Feature

Editorial note:  much of the reader feedback from last week’s story on the death of Rayshawn Meeks by a Clinton Township police officer’s gun centered on the three minutes it took for the four officers at the scene to begin to offer first aid to Meeks, who was unconscious and bleeding from a gunshot wound to his head. This incident happened within the City of Columbus after the passage of Andre’s Law by the Columbus City Council.  It became apparent that it was time to revisit the law. 

As Andre Hill lay dying on a friend’s driveway in the early morning of December 22, 2020, Adam Coy, the now-indicted ex-officer with the Columbus Division of Police (CPD) who shot Hill and his dozen or more fellow officers who responded to the scene failed to offer first aid for his wounds.  It was several minutes before these public servants who are sworn to protect and serve requested emergency medical assistance for Hill. 

Afghan refugee Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) lives in Fremont but works at a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Seeking connection, she decides to send a message out to the world through a cookie in this offbeat vision of the universal longing for home.

Artistic. Natural. Gracious. Eclectic. Loving. Intelligent. Courageous. Adventurous. What other adjectives might describe Angelica Warren? With her passing on September 2nd, she’s now the stuff of legend, or at least she should be.

Angelica – Angel for short – might have been your typical Millennial. A free spirit who challenged authority. But any vision of a normal life became colored by the worst possible diagnosis: brain cancer. For the last 15 years, terminal illness transformed a beautiful young woman with endless possibilities into a debilitated, housebound patient. Was Angel content with this fate? Frankly, No. But she defied the odds. Considering her journey, she was one special Angel.

These memories make this clear.

Video footage of Rayshawn Meeks' shooting

“Obviously, this is a terrible situation that I inadvertently caused. It’s on me. Because it was my weapon, I’ve thought about this for many nights. Trust me. I consider myself a professional and I’m not pleased about this occurring whatsoever,” Clinton Township Detective Terrance Phillips told investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) during an interview two months after the death of Rayshawn Meeks. 

“Obviously, this is a terrible situation that I inadvertently caused. It’s on me. Because it was my weapon, I’ve thought about this for many nights. Trust me. I consider myself a professional and I’m not pleased about this occurring whatsoever,” Clinton Township Detective Terrance Phillips told investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) during an interview two months after the death of Rayshawn Meeks. 

Franklin County Prosecutor Gary Tyack did not take the case to a grand jury. In his office’s letter closing the case on January 29, 2023, Jeff Blake, Deputy Chief Counsel of the Criminal Special Units wrote:

"A Haunting in Venice," adapted from Agatha Christie's "Hallowe'en Party," presents a Halloween murder mystery directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, delivering his most captivating portrayal of the astute detective Hercule Poirot. It is enhanced by phenomenal set designs and a screenplay by Michael Green that adds layers to this chilling supernatural thriller. The previous installments, "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile," explored revenge and greed, respectively. This delves into the supernatural, prodding at Poirot's beliefs and creating a riveting internal conflict for the protagonist. 

The film's opening Dutch angle shot immediately sets an unsettling and disorienting tone for the murder mystery. A decade has passed since the last installment, "Death on the Nile" (set in 1937), and the world has endured the scars of a devastating war. This turmoil surrounds Poirot, haunted by the anguish of another generation decimated by conflict.

The president of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Capital City Lodge #9 – the union for Central Ohio law enforcement – called a local activist group “terrorists” because they had plans to protest at the home of the parents of the Blendon Township officer believed to have killed Ta’Kiya Young in the Kroger parking lot.

The union’s president, Brian Steel, also a Columbus police sergeant, posted this over the weekend (just before September 11th) to his personal Twitter account: “This is the terrorist group who plans to protest the home of innocent senior citizens.” Steel was referring to Columbus Emergency Direct Action Reserve, or CEDAR, self-described as “a collective of community members committed to see anticolonial abolitionist direct actions.”

Sunday, September 3rd, 2023 was a beautiful day in Columbus, Ohio. The air was warm but not brutally hot, and the sun shined brightly without a dark cloud in the sky. People sat on the park benches or in the grass staring at their phones or lying on blankets chatting with their fellow guests. Around the park, one of the city's busiest sections hummed along on an unusually busy Sunday; with Labor Day preceding this Sunday, the Short North experienced the same activity it would on a usual Friday evening. The familiar bike carts, powered by drunken tourists fully exploiting the novelty, chugged along the streets cheering loudly at any notable event or witty remark made by their driver. They often worked to entice those around them stuck walking on the sidewalks to join in their excitement, but they were usually ignored.

Columbus activists held a banner at 161 and High Street in Worthington last Saturday, August 26 to demand freedom for Julian Assange. Amnesty International says: "The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents that included possible war crimes committed by the US military is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression."

Julian Assange is currently being held at Belmarsh, a high security prison in the UK, on the basis of a US extradition request on charges that stem directly from the publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with Wikileaks.

The time left to save freedom of the press is short. The UK has agreed to extradite Assange to the US. If he is tried and convicted in an American court, all publishers will be open to prosecution with the possibility of a life sentence in prison for printing information that the US govt doesn't like.

What publisher would risk that? Assange's "crime" was publishing truths that the government wanted concealed from the public -- a heroic act.

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023 was a good day for empty words. Millions of Americans tuned in to listen to them and days later we are still talking about them. In a world filled with meaningless nonsense, for at least a couple of hours, many Americans could agree that these words, even if empty, were still meaningful and worth their attention. If only words could change the world.

On the 23rd both the first GOP debate of the 2024 presidential cycle and its counter-programming, Trump’s interview on Tucker Carlson’s Twitter (X) feed, aired to the view of millions of people. The stream of the debate on Rumble (rightwing YouTube) peaked at around 310,000 views. It is estimated that 12.8 million people watched the debate on their TV.