspace over Ohio.
Flags were at half-mast and activities were held to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks. Then just as it was in 2001, came the days after. The days, weeks and months that pass between anniversaries and memorials. The days when people die or are struggling for life as a result of having been exposed to 9-11.
Deborah Reeves, who worked as a paramedic at the epicenter of what had been the World Trade Center did not live to see this anniversary. She died in 2006 at the age of 41, after suffering from what was diagnosed as Mesothelioma a form of lung cancer that was directly linked to exposure to toxic substances namely asbestos during her eight months spent working at the site helping the medical examiners identify body parts.
(excerpt)
Despite her heroics at Ground Zero, Paramedic Reeve, who worked at Station 20 at Jacobi Hospital, had to spend a year fighting the city for disability benefits. After her Workers’ Compensation claim was rejected, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System made Reeve the first city worker to get a line-of-duty-injury disability pension under the new 9/11 disability law, but she did not live long enough to receive a check.
“This should not be happening,” said Bahnken. “She should have been treated like the hero that she was. And it’s happening not only to our members, but also to construction workers and everybody that worked down there."
The Public Employees Press wrote this article about her and about other members of the Local 2507, three in all, who died from illnesses suffered as a result of the time spent working at Ground Zero. Two emergency medical technicians also died from lung diseases.
Last week, two New York City Police Department officers died of lung cancer, according to the New York Post.
(excerpt)
Officer Frank Macari, 51, died on Monday, after a five-year battle with the disease.
Macari, a 13-year veteran of the force assigned to Brooklyn, developed a tumor on his leg in December 2001, after working at Ground Zero. He leaves a wife and stepdaughter.
Officer Madeline Caro, 41, a 16-year veteran, succumbed to lung cancer in July. Carlo, assigned to the South Bronx, also spent days at the World Trade Center site. She leaves a son and daughter.
In the wake of these deaths and others, out of the 34,000 police officers who responded to the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks, only about 1/3 of them have been screened for medical problems as a result to exposure to environmental toxins, according to the New York Sun.
This article in the Village Voice tries to sift through all the information about diseases related to exposure to environmental toxins including lead, asbestos, burning jet fuel and other chemicals.
Here's some numbers cited in the article.
Number of primary responders at WTC: 40,000
Number of employees exposed to environmental toxins: 410,000
Deaths attributed to toxic dust cloud: 12 +
Number of FDNY firefighters retired: 600
Percentage of FDNY firefighters with asthma or reactive airway dysfunction: 25%
Number of FDNY firefighters with sarcoidosis: 26(half of these diagnosed within the first year post-9-11)
Number of police officers who have filed disability claims: 3,000 +
Number of those claims approved by NYPD: 116
Deaths according to a WTC Fatality Study: 170
A large study done by Mt. Sinai Medical Center determined that the respiratory illnesses impacting individuals who worked at Ground Zero after 9-11 was much larger than previously believed. About 70% of the 10,000 workers tested suffered respiratory illnesses that either began after 9-11 or worsened.
The New England Journal of Medicine released a study showing that people exposed to toxic dust at Ground Zero could be at a higher risk of getting certain blood cancers.
One of those already sick is Retired firefighter Lee Ielpi who spent months working at the WTC site hoping to find his son, a firefighter who had perished there. He now has a rare blood cancer, and is one of at least 100 workers to have become sick with similar cancers since 2001.
There are believed to be three stages of illnesses after 9-11 found in workers.
1) A chronic cough known as "World Trade Center Cough"
2) Chronic respiratory illnesses which cause permanent and progressive damage.
3) Cancers of the lung, blood and lymphatic systems and possibly other forms.
Other serious medical conditions, some quite rare are manifesting themselves as well.
(excerpt, WCBS-TV article)
Dr. Robin Herbert, the co-director of Mount Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, described the latest findings in an online audio interview.
"We know we have a handful of cases of multiple myeloma in very young individuals. And multiple myelomas usually present later in life. And that's the odd, unusual and troubling finding we're seeing already," Herbert said.
(excerpt)
New York City's health department released guidelines on how to treat respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases and post-traumatic stress disorder.
This article from Columbia Journalism Review details the battles between the New York Daily News and current New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to provide assistance for primary responders who were suffering from respiratory illnesses and other medical conditions after exposure to toxins after 9-11.
(excerpt)
According to Arthur Browne, the Daily News’s editorial page editor, the seeds for the campaign were planted back in January when the paper began investigating the issue after several first-responders died from respiratory diseases. Since 9/11 an estimated 12,000 people have reported lung-related health problems and a handful have died as a direct result.
In January, the Daily News published an editorial demanding an investigation into first-responder deaths due to respiratory illness. It followed up in February with another editorial calling for the city’s health department “to report publicly on patterns of illness, to analyze autopsies performed on first-responders who die … and to issue advisories to physicians about the best treatments for various ailments.” Despite these editorials, as well as pieces in the New York Post, the Village Voice, and the New York Times (subscription required), both the city and state governments continued to ignore the issue.
“It was clear that little or nothing was being done,” says Browne. “The more we reported, the more we saw how seriously people’s lives had been affected and how poorly government had responded.”
