John Yoo was in Charlottesville to explain the torture memos– and talk about his new book.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

The Miller Center of Public Affairs has a long tradition of luring influential people to speak to engaged citizens, but this genteel practice degenerated on Friday, March 19, at an appearance by the lawyer who wrote the infamous “torture memos” that the Bush Administration used to justify waterboarding terrorist suspects.

While irate audience members shouted at the interrupters, the Center’s programs director, George Gilliam, scolded disruptive protesters during the talk by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo.

“I would like to thank George again for duplicating a Berkeley atmosphere,” joshed Yoo, as the tension mounted.

Yoo has just written a book called Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush. His theory is that those considered the best presidents (more)

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A February sunset over Fashion Square.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Two of the bolder allegations in the recent brawl-at-the-mall that temporarily shut down Charlottesville Fashion Square were that brawlers arrived ready to rumble and traveled for that purpose via public transportation. However, a schoolmate of some of the alleged fighters claims the role played by public transportation— as well as the intentions of the participants— have been overstated.

“It was never a coordinated show of force,” says Federico D. Venegas, a 16-year-old sophomore at Charlottesville High School, who says he found no evidence of any premeditation. Instead, Venegas contends that what happened around 7:30pm on March 5 was more like the fighting of yesteryear.

“A couple of kids got mad at another couple of kids,” says Venegas. “Someone says, ‘I have a beef with you,’ and somebody says, ‘Let’s take it outside.’ And everybody followed them out.”

Indeed, the students did take it outside, but (more)

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“Someone knows something,” says Dan Harrington, pictured here with wife Gil on March 17 in front of John Paul Jones Arena. “They need to come forward.”
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Her parents desperately wish it weren’t so, but they say they’re convinced: Morgan Harrington suffered before she was killed.

On the five month anniversary of the Virginia Tech student’s disappearance and less than two months after her remains were discovered in a remote area of a southern Albemarle County farm, her parents, Dan and Gil Harrington, spoke to reporters in front of the John Paul Jones Arena, where Morgan attended an October 17 Metallica show the night of her disappearance, to beg anyone with information about the case to come forward and to urge caution in the Charlottesville community.

“A monster walks among you,” Gil Harrington says, calling her daughter’s killer a “violent, sadistic and dangerous man.”

Although a medical examiner quickly ruled 20-year-old Morgan’s death a homicide after her body was discovered January 26, police have been silent in recent weeks and have released no further information on her cause of death.

However, her parents, both medical professionals, say signs of violence were obvious on their daughter’s remains, which were released from evidence and returned to them in February.

“He chooses to kill in a savage and brutal way,” says Gil Harrington, an oncology nurse, of her daughter’s killer, “to break her bones before he murdered her.” Dan Harrington, a psychiatrist, confirms (more)

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Unshoveled sidewalks like this one on Water Street were common this winter.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Even though snow blocked sidewalks all over town for weeks following major snowstorms in what was a record-breaking winter, no one has been convicted under Charlottesville’s ordinance requiring snow removal from public sidewalks.

Police declined to issue citations following the December 18-19 Snowpocalypse because the city had done such a poor job clearing its own sidewalks.

The snow removal ordinance hit another hurdle this week when judges dismissed charges against five people and businesses, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Yellow Cab, who were cited in February for not shoveling.

Defense attorney Andre Hakes argued in Charlottesville General District Court March 12 that Virginia’s Dillon’s Rule, which says a locality can only adopt laws that are allowed by state law, does not give the city authority to make (more)

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A CTS bus downtown.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the whole brawl-at-the-mall that caused Charlottesville Fashion Square to shut down for an hour on Friday night, March 5, is the statement released by Simon Malls. The release declares that unsupervised juveniles— said to number around 100 by NBC29— arrived via public transportation. The Newsplex doesn’t give a total for the crowd, but Charlottesville Transit Service buses appear to hold a little under 50 people.

Albemarle County Police Corporal Ken Richardson says that preliminary reports suggest total involvement (more)

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A 19-year veteran, Hopwood monitors Anchorage Farm January 26, the day Morgan Harrington’s body was found.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

One of the Albemarle County Police officers who shot Colby W. Eppard has left his job as part of a shakeup that appears to have resulted in the demotion of two other officers and a multi-week suspension for the Department’s top spokesperson, Lt. Todd Hopwood.

