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Ohio Attorney Files Motion In Bronzeville v Blackwell

At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, announced that he is filing a motion to “lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election.”

Arnebeck will also “be providing copies of document hold notices to the U.S .Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and the U.S. Justice Department for Karl Rove emails from the White House.”

This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio’s 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for “a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn’t when it comes to our vote.”

“This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody,” the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.

The presser was attended by some of the corporate-controlled media, including the head of the Ohio AP bureau, the Columbus Dispatch, and IndyMedia. Listening in by phone were ABC News, our friends from RAW STORY, and me, your humble blogger. I recorded the presser, so I have no links for the quotes in this post, but I transcribed them word-for-word and can vouch for their accuracy.

One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: “[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio”…

According to Arnebeck, his expert witness, Stephen Spoonamore, “works for credit card companies chasing data thieves, identity thieves around the globe, and also consults with government agencies including the Secret Service, the Pentagon, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in criminal matters. [He’s] really one of the top, and in fact the top private cop in the world on the subject of data security.”

First, some background. The King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case was filed on August 31, 2006. At issue was “whether the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to Plaintiffs by the Civil Rights Act, and the First, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been violated by the past and ongoing conduct of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in connection with past elections in Ohio.”

A stay was previously entered into on joint motion of the parties, Ohio’s Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and the plaintiffs, to support settlement discussions in the case. “At one point,” Arnebeck noted this morning, “this was interrupted when the Secretary wanted to bring all the ballots that had been ordered preserved by Judge Marbley, bring them in to one location. When the ballots came in, there was significant omissions and reports of the destruction of some of the ballots.”

The BRAD BLOG reported previously on some of some of the ballots missing from 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties, despite the federal court order.

Arnebeck explained that part of the reason for the stay, at the time, was to allow the Ohio Attorney General to proceed first, as provided in Ohio House Bill 3 which states, in part:

…the attorney general may initiate criminal proceedings for election fraud under section 3599.42 of the Revised Code which results from a violation of any provision of Title XXXV of the Revised Code, other than Chapter 3517. of the Revised Code, involving voting, an initiative or referendum petition process, or the conducting of an election, by presenting evidence of criminal violations in question to the prosecuting attorney of any county in which the violations may be prosecuted. If the prosecuting attorney does not prosecute the violations within a reasonable time or requests the attorney general to do so, the attorney general may proceed with the prosecution of the violations with all of the rights, privileges, and powers conferred by law on a prosecuting attorney, including, but not limited to, the power to appear before a grand jury and to interrogate witnesses before a grand jury.
Arnebeck said that the Attorney General’s office said they were ready to begin the investigation of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, and Arnebeck said he submitted a great deal of material to them, including “Bob’s [Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s] book on what happened in Ohio, documentation of the exit poll discrepancy, [and] John Conyers’ report to the Congress which was the factual basis for the challenge to the electoral votes of the Ohio vote in January of 2005.”

About a month later, the Attorney General’s office contacted Arnebeck and asked him, “Who do you want to indict?”

Arnebeck explained that the AG’s “concept of looking at this from a criminal standpoint was not to convene a grand jury and cast the net broadly and use the grand jury process to investigate and narrow the focus into the question of who may have tampered with those votes. But rather they wanted us to come to them with a more focused case.”

Arnebeck then informed the AG that they were going to file the motion to lift the stay so that the plaintiffs “could proceed with the civil case in order to collect discovery to do that” and create a more focused case.

Fitrakis, who was also at today’s presser, said that early on they went to Washington and met with the House Judiciary staff who agreed to come to Ohio in early March of 2007. Fitrakis informed Ohio’s then-Attorney General Mark Dann’s office, but the office never got back to them.

Arnebeck also explained that he met with Conyers within the last two weeks. He made the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee aware of what they have: new resources and information, and the assistance of Spoonamore to help the state of Ohio, the Congress, and the court understand what needs to be done to help secure the 2008 election.

Also, Arnebeck has sent out document “hold” notices. A hold notice is, essentially, a letter sent to the parties of a lawsuit informing them of their legal obligation to hold on to (and not destroy) all relevant documents, including electronic documents such as emails, pending the outcome of the suit.

Hold letters have been sent to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, asking them to hold documents relating to their activities to use corporate money to influence the Ohio Supreme Court elections. Another hold letter was sent to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking that he advise the federal government to hold emails from Karl Rove.

Arnebeck said “We think [Rove] is an individual who has been at the center of both the use of corporate money to attack state Attorneys General and their elections and candidates for the Supreme Court and their elections in the states, and also in the manipulation of the election process.

“We expressed concern about the reports that Mr. Rove destroyed his emails and suggested that we want the duplicates that should exist [be put] under the control of the Secret Service and be sure that those are retained, as well as those on the receiving end in the Justice Department and elsewhere, that those documents are retained for purposes of this litigation, in which we anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio.”

Arnebeck said they are prepared “to go after the issues of election integrity in a very targeted way, as opposed to a casting of a fishing net. We’re able to do some ‘rifle shots.'”

Along those lines, Arnebeck plans to subpoena and depose GOP operative Michael (Mike) L. Connell, who as described by SourceWatch, is….

Chief Political Strategist and CEO of New Media Communications, Inc., a Republican website development and internet services firm based in Richfield, OH.

New Media’s GOP clients are a “‘Who’s Who’ of Republican politics”, having provided campaign web services and Internet strategy for Bush-Cheney 2000/2004, as well as Republicans such as Dick Armey, Spencer Abraham for Senate 2000, Heather Wilson for Congress 2000/2002/2004, Rick Santorum for Senate 2000/2006, and John Thune for Senate 2002/2004 to name just a few. New Media also designed GOP.com for the Republican National Committee, RGA.org for the Republican Governors Association, and between two and three dozen state GOP sites.

According to Arnebeck, Connell “[D]esigns websites and he manages the information technology. Interestingly, he’s done this for the Bush campaign of 2000 and the Bush campaign of 2004. Simultaneously, he was doing IT work for the State of Florida in 2000, and for the office of the [Ohio] Secretary of State in 2004.

