Whipped Cream Difficulties

1. Sunday’s Knoxville News Sentinel ran a long piece on former judge Richard Baumgartner. Baumgartner presided over the high profile cases of Channon Christian/Christopher Newsom and Raynella Dossett Leath. He was also a bad guy: Baumgartner shook down his staff for OxyContin and other painkillers, became involved with a former defendant in his court (and had her procure drugs for him), and apparently engaged in even more misconduct (hidden in sealed TBI files). And Baumgartner’s erratic behavior went on from at least 2007 to 2011. Four years of an addict presiding over criminal trials. (Hattip: Insta.)
2. Also by way of Insta:
   

   A three-month Sun Sentinel investigation found almost 800 cops from a dozen agencies driving 90 to 130 mph on our highways.
   Many weren’t even on duty — they were commuting to and from work in their take-home patrol cars.

3. And from Balko, for a change-up: the story of Scott Henson, who was stopped and detained by nine Austin Police Department officers while walking his five year old granddaughter home. Henson is white: his granddaugher is black, and they were stopped by the APD immediately after a previous encounter with a deputy constable.
   So far, this is outrageous. Of course we only have one side of the story, but does Henson have any reason to lie about this? I hope he pursues this. I hope he forces a full investigation by an external third party, not APD. And if all of this is true, I hope people loose their badges and jobs over this. Including Chief Acevedo.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Clippings, Cops, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.