"The lack of timely disclosure of the involved officer’s identity . . . and its refusal to release camera footage to the public."
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There was no toy gun. No mobile phone. No pill bottle. No pocket to reach into. If the runaway imagination of police officers too often leads to the fatal shootings of unarmed black males, the death of Essex High School biology teacher Marcus-David Peters represents a curious but no less tragic case. The naked appearance of Peters, a Henrico County resident, left nothing to the imagination before he was fatally shot by a Richmond police officer along Interstate 95/64. We don’t know all the facts, which often are complex. We should be careful about prejudging. But again, on this front, RPD is not helpful as it wraps itself in a cloak of secrecy, from the lack of timely disclosure of the involved officer’s identity — “They’ve had plenty of time for doing ‘risk assessment’ prior to release,” as Gastañaga points out — to its refusal to release camera footage to the public, citing an ongoing investigation into the shooting. Police Chief Alfred Durham said the footage would be shown to Peters’ family, though the day and time had not been set.
Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch
WE RECENTLY announced a new campaign to bring needed reforms to Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, the large electric utility that serves many readers in this area. An electric cooperative is owned by its customers. If you get your power from REC, then you, like us, are a member-owner of REC. That means you have a right to be kept informed of your co-op’s affairs and have a say in how your co-op is run. This is especially important because REC members are supposed to elect the co-op’s board of directors, and the board’s decisions affect our pocketbooks. Yet it was was decided in a closed board meeting with little, if any, advance co-op-member input and review. We believe that significant decisions like these should be made in the open, so all REC members can see how their board functions, and with full member input and oversight.
John Levasseur, Michael Murphy and Seth Heald, The Free Lance-Star
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