“And just think of this: here’s a person who is an instrument of a major presidential campaign simultaneously setting up the hosting of the votes in the Ohio election.”

Arnebeck added: “We’re not saying that he [Connell] did anything wrong in the sense of his conduct, but we’re saying that these conflicting roles raise some issues.”

According to Arnebeck, “Mr. Connell also worked with the various front groups for the US Chamber, tobacco industry front groups, and starting in 2000 after the New Hampshire primary, there was an unleashing of a variety of these Washington-based lobbying groups that created these phony grass-roots groups that attack candidates, supposedly independently. We believe there is clear evidence of a coordinated campaign in which Mr. Rove is involved, in which Mr. Connell is an instrument. And this emphasizes his value of a witness in bringing some of this together.”

Indeed, Arnebeck believes that Connell’s role in the suit, at least at first, will be that of a witness. “He, by virtue of his involvement in a variety of these roles that we’re concerned with — as a witness, he can provide a perspective. He’s the one person who can bring a great deal of information together to better inform folks of what happened and what some of the vulnerabilities are and where some of the data security breaches may have occurred.”

One of the more frightening aspects of Connell’s work is that his company, Gov Tech Solutions, was the first private company to be allowed to put servers behind the firewall of the Congressional computer systems. This led to him creating and managing several powerful Committee IT networks, including those for the House Intelligence Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Ethics Committee, and the House Committee on Rules. Of course, it is completely possible that the firewall could have been created with secret security gaps that can be exploited to hack into any congressional computer. If that has happened, every computer in any senate or congressional office is subject to hacking by Bush/Republican operatives.

Currently, Connell is running the IT operations for the McCain campaign. Isn’t that a comforting thought…

Expert advisor Stephen Spoonamore, who among other things designs and runs computer programs to analyze and detect fraudulent financial activity for the world’s leading credit card companies, said, “You cannot secure electronic voting. You set up a bunch of grandmothers to put together a bunch of computers once every two years, basically those machines are architected in such a manner to maximize their capacity [for] fraud.

“In the 2004 election, from my perspective, on any of the programs we run for any of my credit card clients, the results from the 14 counties, those are the sort of results that would instantaneously launch a credit card fraud investigation or a banking settlement investigation.”

Spoonamore’s reference to the “14 counties” refers to the so-called “Connelly Anomaly” in which down-ticket candidates got more votes than John Kerry. The name comes from the candidacy of C. Ellen Connelly, an African-American woman who was running for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2004. She was endorsed by pro-choice and civil rights groups, and was relatively unknown to Ohio voters, in addition to being vastly outspent by her opponent in the campaign. Yet, somehow Connelly got scores of thousands more votes than did John Kerry at the very top of the ticket.

Arnebeck said that “if you adjust for the [Connelly] anomaly or that situation, it’s enough votes to have changed the outcome of the election. So the focus of our efforts, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, would be to find out who is responsible for that.”

He targeted the Rapp family and the Triad Voting Systems company, who ran the tabulators in a number of Ohio counties in 2004, as those who need to be closely investigated.

“If it’s the Rapp family and the programming of the [Triad] tabulators,” Arnebeck stated, “we need to know that so that the Rapp family will be closely monitored, if not put in jail, before the 2008 election.”

Spoonamore continued, “I am extremely confident in [our] analysis of the 2004 election anomalies because of the way the tabulators were programmed, and all were programmed by the Rapp family on Triad systems. So in my opinion, there should be an investigation launched into exactly what happened.

“There was an enormous number of strange activities in which Triad and the Rapp family were running around the state taking hard drives out of computers, putting in new hard drives, and posting poll results. And the reason all this was going on, I’m quite confident, was that the hard drives they were pulling out had fraudulent coding. Simple as that.”

“Certainly if that happened at one of our banks, you could be arrested.”

Spoonamore has told Arnebeck and the plaintiffs that there is a clear pattern of fraud. He said the Ohio 2004 election was “a frighteningly un-auditable system.”

“When, in the Green Party recount, all of the sudden [people are] driving around the state pulling and swapping hard drives, they should have been in handcuffs that day,” argued Spoonamore.

Arnebeck noted that Triad Voting Systems “has never been interrogated under oath in either a civil or a criminal context, to the best of our knowledge. There was an FBI investigation launched at the request of John Conyers, and very shortly a letter coming back from the FBI stating that they had found no problem. But it was very minimal and it appears to have been a politicized investigation, not a normal serious investigation by the FBI.”

Spoonamore said that he knows the key FBI cyber investigation people “quite well, and they were certainly never involved [in the investigation Conyers requested], there was no hardware ever involved. So whatever investigation was launched, it was topical, but they never examined the equipment.”

When the stay on the King Lincoln case is lifted, Arnebeck intends to depose Connell, key members of the Rapp family, and says that he will make Spoonamore available as an expert witness and advisor. After discovery, they will amend their complaint as needed and “focus on corrective actions that are necessary for the protection of the 2008 election.”

More quotes from today’s presser…

Spoonamore on vote counting: “What happens at the end of the day, all those votes are thrown into a magic box with one troll inside, the troll jumps out and says ‘Here are your results! Ta-Da!!’ That’s it. There’s no validation of the code, there’s no authentication.

“With the Connelly Anomaly, if that was in a banking environment, instantaneously — instantaneously! — the entire system inside that box would be frozen. Any programmer who reviewed any of that code would be alerted, all the executives assisting in that process would be alerted, the hard drives would be frozen in place, extracted and immediately placed in forensic analysis. ‘Cause somebody did something major.”

Spoonamore again: “None of us [the American people] really want to confront the fact that there appears to be an extremely coordinated effort by a very small group of people to rig elections and take control of the executive branch.”

“You can spend all day every day looking at this stuff and saying, ‘Well that would certainly launch a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn’t when it comes to our vote.’ Why?”

When asked by a reporter to respond to the fact that both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State and elected officials will say that our elections are run on a bi-partisan system, Spoonamore responded, “No it’s not. It’s not a bi-partisan system. This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody. In my opinion, both sides [Democrats and Republicans] have no friggin’ clue what they’re talking about.”

“The person who programs the code inside the machine will decide the results.”

