[Peace-discuss] Champaign election

[C. G. Estabrook]

[On a local matter falling within AWARE's concerns, I've sent the following 
personal letter to the News-Gazette in advance of the April 5 election.  Perhaps 
AWARE as a group will want want to make some similar representations.  --CGE]


To the editor of the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette:

The primary responsibility of the Champaign city council is to protect and 
promote the health and safety of the citizens of Champaign. Their failure to do 
so in regard to the city's police means that no member of the present council 
should be returned to office.

The killing of an unarmed fifteen year-old in the presence of two policemen - 
one the police chief - is so disgraceful that it is almost unimaginable that 
those two are still members of the police force.

When the council rejected recent proposals for a Champaign police review board, 
the members of the council asserted that they would function as a review board. 
Their nonfeasance in that role is a scandal.

Kiwane Carrington has been in his grave for almost a year and a half, but the 
council members have yet to undertake the reform of the police force.

The legal responsibility of the those two officers is a separate matter, 
although citizens of Champaign are rightly skeptical of an investigation carried 
out by other local police and sympathetic authorities. James Madison, author of 
the Constitution, took it for granted that "No man is allowed to be a judge in 
his own cause ... with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges 
and parties at the same time."

We should vote against incumbent city council members and demand that the new 
council reform the police, beginning with the removal of those responsible for 
this killing.

Sincerely,

(Dr.) C. G. Estabrook


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20110323/204b9af2/attachment.html>