Democracy Now includes a transcript of a radio show done a year ago addressing illnesses suffered after 9-11 both among first responders and community members in close proximity to Ground Zero.
Firefighter Blog remembers 9-11.
After all, for many it's 9-11 every day of the year especially those suffering from related illnesses. And still, the leaders of this county who put their flags at half-mast and hold events commemorating anniversaries of this tragic moment in our nation's history remain slow to act in the face of another ongoing crisis.
Tasers have been hitting the headlines a lot lately, as the debate over their use continues in many different cities and states.
According to the Appleton Post-Crescent, physicians and police officers are at an impasse when it comes to the issue of "Excited Delirium", which has been labeled the cause of death on quite a few coroners' reports of individuals who died in police custody, often after being shocked by a stun gun.
Police experts believe one way.
(excerpt)
What excited delirium is, is a condition where a person gets a massive dose of adrenaline pumped into their body because their sympathetic nervous system is aroused," said Lt. Dave Nickels of the Appleton Police Department, who trains Fox Valley officers on how to recognize excited delirium.
Those affected quickly become extremely violent and paranoid and often act in bizarre ways, like attacking glass, Nickels said. The condition, which is usually spurred by chronic use of stimulant drugs or a mental illness, also brings "incredible strength and endurance."
"Their body does not seem to have the shut-off mechanism. That adrenaline dump and that superhuman strength just continue. It doesn't stop," Nickels said.
Without medical attention — and a sedative to calm them down — they usually die, Nickels said.
Some physicians interviewed for the article had a different definition.
(excerpt)
"Excited delirium is not a term that is recognized, so (in the case of) nonmedical people who use the term, it's very difficult to determine exactly what they mean," said Dr. William Narrow, associate director of the division of research at the American Psychiatric Association.
The American Medical Association, whose Web site returns no search results for the term excited delirium, defers to Narrow's opinion, said spokeswoman Lisa Bevilacqua.
Excited delirium may well exist but falls short of a medical explanation for a death, said Dr. Michael A. Williams, chairman of the ethics committee for the American Academy of Neurology and medical director of the LifeBridge Brain and Spine Institute in Baltimore.
What police officers and coroners are describing as excited delirium seems to be a syndrome, he said.
"A syndrome is just a collection of symptoms," he said. "A syndrome describes symptoms of behaviors or a typical series of events ... that seem to be consistent among a certain group of people.
Perhaps in part due to the continuing debate about the existence of "Excited Delirium", professional organizations are taking steps to track fatal incidents involving tasers.
The debate over this syndrome as some call it is pretty heated in Maryland which has seen five taser related deaths this year, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Some people say that more studies are needed to determine the safety of the "non-lethal" device.
(excerpt)
“The Taser may be an excellent tool, but the problem is that there has been no volume of independent research and its effect on people,” said Sheldon Greenberg, associate dean of the Division of Public Safety Leadership at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education. “All the research about the safety of Tasers has been vendor driven.”
Of particular concern to Greenberg is the use of Tasers not only by officers, but on them.
“I’m very concerned about the fact that police academies allow recruits to shoot one another with a Taser as part of their training,” he said. “I have a brother who is a police officer, and I don’t want 50,000 volts going through him until there is a body of knowledge that tells me they’re safe.”
The San Francisco Examiner published an article about the National Association of Medical Examiners establishing a nationwide database of fatalities related to these incidents. Coroners expressed frustration at what some of them have said is outside pressure not to include taser use as a cause of death in autopsy reports.
(excerpt)
“It’s just an effort to look at case reports, newspaper stories, whatever is out there and try to formulate some opinions as to what we need to do,” said Dr. Randy Hanzlick, chief medical examiner in Fulton County, Ga., and one of the database’s primary architects. “There are so many factors involved in some of these deaths — usually there is another explanation, but to cast off all doubts doesn’t make sense.”
The reluctance of some coroners to rule the devices as either the primary or contributing factor in deaths can be attributed in part to the threat of lawsuits, Hanzlick said.
“There have been direct statements at our meeting by the manufacturers: ‘You put that on the death certificate, and the company will sue you,’ ” he said.
Taser International, the predominant manufacturer of stun guns, did not dispute Hanzlick’s claims.
“We have held and will continue to hold medical examiners responsible for any untrue statements,” company spokesman Steve Tuttle said.
So is the company who sells the devices essentially controlling what the coroners and medical examiners place on their autopsy reports? And would any medical examiner who listed the taser as a primary or secondary factor in an individual's death be slapped with a law suit?
Pittsburgh's city council met to hear testimony given in relation to the issue of domestic violence in the police department. The special meeting took place after a huge outcry on the police chief's decision to promote three officers with histories of domestic violence allegations
(excerpt)
"Do we really want to go on record as being the city that condones, and advances the careers of, police who are domestic batterers?" asked Jeanne Clark, of the National Organization for Women. "You, frankly, are sitting on a time bomb."
Chief Nate Harper announced some changes that would be made within the next 45 days.
These include the following.
Thorough internal investigations of all family violence allegations against officers.