Spoonamore was asked, “Are you a Republican?” And his priceless response was “Yes, I’ve been a life-long member of the Republican party. Sadly.” That prompted a burst of laughter from all assembled.

When a reporter asked Cliff Arnebeck what specifically he alleges Karl Rove did, Arnebeck said, “Karl Rove was involved in the Bush campaign for president in 2000. Our understanding is when they lost the New Hampshire primary, they were quite concerned and they made a decision to take the gloves off. Mr. Rove contact[ed] people with whom he had worked with in the industry, Grover Norquist and others, on behalf of the tobacco industry.

“At the time, the tobacco industry was fighting the Clinton administration $260 billion class action RICO case. That industry alone had a tremendous incentive to do whatever was necessary to kill that lawsuit. And George Bush, on Rove’s recommendation, positioned himself as a reformer with results. Not meaning the McCain reform with campaign finance reform, but the Bush reform in Texas where they changed the composition of the Texas Supreme Court to be business-friendly and to effectively immunize corporations from meaningful tort liability.

“They turned these groups loose in South Carolina, they won South Carolina with a lot of independent expenditures and dirty tricks.

“Rove was the architect of a strategy to, in effect, undo the rule of law, turn business loose, free of government regulation.

“We certainly want to take his [Rove’s] deposition. His deposition has never been taken. Mr. Conyers is currently seeking his deposition in regard to what he did…in terms of going after Governor Siegelman in Alabama. And Mr. Rove is currently evading the congressional subpoena for his testimony.”

Cross-posted at Velvet Revolution and at The BRAD BLOG.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/165

Ohio Attorney Files Motion to Lift Stay in Ohio Case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v Blackwell:

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Bob Bytes Back Archive: 8/14/1996 Call Him Mace Ventura

8/14/1996
by Bob Fitrakis

Channel 4’s investigative series “Trouble on 12th Avenue” aired last week. Producer Joel Chow and investigative reporter Rich Skidmore provided viewers with some of the year’s most provocative video footage. Despite the standard denials, obfuscations and wild tales told by police officials, their own videotapes tell a different story. Still even more damning is the Internal Affairs paper trail left by the officers accused of “excessive use of force” on May 18.

The series’ first segment focused on an incident involving Kevin Lennon. Lieutenant David Wood, who investigated Lennon’s complaint against Officer Robert Coffman, wrote in his June 7, 1996 memo to Chief James Jackson that: “When I first viewed the film it appeared that Officer Coffman’s strike to the subject’s back was improper. After careful review, this investigation [sic] it is obvious that his actions were necessary and proper. I recommend no further action necessary.” No surprise.

The police tapes, obtained by Channel 4, clearly show Officer Coffman coming in and punching Lennon as he’s being carried away by other cops. You can hear the words “Enough, Bob,” from a fellow officer, which brings what appears to be a swipe from Coffman towards the cop advocating professional behavior.

Coffman is not always keen on professionalism. On February 9, 1994, Coffman ran a license tag number for a Sergeant Watkins for “personal use.” He was “counseled.” Perhaps the police should have spoken with Becky West, who on April 17, 1993, was injured in Coffman’s custody. That was ruled an “accidental injury.” Or they could have talked with Tony Delpra who filed a complaint for an incident on May 13, 1991 when he was “struck in jaw” by Coffman. This was, of course, “justified.” Or they could have talked to three different mothers on two different occasions who charged that Coffman pointed his gun at kids during raids on their homes. And the list goes on.

Officer Michael Stalnaker knees Lennon on the tape. Another of Columbus’ finest, he has since 1987 either Maced or had 13 “excessive use of force” complaints. Whether it was an “unfounded” shove against Paul Collier “causing him to hit his head,” or the “justified” use of a “flashlight” against Robert Walker, or the “justified” kicking of Tim Hemmert in the stomach, for some reason citizens seem to unfairly single out Stalnaker. With all the “justified” force being used by the officer, it’s no wonder it slipped his mind to report he kicked Hemmert. His “written reprimand” was, no doubt, unwarranted. So many unruly citizens, so little time.

The second segment shows that there’s always time to take a young lad-in this case, George Sandrock-to “the whipping post.” Different officers; same pattern of behavior. Sandrock suffered contusions on his nose and upper left eye and a laceration over his right eye that required stitches. This, for not dispersing quickly enough while on a private porch behind party fencing per police instructions. According to police reports, Sandrock’s a real ass-kicker. He stood his ground, cussing out cops, despite “two verbal orders” directed at him by Officer Jimmie Barnes. After Macing Sandrock, in Barnes’ version, the youngster attacked his riot shield with his fist and head. Yes, indeed, Sandrock swung his “fist so hard at Officer Barnes that he lost his balance and fell into the riot shield.”

Just ask Officer Eric Moore, who attempted “to restrain Mr. Sandrock’s arms and legs while he was kicking and swinging his fist at the officers.” And Officer Martin Malone also saw Sandrock “resisting.” Now, anyone who saw the video saw the officers push Sandrock over the railing, hold him there, and beat the hell out of him. The Allman Brothers classic Whipping Post would have been appropriate background music. But who’s going to believe a lying punk like Sandrock when you have three officers like Barnes, Moore and Malone.

Since 1990, six citizens have complained after Barnes Maced them; three persons “accidentally injured” themselves in his custody in the last year and a half.

At least Moore “accidentally shot himself in the leg” and was reprimanded on April 1, 1990. Add to that nine Moore Macings- including Macing a man in Florida while Moore was on vacation. A written reprimand resulted from Moore’s Florida adventure. Stir in seven citizen complaints, all very similar, all found to be “unfounded” allegations. These involved “rude and obnoxious behavior,” “alleged theft,” and forcefully pulling police out of their cars. Toss in seven more force complaints, including pulling Joseph Cook from his car and putting a gun to his head, and three-including Sandrock-“accidentally injured” prisoner complaints in the last three years.

There’s still more with Malone: 17 complaints since 1987 for Macing, excessive use of force, and an injured prisoner.

And the third and final segment dealt with Criminal Justice student Shammas Jones who was videotaping the police activity away from the fray and was allegedly attacked by Officer David Dennison. Dennison’s attack on Jones was “justified.” Just like his 10 Macings since March 1993.

