Lawyer Blames Baltimore for Arson Deaths

The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 8, 2003; 2:01 PM

BALTIMORE –– A lawyer for relatives of a seven-member family killed in an arson fire says the city is responsible for their deaths because an anti-drug campaign encouraged them to speak out against neighborhood drug dealers.

[...] Byrd-Chichester [a member of Johnnie Cochran's Washington law firm] said the city is responsible for the deaths because the anti-drug "Baltimore Believe" campaign encouraged them to speak out against dealers.

"It's reckless to invite people to step up to a dangerous situation, and then be on notice that these particular people have stepped up and are in danger, and then fail to provide protection," Byrd-Chichester said. "The outcome should not have been surprising."

America isn't an easy country to live in sometimes.  As a culture, we don't like responsiblity.  Well, we don't like having to accept responsiblity for things we do.  We like responsibility when it's someone else's burden to deal with.  And we really like it when it's not only someone else's burden to deal with, but we can convince someone that they owe us money for it.  As a result, we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to find someone - anyone - else to blame for everything bad that happens, and then sue them for everything we can get.

Another reason America isn't an easy country to live in is because, as citizens, we have certain duties and obligations.  One of those duties is the duty to assist law enforcement in keeping us safe.  If we witness or are aware of a crime being committed, we are supposed to let the police know so that the crime can be investigated and the criminals prosecuted.  Of course, doing so puts our own safety at risk. People who commit crimes generally aren't afraid of trying to intimidate witnesses from testifying against them.  Its not unheard of for a criminal to kill a witness in the hope that it will destroy the case against them.

Because of these risks, many people are hesitant to go to the cops.  In Baltimore, the city began a program to encourage citizens to come forward if they had information about drug dealers.  Carnell and Angela Dawson did, and subsequently, their house burned down - killing them and their children.  Now their relatives are thinking of suing the city of Baltimore, claiming that their program is to blame for the Dawson's deaths.

It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that a city cannot encourage its citizens to do their civic duties without running the risk of getting sued if things go badly.  Yes, I do think the city has an obligation to keep witnesses against dangerous criminals safe, and I would expect that if someone contacted the police in response to this program, that they would be given information on what kind of protection is available before they tell the police what they know.  This way, the witness can make a decision knowing the risks and what they can expect. 

In the case of the Dawson's, however, they were offered protection through the city's witness protection program - including relocation after an earlier fire had been set in their home - but they refused to move.  According to the Baltimore Sun, the following steps were taken to try and help protect the family:

• The day of the Oct. 3 fire, arson detectives and officers stepped up patrols and canvassed the area for witnesses. Arson detectives returned the next day.
  
  
• Four days after the attack, Detective Timothy Holt spoke with Angela Dawson about the fire and asked whether she had received any additional threats. She had not.
  
  
• Holt spoke with her again Oct. 9 and she reported no further problems. That day, a sergeant and two officers in the department's community affairs division met with Angela Dawson and discussed what assistance was available to her.
  
  
• On Oct. 14, Lt. Richard A. Hite Jr. met with Carnell Dawson to discuss his family's options. He told Hite that he would not be forced to leave his neighborhood by drug dealers.
  
  
• At 1:05 a.m. Oct. 16, the day of the fatal arson, Maj. Gregory Eads, commander of the Eastern District, was on a routine patrol in the area and stopped by to check on the Dawsons. He saw nothing unusual. At 2:18 a.m., the house was set ablaze.

When a witness is promised protection, accepts it, and the police fail to adequately provide it, in all liklihood there would be grounds for a civil suit in that situation.  When a witness refuses to accept the protection offered, however, the full burden of resonsiblity for their safety can no longer be assumed to rest solely with the police.  Some measure of it now rests in their own hands.

When the Dawson's decided to go to the police, they knowingly put themselves at risk.  When they refused to relocate, despite having already had their house set on fire, they had a better understanding of the level of risk they were at, and knowingly chose not to take steps to reduce it.  While they may have been encouraged by the "Baltimore Believes" program to initially contact the police, it was not that encouragement that lead to their deaths.  It was the heinous actions of the drug dealers - first and foremost - and their own decision to stay put, in spite of the risk. 

From MSNBC.com:

A federal appeals court rules the U.S. government may hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants during wartime without the constitutional protections afforded Americans in criminal prosecutions.

[...] the appeals court said Wednesday that “[b]ecause it is undisputed that Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat in a foreign theater of conflict, we hold that the submitted declaration is a sufficient basis upon which to conclude that the Commander in Chief has constitutionally detained Hamdi pursuant to the war powers entrusted by the United States Constitution.”

It is not only unnecessary but in fact improper to require further evidence from the government, the judges ruled.

Full ruling available at: http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/027338.P.pdf

My understanding was that, in order for the war powers to be invoked, and for us to be considered "at war", that a war must first be declared, right?  If that's the case, did I somehow miss our actually declaring war against Afghanistan?  Somehow I was not under the impression that declaring "war" against "terror" qualified for legal purposes as an actual declaration of war.  Also, the Constitution puts the power to declare war into the hands of Congress, not the President, and I don't recall Congress having declared war on anything (though I do know they surrendered their right to declare war against Iraq to President Bush.)

Washington Post Editorial "We hold to the old-fashioned opinion that the government ought to provide certain services, and that to do so it must raise a certain amount of revenue. The federal tax burden today is not inordinately high by historical standards, while the demands on the government are large and growing. Mr. Bush himself has not been shy to spend: on defense, for example, and on farm subsidies. Yet the president and most of his fellow Republican officeholders continue to behave as though balancing the books just isn't part of their job description. The economic plan that the president proposed yesterday is in keeping with this irresponsible philosophy.

[...] When you factor in the other tax changes proposed by Mr. Bush yesterday, you find that the poorest fifth of Americans would see their after-tax income go up this year by one-tenth of 1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center. The top 1 percent of earners, by comparison, would see their income rise by 3.5 percent."

I don't have a problem with paying taxes in exchange for the services I receive from the government.  It's the only fair thing to do.  I do, however, mind, paying more taxes so that the wealthy can pay less - and I mind paying taxes to fund programs that primarily benefit the wealthy rather than the needy.