Jayson Whitehead has a really interesting story in the current C-Ville about COMPASS Day Haven’s difficulty in getting started. The organization has been working to provide a day shelter for the local homeless population, but trouble finding a location, the loss of a fiscal agent, internal conflicts, difficulty establishing a board and zoning trouble have all slowed them down.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
Page 3 of 4
Rob Seal reported in the Progress a couple of days ago that a former Whisper Ridge resident is suing the mental health facility for $10.35M. The anonymous plaintiff just recently turned 18, and alleges that he was physically and sexually abused while there between 2003-5. Which, odds are, is true. It seems that Whisper Ridge (formerly The Brown Schools, before that The Millmont Center) has broken just about every law, regulation, and standard of decency that’s possible (see exhibits a, b, c, d and e), so if I were a betting man, I’d place my money on the kid winning the case. I guess what’s amazing is that it took this long for somebody to sue this place.
Nathan Washington has pleaded guilty to four of the serial rapes, NBC 29 reports. Prosecutors have agreed to charge him in only four of the seven cases in exchange for his guilty plea. With the deal comes a recommendation for a life sentence on each charge. It was just four months ago that Washington was arrested. Washington is a husband and father of three, and lived in Woodbrook and worked as a Daily Progress deliverman and Harris Teeter meat cutter until his arrest. There’s no word on when sentencing will take place. Suffice it to say, he’s never getting out of prison.
9:15pm Update: Lisa Provence reports for The Hook on how Washington was caught, something that many of us have been wondering. It turns out that one of his victims spotted him in the parking lot of the UVa Aquatics and Fitness Center, the same place where he’d attacked her in 2002. She’d also seen him at Harris Teeter. So she wrote down the plate number and called the cops. They put him on surveillance, and a detective grabbed a disposable cup that he’d thrown away after drinking from. The DNA results came back quickly, showing it was a perfect match to every attack, and they arrested him three days later. That’s some clever, efficient work on the part of both police and the alert victim.
Well-known local artist and AIDS survivor Gerry Mitchell was knocked out of his wheelchair by a police cruiser earlier this month, and then received a ticket for jaywalking (rolling?).
Courteney Stuart explains in this week’s Hook that Mitchell was returning home from a shopping trip to Reid’s when he stopped to wait to cross West Main at 4th. When the light turned green, he progressed across the street. Halfway across, a police car hit him from behind, hurling him from his motorized wheelchair and into the street. The apologetic Albemarle County police officer Gregory Davis leapt from his car to help, as did a pedestrian. Bleeding from his limbs, Mitchell consented to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. A city officer came to visit him a few hours later, a ticket in hand.
The press only learned about this because a bystander contacted The Hook. Mitchell just wants an apology and, presumably, the ticket to be dropped. Obviously, Officer Davis didn’t deliberately run into a man in a wheelchair, but the decision to ticket his victim quite literally added insult to injury. (Attorney Debbie Wyatt speculates that this was deliberate — as with the recent case of the officer nearly running down pedestrians on Water Street, in which he charged two of them with crimes, both of which they were acquitted of.)
Given the press attention to that other recent cruiser/pedestrian incident, the timing for this couldn’t be worse. The victim likewise couldn’t have been worse: it’s not just that he’s a man in a wheelchair, but an enormously well-known, well-respected, well-spoken man with an unimpeachable reputation. The smartest thing for the county police to do in this case would be to get the city police tear up the ticket, apologize, and move on. Let’s see how circuitous their path to that obvious solution proves to be.
City council voted against Chief Timothy Longo’s request for $300k for downtown security cameras, but is willing to support a scaled-back version, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Daily Progress. Mayor David Brown and councilors Kevin Lynch and Dave Norris all voted against Longo’s proposal to blanket downtown with security cameras. To their great credit, both Brown and Norris specifically cited the utter lack of evidence that security cameras lead to a reduction in crime. All members of council but Brown said they’re willing to explore a scaled back version, with mobile security cameras that store the video (rather than transmit it to the police station), to be extracted only in the case of an incident report. They’ve asked for a modified proposal from Chief Longo, but they’re making no promises that they’ll support it.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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