But how do they justify the police officer caught on tape shooting “knee-knockers”-rubber bullets designed to be shot into the ground and bounce up-directly at students and yelling, “There you go, eat that!”

Police investigators admit they came to their conclusions on “justified” Macing and use of force on 12th Avenue by only using the least damaging tape. This is unjustifiable.
CORRECTION
Last week Bob Bites Back mistakenly stated that Judge Deborah O’Neill had met with “the late J.F. Wolfe.” The column should have read “the late J.W. Wolfe.”

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Bob and Harvey Show With Cliff Arnebeck, May 26, 2007

Hemp, Stolen elections, nuclear power, Batchelder, Ohio SOS Brunner’s proposals, death penalty, Iraq war…

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On Point, Dr. Fitrakis Live Feb 16th, 2008 Vic’s Cafe

Live audience chat with music from Andrew Davis and Rob Jones.

 

 

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Democracy In The Balance: Indiana Goes Jim Crow

by Bob Fitrakis

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of the Hoosier state’s Jim Crow voter identification law sanctions the continual racist assault upon black voters and institutionalizes the disenfranchisement of the poor.

Not surprisingly, the axis of evil — Justices Anton Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — claim that “the law should be upheld because its overall burden is minimal and justified.”

In a real democracy, the burden should be on the state to enfranchise voters, not on the state to think of ways to keep poor people and minorities from the polls. At the age of 18, all eligible voters should be routinely registered to vote with a unique identifier, similar to a social security number. Scalia, Thomas and Alito love “state’s rights” and “Jim Crow.” As partisan Republican appointees, their judicial opinions are blatantly partisan and their approach to democracy, as it has been through most of American history, is to shrink the electorate.

The Supreme Court should have mandated that the state provide, free of charge, voter IDs for every eligible citizen in Indiana beginning with all graduating high school seniors. We increasingly live in a police state, where the Patriot Act monitors you day and night, and the NSA spies on you through the Echelon system. But Big Brother can’t figure out who’s eligible to vote?

Voting must become a constitutional right, and for that matter, so should privacy. That way, backward Hoosiers kissing the ass of right-wing Republicans would be prevented from ushering in another Jim Crow era.

The other three justices, John Paul Stevens,John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, argued that the Indiana voter ID law, the way it is written, does not appear to be unconstitutional or to violate voter rights, therefore they voted it could stand.

So democracy remains in the balance. The problem is those facial challenges won’t come until the middle of the 2008 election, as once again Karl Rove and his racist pals objectively disenfranchise millions of black voters. The problem is any actual challenge to the voter ID law from a voter probably won’t come until Election Day 2008, as once again and his racist pals objectively disenfranchise millions of black voters.

I’m with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on this. God, our concept and name for the force and principles for universal justice will damn this law.

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Uncounted – A Film About Ohio’s Stolen Elections, Thursday, March 27, 2008

Free Press FOURTH Thursday Theater Night at the Drexel East. 7:00 PM. “Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections.” Admission is $7 regular and $5 student/senior! Emmy-award-winning producer David Earnhardt will be featured for discussion.

Location:Drexel EastTheater, 2254 E. Main St. Bexley
Phone:253-2571
Email:Email
Website:Uncounted the movie

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How An Unwanted Guardianship Cost A Firefighter His Freedom And His Fortune

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
March 22, 2008

Norman Baker is an American hero who has been detained against his will for more than three years.

His “crime”: owning too much property. 


His sentence: a court-appointed guardianship on the brink of costing him everything he spent his life building.

His rights in this case: virtually none, significantly less in many ways than an actual law-breaking criminal. 


His future if this continues: long-term de facto imprisonment, followed by abject poverty, if he has anything left at all. 


A retired firefighter who once helped save a child’s life, Norman Baker is not suspected of terrorism. He has never been charged with any statutory infraction, and has never been in any kind of trouble with the law. 
But he has been stripped of his right to vote and access to his own assets, which appear to have been weel in excess of $1 million as little as three years ago.

Until he was placed in a nursing home against his will by the court-appointed attorney he is trying to reject, Norman Baker owned and managed two dozen rental properties, many of which he designed and built himself. He also owned a 33-acre farm, with four horses, an array of tractors and other heavy farm implements, a carefully preserved century-old barn, a restored farmhouse from which he drew steady rental income, and a 3,000-square-foot brick home, which he also designed and built.

All Norman Baker’s properties were free of any liens or mortgages. 
Before he was confined against his will to a nursing home, Norman Baker also had some $250,000 in cash and liquid investments above and beyond his real estate holdings. He rented his properties and lived a quiet, private life.

Today, without writing a check or using a credit card or making a single bad investment, Norman Baker has less than $20,000 in cash. Most of his rental properties are vacant. Some have been flooded. In one, a broken pipe has resulted in a water bill in excess of $19,000. Nearly all his properties, which were once entirely rented, are now vacant. Some have been seriously vandalized. A rental property business, which yielded a steady cash flow, is now bleeding cash every month.

Baker’s farm implements—including a tractor owned by his brother—were sold by his unwanted guardian without his permission. The guardian also sold the slate off the roof of Norman’s carefully preserved antique hay barn, which may now be ruined by rainwater. The roof of his farm house has also been damaged and left unmended.

The comfortable brick ranch home Norman built by hand is boarded up and rotting. Its plush carpeting has apparently been stripped out. Its interior fixtures are gone or rotting. The concrete backyard swimming pool whose construction Baker oversaw is cracked and in ruins. When we visited the property, Baker could only peer into the windows of his wrecked home. It is posted against “trespassers.”


At one point in his involuntary guardianship, a medical examiner hired at Norman’s expense found him competent and recommended that he no longer need a guardian. But the attorney running Baker’s guardianship refused to surrender control of Norman’s assets. He then brought back the same medical examiner for yet another examination. This doctor then proclaimed he “changed his mind” and that Norman needed a guardian after all. Norman was then billed some $2,000 for both examinations.

Since then, a Harvard-trained medical examiner has repeatedly tested Baker, who just turned 80. This doctor, whose most recent examination has been videotaped, has consistently found Baker competent to manage his own affairs and to hire his own professional help.