Involvement of his office in the handling of all such charges.
Disciplinary action when warranted.
More thorough background checks and polygraph testing of new recruits.
Better nonviolence training.
Bad news for Detroit's mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, when a jury awarded two fired police officers a $6.5 million verdict because it had determined that the Whistle blower Protection Act was violated, according to the Associated Press.
Yes, sometimes corruption in higher office does cost. Unfortunately, it will be the taxpayers who will be paying the bill, although violating a state law defending whistle blowers from retaliation is a serious offense of public trust.
(excerpt)
Michael Stefani, the plaintiff's attorney, said the jury sent the right message.
"The jury did what I asked - they put the blame on the mayor," he said.
Gary Brown claimed he was fired in 2003 because he was looking into allegations of drunken-driving accidents, falsified overtime records and a possible cover-up of incidents involving members of the security unit. He said he also was investigating claims from two former mayoral bodyguards that the mayor used his bodyguards to facilitate and cover up extramarital affairs.
Harold Nelthrope said he sued after Kilpatrick's administration released a confidential police memo naming him as a source of allegations of misconduct by other bodyguards.
Nelthrope said he was transferred out of the security detail and ultimately couldn't return to work out of fear for his safety and that of his family.
He described escorting the mayor to trysts with Christine Beatty, Kilpatrick's chief of staff, and other women. Kilpatrick, a married father of three, and Beatty denied the allegations in court.
Back home in River City, the city council held a workshop to discuss what the electric rates charged to consumers should be in light of the recent vote to revoke a previously approved multi-tier rate structure.
Most of the people who appeared and spoke at the workshop were business owners who feared the impact that the rate increases would have on them. Still, it looks like the repeal of the rates is but a brief reprieve.
(excerpt)
The best way for Riverside Public Utilities to slash its energy costs is to get the biggest residential users to cut back on their consumption, Wright said.
The council agreed that the concept of a tiered rate structure made sense, but members could not agree on how many tiers would be best.
The higher rates were passed by the city council last December. Don't be surprised say some cynical people if the city government celebrates the anniversary of that raise by voting in another rate hike.
More election forums in Riverside, from Belo Blog.
City Council runoff candidates get forums
The League of Women Voters of Northwest Riverside County is planning candidate forums this month for the four runoff elections for Riverside City Council.
The forums for the races for Wards 1 and 3 will take place on Monday at the Main Library downtown, 3581 Mission Inn Ave.
The Ward 1 forum with incumbent Councilman Dom Betro and challenger Mike Gardner will be at 6:30 p.m. The Ward 3 forum with incumbent Councilman Art Gage and challenger Rusty Bailey will be at 7:30 p.m.
The forums for the races for Wards 5 and 7 will take place on Sept. 19 at the La Sierra Library, 4600 La Sierra Ave.
The Ward 5 forum between Chris MacArthur and Donna Doty Michalka will be at 6:30 p.m. The Ward 7 forum between incumbent Councilman Steve Adams and challenger Terry Frizzel will be at 7:30 p.m.
--Doug Haberman
dhaberman@PE.com
Attend them if you can or at least the one impacting your ward. They are free and can be very educational.
Last night's city council meeting wasn't the shortest on record but they were intent on vacating the building by 7:30 p.m. because one of them had to get somewhere. It checked in at a crisp 45 minutes.
The consent calendar item on the University Avenue Charrette was pulled and will be heard in the discussion calendar in two or three weeks. Individuals including City Councilman Andrew Melendrez were surprised or even shocked at some of the recommendations put forth by the combined efforts of the University of California, Riverside and the city's Development Department.
Here is the city's report on that agenda item.
Some residents of the Eastside said that the plan presented differs greatly from what was presented to the community and the only aspect of it which appears to address the Eastside's residents is the component that has its children cleaning up the area. Besides the obvious issue of having Eastside children do that work for a project that largely benefits UCR students, there was some concern that labor laws might be violated.
Councilman Art Gage said that his voting process in the latest appointment of a commissioner to the Community Police Review Commission. He said that he admired latest appointment, Chani Beeman's knowledge and experiences, but that he was adament in his opposition of voting people on the CPRC with ties to law enforcement in general and the Riverside Police Department in particular. He said he hadn't even known that Beeman's son was a police officer in Riverside until near the end of her first interview back in March. He added that he might not be a fan of the CPRC and he's certainly shown that, but he did say that as long as it existed, there needed to be commissioners on there that the community could see as truly unbiased and not tied to law enforcement or the police department.
He was also concerned about how her son would be treated by other officers because of decisions his mother had made or that her appointment would make things difficult for him, even as he admires the police officers in the department a great deal.
More intrigue on As the County Turns here. Never a dull moment. And given that Riverside, the city is morphing into the mini-me of Riverside County, several sobering moments as well.
More aftershocks of the Lake Elsinore 4.7 earthquake continue to shake the region. In terms of the "big one", seismologists had this to say.
(excerpt)
"With all of these large faults in that region, you can't say when a major earthquake will happen. It could happen tomorrow."
Labels: business as usual, corruption 101, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 3:53 PM
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