The information comes in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by NBC29 and fulfilled by County spokesperson Lee Catlin, who indicates that the officer who left, Caleb Marden, departed March 2. No cause was cited, but NBC29 asserts that at least one of the punished officers engaged in “inappropriate” behavior “while on the clock,” but the media outlet did not offer any specifics.

The recently demoted officers are Caroline Morris and Scott Cox, the latter of whom (more)

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“With approximately 2.3 million people in prison or jail, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world—by far. Our per capita rate is six times greater than Canada’s, eight times greater than France’s, and twelve times greater than Japan’s. Here, at least, we are an undisputed world leader; we have a 40 percent lead on our closest competitors—Russia and Belarus.” So writes Georgetown University Law School Professor David Cole in the New York Review of Books last year. On Friday, March 5 at 11am the he’ll be discussing our “shameful” prison systems at the Miller Center.

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Delegate Rob Bell, right, votes against marijuana reform bills in committee and becomes the subject of a YouTube video.
PHOTO FROM YOUTUBE

Supporters of two bills on marijuana— one to decriminalize possession of small quantities and one amending Virginia’s on-the-books medical marijuana law— accuse Delegate Rob Bell in a YouTube video of leading the charge to derail legislation that might have provided relief to cancer victims.

Michael Krawitz, with Virginians Against Drug Violence and Patients Out of Time, complains that Bell ignored human suffering and used “straw man” arguments during a January 27 subcommittee hearing by alleging that the measures would lower the penalties for an adult selling pot to a third grader— an “inflammatory” allegation bearing little connection to the real world, says Krawitz.

Bell, however, says he remembers a respectful hearing, and that he questioned a witness who claimed decriminalization would save $75 million a year by keeping Virginia’s 20,000 pot arrestees out of jail for 30 days.

“That was inaccurate,” says Bell. “I can’t recall a case where anyone spent 30 days in jail for pot.”

House bills 1134 and 1136 were carried by Republican Delegate Harvey Morgan from Gloucester, and have been tabled for a year.

The makers of the video “had an agenda,” says Bell. “I am not as important as they think.”

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Dan and Gil Harrington arrive at the Copeley Road Bridge on Thursday, February 18.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

They don’t know who killed their daughter, but Morgan Harrington’s parents say they remain certain about where he lives, and that he will be caught.

“There is a bad guy here in Charlottesville,” Dan Harrington pointedly told reporters gathered by Morgan’s memorial on the Copeley Road bridge on Thursday morning, February 18, after he and Morgan’s mother, Gil, finished meeting with law enforcement.

Recalling lone female joggers he and Gil saw earlier that morning crossing the bridge and praising both UVA and Virginia Tech for emailing messages to all of their students, specifically referring to Morgan, Dan Harrington cautioned, “Students and citizens to be aware of their surroundings and not make themselves unsafe.”

While the Medical Examiner in Richmond has publicly ruled Morgan’s death a homicide, her parents may also know more specifically how their daughter died. Asked if police had shared her cause of death, the Harringtons paused and looked at each other before replying. “That,” said Dan, “you’d need to get from police.”

State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller declined comment, citing toxicology tests still being conducted by the Medical Examiner.

One forensic expert says he believes there should be plentiful physical evidence, even if Morgan perished the night of the Metallica concert, October 17, thanks to (more)

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Where the sidewalk ends: Water Street on February 17, just past the federal courthouse.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Charlottesville Police have gotten tough on businesses and individuals who have not removed snow from public sidewalks, and issued five summons for noncompliance with the city’s snow removal ordinance.

McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Yellow Cab got tickets February 11, and individuals in the 1700 block of JPA and in the 700 block of Monticello were written up this week.

“We’ve received over 150 complaints,” says Lieutenant Gary Pleasants. “The majority were warned, and most complied.”

Since the December snowpocalypse, police have come under fire for not enforcing the sidewalk ordinance, which requires that residents clear walkways within 12 hours after snowfall ceases.

At the end of January, Chief Tim Longo admitted that (more)

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If Delegate Bell’s bill passes, police may be able to remove their address from government websites.
PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

The woman jailed for publishing the address of an undercover drug enforcer has apparently inspired a new measure in the General Assembly that might let police officers pull their addresses offline— even though civil libertarians say that the underlying law that criminalized the I HeArTE JADE blog and put its creator behind bars for a month is unconstitutional.