More than a year ago, a physician for the nursing home where Norman has been confined recommended that he be given an immediate discharge to the community. Baker walks three miles a day inside the home, and does his own laundry. He is dependent on no medications.


Norman Baker’s case is not an isolated one. Usually guardianships are necessary where someone has no assets or no family and there has been no estate plan appointing a fiduciary. However, throughout the United States, tens of thousands of elderly citizens with significant assets have been placed under court-appointed guardians.

Though regulations vary from state to state, the attorney-guardians are required to report periodically to the county probate court on the disposition of the assets. Commonly, the attorneys charge fees for “managing” the property of their wards.

The law requires a guardian to act in the ward’s best interests. But often that is a major issue between the guardian and his ward that must be balanced by the Probate Judge, who is expected to act as the “superior guardian”.


By and large, legal guardians are expected to pay regular visits to their wards. According to Baker, his court-appointed attorney has visited him just twice in more than two years.

Norman Baker has continuously requested that he have input in to the property management of his estate. But he has been ignored. Decisions have been made about Norman’s bank account and his properties without his knowledge or input, and over his continued objections and complaints.

Baker’s court-appointed guardian was recently more than six months late in providing the court with a report on the status of Norman’s assets. Such reports are required by the Fairfield County court every two years, although the better practice is an annual account. Baker’s cash assets have been drained, and many of his properties have been brought to the brink of ruin. But it is unclear whether or not all his bills have been properly paid.

Acting on his own, Baker has managed to contract with independent counsel. Susan Wasserman and Lewis E. Williams of Columbus have asked, on his behalf, that Fairfield County Probate Court Judge Stephen Williams set Baker free of his guardianship. But Judge Williams has refused and Norman Baker remains confined to a nursing home against his will.


Baker’s troubles began in January, 2005, when he suffered a urinary tract infection. Reports for elder abuse are confidential and it is unclear who made the recommendation that his affairs be turned over to a guardian.

Whatever the situation at that time, Baker has long since recovered. But he still remains under a guardianship established at a hearing in front of Judge Williams where Norman was not represented by legal counsel, and was not in the presence of a blood relative. 


This fall, after numerous attempts to terminate the guardianship, Attorneys Wasserman and Williams moved in the Fairfield County court that Baker’s guardianship be vacated.

Ohio law stipulates that someone being subjected to a guardianship has the right to have his closest relative from within the state be present at the determination hearing. Norman Baker’s daughter was not notified because she was out of state, and notification to her was therefore not required by law. But it was mandatory under the law that Norman Baker’s brother Robert be noticed, as he lives in-state and is “next of kin.”

Because guardianships are invasive proceedings, strict requirements are meant to safeguard situations in which a probate court has such unfettered power over a human being. Norman’s brother, Robert Baker, of Celina, Ohio, has since stated under oath that he would have attended the hearing had he known about it, and that he would have argued then—as he does now—that his brother did not want or need a legal guardian then, and does not want or need one now.

Robert Baker also charges that the attorney appointed by the court to be his brother’s guardian sold his own personal antique tractor—inherited from his father—from his brother Norman’s farm, and has never accounted for the proceeds.

Norman Baker’s farm has also been stripped of many of its accouterments without a full accounting. Its buildings have been left to rot. The land itself may be worth a million dollars or more. Baker’s guardian has stated that he has gotten numerous calls from developers wanting to buy it. 


Judge Williams has repeatedly refused to vacate the guardianship. Nor has he set for hearing the objections filed by Baker to the late and incomplete accounting as to what precisely the Guardian has accomplished on his behalf.

By Ohio law, such an accounting was many months overdue until Norman Baker demanded that the account be filed. 
 In December, 2007, at Norman Baker’s behest, Attorneys Wasserman and Williams filed a motion with the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Thomas Moyer, asking that Judge Williams be removed from the case. Baker’s chosen attorneys argued that Judge Williams’s handling of the case “gives the appearance” that there is little hope of Norman Baker escaping his unwanted guardianship, and regaining his freedom with due process of law as guaranteed under the Ohio and U.S. constitutions.

Chief Justice Moyer has recently established a high-level commission charged with looking into the guardianship system in Ohio.
 Nationwide, hundreds of cases similar to Norman Baker’s have been reported at places such as the www.stopguardianabuse.org web site. The Los Angeles Times ran a major expose several years ago which has resulted in reform in many states. Extreme as Baker’s case may seem, numerous state and local court records are filled with cases of guardianship discord.

Moyers turned down the request that Judge Williams be removed from the case. An appeal on Judge Williams’s denial of the motion to vacate the guardianship has been filed in the Ohio Court of Appeals, Fifth Appellate District.

Thus far, Norman Baker has been in constant litigation for three years against the guardian appointed over him by the court. Norman’s guardianship was imposed in a hearing at which he was unpresented by counsel, and had no relative at his side, even though his brother lives in the state. He is no longer allowed to drive a car or vote. He has been deprived of the management of his properties and of his cash accounts, which by all indications have been seriously mismanaged. The home Norman built with his own hands has been largely ruined through neglect. He has been unable to obtain a full accounting of what has been done with his assets.

In essence, someone who has committed a murder or robbed a bank has more rights than have been granted Norman Baker.

Though the furthest thing imaginable from a terrorist, Norman Baker has no access to habeas corpus, or to a speedy trial.

Every night, Norman Baker goes to bed in his unwanted nursing home, praying for his freedom. If anything, his case stands as a bizarre warning against getting inconveniently ill, even briefly, while being in possession of enough assets to attract a legal guardian to “protect” you in your later years.

As a Franklin County firefighter, Norman Baker worked to save lives. Now he must fight to save his own. “I never dreamed such a thing could happen in this country,” he told the Free Press. “I just want to go home.”

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Letters of support for Norman Baker can be sent to Box 09683, Bexley, OH., 43209 or to harvey@freepress.org.

Robert Fitrakis is an attorney, and publisher of the Columbus Free Press. Harvey Wasserman is author or co-author of a dozen books, and senior editor of The Free Press . He is the spouse of attorney Susan Wasserman. Originally published by https://freepress.org.

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Ohio’s Voting Machines Are Now An Official Crime Scene

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
March 17, 2008

At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio’s 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony “Homeland Security Alert” used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush’s 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny.

The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio’s new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words “candidate withdrawn” in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez’s name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine.

Perez had been a candidate in the race for Franklin County Municipal Judge. He withdrew his name after the county had finalized its ballots. But it now appears the ES&S machines left his name on some machines but not on others. Perez, a Democrat, wanted to avoid playing a spoiler in the race. But the appearance of his name on some machines may have helped Republican David Tyack win.

Brunner now worries that the state will never find out what happened. County election officials ordered the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to seize the machines. Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann is conducting an investigation that may cost the state $48,000. Brunner recently told WVKO 1580AM radio: “When you’re talking about democracy, it’s priceless.” In another interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Brunner noted “This is a huge problem. There is great concern that not every voter has the same ballot.”

Ironically, Brunner requested a paper ballot in the March 4, 2008, primary, but a poorly trained poll worker gave her a provisional ballot instead. Two other staffers from her office were also given the wrong ballots. Brunner has since pledged to upgrade the training for Buckeye State poll workers.

Brunner further announced that she’s banning the practice of so-called “sleepovers” where poll workers take the programmable and easily hackable voting machines home with them overnight prior to an election day.

Brunner succeeded Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell as Ohio’s Secretary of State. She has vowed to make sure the Buckeye State does not repeat the experience of 2004, when Blackwell choreographed the theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for George W. Bush, giving him a second term in the White House. Since taking office Brunner has vowed to shift the entire state to voting on paper ballots, a move being fiercely resisted by numerous Republican-controlled Boards of Elections throughout the state. Thus far Brunner has forced the resignations of BOE chairs in two of Ohio’s most populous cities, Cleveland and Columbus.

Matt Damschroder was removed as Franklin County Board of Elections Director on the Sunday prior to Ohio’s 2008 primary election. Damschroder was previously suspended for a month without pay for accepting a $10,000 check from a voting machine salesman at the BOE building. The check, made out to the Republican Party, was delivered on the day the state’s contracts for electronic voting machines were open for bidding. Damschroder was former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party and the state’s leading foe of paper ballots. “Damschroder was very opposed to paper ballots and was stoking the fire against them,” Brunner told WVKO.

Dennis White, the new director of the Franklin County BOE was skeptical of the masking problem, but says if it happened, “it’s huge. We have a federal election coming up this November,” according to the Dispatch. White, who admits to having little knowledge of computers, is the former Ohio Democratic Party Chair.

That election may once again hinge on Ohio’s vote count. In 2006, Franklin County officials failed to conduct mandated tests on each machine, instead testing only one machine per precinct on a random bases. A report by SysTest Labs, a Colorado consulting firm, confirmed that what Brunner saw on her machine was “exactly what you’d see if someone masked a name,” the Dispatch reported.

Investigators also found that the “audit logs” on the voting machines were turned off by a board programmer in April, 2007, which has hindered investigators from reconstructing software changes. White says the vendor told a board employee how to disable the auditing system, allegedly to speed programming. Brunner said other vendors told her that “You’re never supposed to tell a (client) how to do that.”

In the primary this past March, the BOE allegedly did test all Franklin County’s machines. But some counties ran out of Democratic paper ballots as an influx of apparently Republican and Republican-leaning independents flooded the polls, apparently to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Enquirer has reported that a “casual conversation” between a “friendly” FBI agent and the county emergency services director in a parking lot may have contributed to the phony Homeland Security alert that prompted the Warren County BOE to lockdown the vote count in the 2004 election. The BOE declared the emergency and then moved the ballots from the publicly designated vote center to a nearby unauthorized warehouse. They also barred the public and media from witnessing the counting. Warren County, which is outside Cincinnati, then gave Bush 72% of the official vote count, far exceeding expectations. With neighboring Butler and Clermont Counties, Warren gave Bush a margin of 140,000 votes, which exceeded the 119,000 margin by which he allegedly won the election.

The Enquirer reports that “hundreds” of e-mailed complaints poured into the county BOE after the election, including one from an angry voter in the United Kingdom. “Stop destroying our democracy,” said one voter from South Carolina.

The Free Press has previously reported that Warren County BOE employees were told on the Thursday prior to the 2004 election day, that there would be a Homeland Security threat on election day. An examination of the ballots by a Free Press investigation team uncovered numerous irregularities in the Warren County vote that helped give Bush the presidency again.

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Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman co-authored HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org) and, with Steve Rosenfeld, WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO from New Press.

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Bob Bytes Back Archives: 6/26/1996 Welcome To The Neighborhood

6/26/1996
FEATURED ARTICLE
by Bob Fitrakis and Sally MacPhail

Last week, the University Area Commission, Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, the Columbus Development Commission and the Columbus Historic Resources Commission all adopted resolutions endorsing the University Neighborhoods Revitalization Plan, a 250-page document drafted by Campus Partners that addresses just about every aspect of off-campus life from trash collection to land use, from drinking and drug abuse to community schools. Intended to encourage reinvestment-financial and philosophical-by present and prospective businesses, residents, students, and the university itself, the plan has been a source of public debate for the last few months. Critics charge that the proposed clean-up will eradicate a unique multi-ethnic urban community.

Around the Ivory Tower It is the sweeping-some might say, overwhelming-way in which Campus Partners is approaching OSU’s role off-campus that has had some observers worried. One of the most vocal critics of the former Final Draft was Columbus Alive columnist, Bob Fitrakis, who called it former Campus Partners President Barry Humphries’ “mission to make the campus area safe for Max and Erma’s….In fact, in the original draft of the master plan revealed in November, yuppification north of campus and ghettoization south of campus were the twin pillars holding up the new campus fortress.”

Asked to react to Fitrakis’ comments that the plan might result in gentrification that would eradicate the campus counter-culture, Campus Partners’ Marc Conte said: “I think he’s pretty right. Those are pretty much my sentiments. When [other board members] ask for my opinion on retail, I say we can look at the record stores and see that the independent record stores survive, not the chain stores. People like the independent businesses, they like the uniqueness of the area; that’s one of the reason we’re shopping here, ’cause there’s no other reason. And the other thing is that there’s an incredible amount of retail diversity; now just because Target isn’t up as the main sign for the area doesn’t mean you can’t find everything that you find at Target.”