“This bill was inspired by a local website that seeks to identify undercover policemen,” says bill patron Rob Bell (R-Charlottesville). “The site includes photos of their homes that come from government sites. For the safety of the officers, I want to help them get that stuff off the government sites.”

Bell’s bill, HB1382 (one of 41 he’s introduced this session) was originally written so that any person or business— such as a blog or newspaper— publishing an officer’s address was required to remove it after receiving a written demand.

“It doesn’t look much like the original,” says Bell. “This (more)

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The new issue hits newsstands Wednesday afternoon.
HOOK GRAPHIC

“There may be something like horse hair on the body, which would mean that she got there by horseback,” offered a private investigator on a recent episode of TV crime show Nancy Grace . “Perhaps,” he then suggested, “the body was even dropped out of [a] plane into this remote area.”

Such wild speculation brought immediate jeers from Grace, but the remoteness of the location of the remains of 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington is leading to flights of fancy and incessant speculation.

“I’m mystified,” says Dave Bass, owner of 742-acre Anchorage Farm in southern Albemarle County and the man who discovered the skeletonized remains as he checked fences on his property on Tuesday, January 26.

The mystery of Morgan’s final resting place isn’t just about who put her there; it’s about how anyone could have reached such a remote location in the first place. (more)

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Former country club president Mike Comer will plead guilty.
NELSONCOUNTYLIFE.COM/ALBEMARLE POLICE

The former Glenmore Country Club president and homeowner’s association treasurer who disappeared July 1 moments before an audit was in Albemarle Circuit Court Monday to set a date to enter a guilty plea on five counts of embezzlement.

Michael D. Comer, 45, appeared dressed in a blue blazer and considerably more clean shaven than when he emerged from hiding July 27. Accused of pilfering (more)

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Sheriff William Morris in 2003.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Greene County’s flamboyant five-term former law enforcement head, Sheriff William Morris, 65, has been taken off life support January 28 after what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, NBC29 reports.

According to family members, Morris, who ran for his second term in 1987 with the slogan, “Don’t be silly, re-elect Sheriff Willie,” suffered from long-term health issues.

A champion weightlifter, Morris set world records in power lifting and won more than two dozen national championships. In September, he suffered an injury that caused tinnitus, which sounded like a constant “buzz saw,” says his daughter.

“I hope my death will help bring about some cure for those who suffer from tinnitus by bringing attention to it,” he wrote in a suicide note, the Daily Progress reports.

And according to the American Tinnitus Association, there is no cure.

Morris rose to fame in the mid-1980s with such high-profile activities as housing a prisoner in his own home when space at the jail ran thin and holding a bake sale when the County supervisors denied his requested drug enforcement money.

The Board of Supervisors, he told the Hook seven years ago, is a place to see “how much money can you put in your pocket.”

This from the man who once arrested one board member’s son on charges of wife-beating and another’s brother for a DUI– and he said he once chased a supervisor who might have been illegally hunting.

Morris was buried February 1 at Evergreen Church of the Brethren in Dyke.
–updated 9:29pm with news of his death
– updated January 29– Spelling of “Willie” changed.
– updated February 1
– updated February 2

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Dan, Gil, and Alex Harrington tie a black ribbon to Copeley Road Bridge a day after Morgan’s body was found.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

“Our sorrow is etched in our faces; our pain has been carved in our hearts.” So said the mother of Morgan Dana Harrington, a day after her 20-year-old daughter’s body was found in a cowfield south of Charlottesville.

“I can tell you, having seen them,” continued Gil Harrington, “that girl even had some lovely bones.”

The attractiveness of the blonde, blue-eyed victim and the sudden, heart-breaking mystery following her unexplained departure from a long-anticipated concert combined to make the case a top national news story.

At the emotional January 27 press conference for approximately 30 journalists, the family— including the victim’s silently grieving brother, Alex— tied a black ribbon to a pole on the Copeley Road bridge, the last place where the Virginia Tech education major was positively spotted after leaving the October 17 Metallica concert at nearby John Paul Jones Arena.

Clad only in a t-shirt, tights, skirt, and knee-high boots on a misty 42-degree night— she was, police believe, trying to hitch a ride on the bridge.

On that same bridge Wednesday, her father expressed (more)

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