Among the major long-term projects for revitalization of the commercial strip along High Street are three theme areas-one at Lane, one at 15th, and one at 10th-that will be the “rooms” through which one progresses. At the north end, a widened and realigned Lane Avenue will mark an “expanded international village,” drawing upon the mixed uses and multi-ethnic restaurants in the area. There will be an Arts Gateway at 15th across from the Wexner Center. The last and most controversial component is an entertainment/retail/office/commercial development at High Street where E. 11th and W. 10th would be realigned to meet. Among the chain ventures suggested as possible occupants of the site are Max and Erma’s, The Limited, The Gap, and Urban Outfitters.

“All this talk about Max and Erma’s by Campus Partners, they really don’t understand the market or how to deal with the residents. What’s their college-trained manager going to do the first time a member of the rugby team comes in to their upscale restaurant and pisses in a corner? How are they going to handle that? What they don’t want to admit is that the bar owners know this area, we know this market and we’re professionals,” commented Brad Miller, owner of Maxwell’s.

Conte, too, is unwilling to give in yet to the notion of High Street as a mall with major retailers anchoring it. “The problem I know we’re going to run into when they want to build new structures or new businesses, to build those structures they’re going to have to have a national caliber retailer in order to convince the banks that they should get more money for it. …Wherever that happens, I’ve really been encouraging that that be our last resort.”

“High Street has enormous potential,” Campus Partners’ community liaison Steve Sterrett said. He maintained, though, that “It’s not working well now. Students are spending their discretionary funds elsewhere.”

A self-created war zone

Miller, for one, thinks the fault for that lies with the police. “This is the hardest place in the nation to own a bar… It’s a war zone. They’ve dehumanized the students. The police have to realize that the students are not the armies of darkness,” he said. Miller argued that the original Campus Partners rhetoric about “a dangerous neighborhood in decline,” has added to the south campus woes.

He pointed out that because of the conflict with the police, students are now “paying to get out of this area” and drink at places like Mekka. “It shouldn’t have to be that way,” Miller said.

The Columbus police take a drubbing in the Campus Partners plan, both for their lack of sensitivity toward students and their failure to follow through with the Park, Walk and Talk program designed to get officers out of their cruisers and onto the sidewalks. Mark Hatch, director of Community Crime Patrol and a member of the Campus Partners board, has already begun meeting with law enforcement and student representatives, according to Sterrett.

Campus Partners is seen by both south campus bar owners and residents as sort of a new temperance movement. At a December meeting of the Undergraduate Student Government Assembly, Humphries lectured students on partying “responsibly.” President E. Gordon Gee is quoted in the April issue of the Ohio State Alumni Magazine as saying: “I have no intention to make [student life] boring. . . [but] there will be no plebiscite on the fundamental issue of change.” Most of Gee’s envisioned “change” has focused from the beginning on downsizing the south campus bar strip.

Gee recently told students lobbying for domestic partnership benefits that change takes time and he used Campus Partners as his analogy. “When I first came here six years ago I knew something had to be done, so every year, six years ago, five years ago, four years ago, I asked for money to do something. I finally got the money….” Gee conceded that critics may correctly view his attack on the south campus bar strip as a return to the principle of in loco parentis, the notion that the university should act as a surrogate parent to students under the age of 21.

Citizenship 101

Certainly, even under the modified Final Final Draft, the university is expected to take a much greater responsibility for its students. It calls for students to be trained for community service, for the university to assess that service, for incentives to be provided to encourage service, and for students to follow the code of conduct anytime they are engaged in a university-related activity, a modified in loco parentis.

Campus Partners’ Conte agrees that the university “should definitely be taking a more active role; then how that’s done is the question.”

One way that the university could begin addressing the problem would start right on campus, with increased expenditures for student activities and health and counseling services. Mindbogglingly, the university spends about 10% of what similar institutions spend on alternative activities for students, according to the Campus Partners plan. As the instructional fee for students has risen, tuition costs have been controlled by keeping the general activity fee-that which pays for non-instructional programming-low. As a result, there is not much that the university provides students to divert them from haunting the High Street bars.

In the meantime, there is not one full-time person working on alcohol abuse on campus, according to Conte. “There’s nobody on campus that’s trying to coordinate activities to reduce alcohol usage and prevent alcohol abuse, and I think that’s why we have all the problems on 12th Avenue because there hasn’t been any planning…. This alcohol position was recommended to be funded as part of OSU’s budget process, but the last I heard from OSU vice president on Student Affairs [David Williams] was it wasn’t going to be funded.”

Williams was in Africa last week and could not be reached for comment.

Despite the university’s disinvestment, Conte thinks the students need to realize their responsibilities. He is encouraged by planning among off-campus student and year-round residents to meet and orient students new to the neighborhoods. The idea is to be pro-active with students moving off-campus “so you immediately make them partners in that neighborhood….. And the students need to realize that they might be here temporarily, but they’re stewards of the university and the university area.”

Extending its boundaries

Work by Campus Partners has not been limited to the East Campus neighborhoods. Language in the Final Final Draft is deliberately more inclusive than in earlier drafts in an attempt to extend the university’s responsibility to the north and south as well. 
“There’s still a lot of things missing,” UAC’s Skubovius cautioned, “particularly in the northern third of the district. A little money could go a long way.” But he called the extensively revised document “more acceptable.”

In the north campus area, Campus Partners initially worked closely with the Glen Echo South Civic Association. That collaboration spawned an oppositional organization, The Common Ground Forum. The Common Ground folks objected to the original Campus Partners proposal to close and redirect area streets. Joe Demshar, the owner of Top Priority Pizza, emerged as the most vocal critic of the Campus Partners plan.

“It’s been mostly quiet up here since Barry Humphries’ departure,” he stated, although, at a May 22 meeting of the Civic Association, Demshar claimed that Campus Partners’ spokesperson Julie Boyland “discredited herself.” Boyland presented the Campus Partners perspective on the need for “traffic calming” and the closing of Fourth Street. “It was quite a fiasco,” Demshar declared. “Julie attempted to shout down the Common Ground attorney Laura Sharp. She kept yelling: ‘Where do you live? What are you doing here?'” while Sharp was presenting the less-intrusive Common Ground proposals calling for stop signs and speed bumps.

Demshar believes that the election of Jim Hubbard, of the Common Ground group, as vice president of the Glen Echo South Civic Association at a June 3 meeting signals the ability of the neighborhood to solve their traffic problems without Campus Partners’ intervention. “They have nothing to do with anything up here anymore. We can solve our own problems without their involvement,” he said.

The university in drag

Unlike the University Area Commission, Demshar is unwilling to endorse Campus Partners’ Final Final Draft. “Who is Campus Partners? It’s the university in drag. Why do they deserve the other side of High Street? It’s a land grab by the university using a not-for-profit entity as a diversionary tactic to get involved in commercial enterprises,” in Demshar’s analysis. He asked, “How well managed are they? They bury nuclear waste and cadavers under the Fawcett Center and forgot about it.”

Echoing the sentiments of the UAC, Demshar dashed off a list of what he sees as the real needs of north campus: “If Campus Partners, and I mean the university, wants to do something for us, let them fix our streets, improve the lighting, help us get new sidewalks and curbs, bury the utility lines, build green space, clean our streets, improve the landscape-that’s what this area needs. Not the Limited!”

” As a student, I’m concerned about the displacement of people and the problems. If the rents go up, everything gets nice, and people can’t afford to live here, where are they going to go?” Conte asked, raising the same concerns. “And again, [there’s] this feeling that there’s this assumption that there is no community here. But it is there and we threaten to destroy what communities we do have.”

“I’m torn because I understand the economics of it,” he continued, adding, though, “I know I don’t agree with everything that’s in [the plan], but I know something needs to be done,” Conte concluded.

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Bob Bytes Back Archive: 6/19/2002 Jackson Must Go!

by Bob Fitrakis

Columbus Police Chief James G. Jackson should do us all a favor and resign. No, not because of the obviously botched handling of the Columbus Police Commander Walter J. Burns case. We can rest assured that Assistant Safety Director David Sturtz will conduct a fair and thorough investigation. When Sturtz was Ohio’s Inspector General, his investigations were beyond reproach and models to be emulated by other public officials.

Jackson should resign because he’s failed the citizens of Columbus by creating a police department that charitably could be called the minor league, AAA squad to the L.A. Police Department. Sure, there are minor differences. The LAPD has a reputation for beating and harassing primarily minorities. The more enlightened Columbus police are equal opportunity Macers and muggers.

Columbus Safety Director Thomas W. Rice is admirably trying to prod Jackson into current professional practices such as community policing. But Jackson resists and seems to wax nostalgic for the good old days of the rubber hose and policemen as unaccountable thugs. Let’s briefly recall some of Chief Jackson’s most notable recent accomplishments: indiscriminate Macing of OSU football fans following the last win against Michigan at home; the beating and Macing of lawfully demonstrating Antioch students; at least three major street clashes since October between Jackson’s police and south campus area residents; and continued charges of discrimination from the African-American organization Police Officers for Equal Rights (POER). His inability to control his police force is an embarrassment. Inaction Jackson’s tenure has truly been a disaster.

Jackson is partly the product of a flawed system. Columbus, unlike other major cities, lacks any form of civilian review of police. Plus, Jackson does not serve at the pleasure of the safety director or mayor, rather he has civil service protection. This is the worst possible combination of policies. And Jackson has taken advantage of it, and sent a message that the small percentage of rogue and unprofessional cops will be pampered and protected.

At the June 12 University Area Commission (UAC) meeting, the commissioners unanimously endorsed “the community review of police” as part of Campus Partners “Final Final Draft” plan for campus revitalization. One commissioner joked, “If we call for this, should we also ask for witness protection programs to hide us from the police?”

Richard Talbott, a university area developer and commissioner, is a strong proponent of “real community policing like they have in New York.

“What we have in the campus area is the ‘Barney wave’… cops still in cruisers roll by at 20 mph and give you the fake smile and the silly purple dinosaur salute,” he said.

Talbott describes himself as a “dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” but agrees with the other commissioners that the cops are out of control in the south campus area. As another commissioner put it, “They’re arrogant. You see them prancing through the bars, chit-chatting with the girls while someone’s being mugged around the corner.”

Talbott keeps a tear gas canister and a handful of “knee-knockers”-rubber riot bullets-from the most recent police/student clash as a reminder of the problem.

Commissioner Steve Nicol, who manages apartments and lives on 12th Avenue-ground zero of the student ghetto war zone-points out that “the tear gas goes through the walls.” Thus, those not battling the police are forced out of their apartments and subjected to the indiscriminate Macing and beating. Both Nicol and Talbott report that they own some 700 feet of orange plastic fencing that they’ll deliver to any tenants having a party. Both insist that students have made a sincere effort to check I.D. and keep uninvited guests off private premises. Police demanded this “appearance of order” but still they attack in their riot gear.

Another commissioner, Joe Jackson, a real estate agent, believes that the police are out of line and that the students have become “an easy target.” Brad Miller, owner of Maxwell’s, echoes this view. The south campus students have been “targeted.”

If you talk to the students who live and drink in the area, the first thing that strikes you is how un-radical and un-militant they are. For the most part, they’re business majors and accountant wanna-bes who find themselves reluctantly drawn into the fray by circumstances beyond their control.

These students are not the self-proclaimed “vanguard of the revolution.” I know, because I was one. Yet, just as in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the present repressive tactics of Chief Jackson will inevitably lead to rebellion. President Gee and Campus Partners’ recent “temperance crusade” has fanned the flames and inadvertently promoted this outdated and unacceptable police conduct. Still, it is the police chief who is ultimately responsible.

That’s why Jackson must resign. He has made every cop a criminal and suspect in the eyes of a marginalized community that will only be able to reduce its crime rate if trust and true community policing exist-concepts alien to Jackson.

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