News roundup

Ruby,

The latino families' eviction is very disturbing. Some Christmas present.

What can we do as a community to help?

Where is the town leadership???

Great site! I just added you to the CommonGroundCommonSense.org's Blogroll List.

We may want to link with you in our Local CGCS project. I'll be back with more on that soon.

link correction:

http://commongroundcommonsense.org

why the comment "Now that's real christian of him"?

It seems a needlessly rude comment, especially when you

1. don't know the landlord,
2. don't know all the circumstances of the eviction and
3. don't even know the landlord's religious affiliation...

Bill,

I think Ruby meant charitable.

GO RUBY!!!

I was also struck by the insensitivity of the landlord. Of course, they are within the law by providing 30 days notice before the lease expired. But two days before Christmas!! That's cold. I'm glad that Clark and some of the other families have the support and help of McDougle Elementary School.

Let's hope that the talks Mauricio Castro plans to have with the apartment managers will bear some fruit. If plans are to renovate the apartments, it seems to me that there would be no harm in allowing the residents to stay until the work actually begins. Maybe, this way, the kids won't have to switch schools before the end of the year.

TWICE!!!

ya'all just never get tired of saying bush=hitler do you? sad, really...

As to the evictions--until UNC provides enough DORM SPACE for it's students the rental market will be weighted toward the students. Let's face facts--would you, as a landlord, rather update apartments which you can then lease to multiple students for serious money--or continue renting to (primarily) section 8 voucher holders? This is the price we, as a community, pay for UNC NOT building dorms. Carrboro has been UNC's satellite dorm community for AT LEAST 25 years...

Jack--as to W. being Time's "Man of the Year"--remember--HITLER was named "MOTY." And Stalin was also MOTY twice. It's not necessarily a POSITIVE thing...just recognizing the person who has had the most profound impact on the world, positive OR negative, for that year.

Just sayin'.

Here's a list through 1999:
http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa050400a.htm

I would love to see some of you activist types look into the racial profiling of Hispanic and other "brown" people in Carrboro. Seems that "driving while brown" is a very common thing in Carrboro these days. Look at the police blotter and specifically into certain individual officer's stops as compared to others. Note the lack of black and white drivers % vs. Hispanics and Asians. Then compare those total %'s to Chapel Hill blotters and tickets.
Do brown people somehow start driving worse when they cross into Carrboro, or do they just stand out in the eyes of the Carrboro Police? And lastly, do any of you actually think the Carrboro Police would LIE about any of this? Check the record folks.....it's all there.

Hey-- I NEVER said bush=hitler. Never. YOU drew that comparison. All I was saying is that being named MOTY (or WOTY) is not, necessarily, kudos. Would you have been happier if I'd cited the Ayatollah Khomeini? Or Nikita Kruschev?

Read a little more carefully, sir. Read a little more carefully.

Matthew 2 or Luke 2

Which do you like ?

Seems maybe the landlords weren't COMPLETELY evil after all...they agreed to let all the families with kids stay until school is out.

As for the Carrboro police tricking suspects to get confessions, don't any of you ever watch NYPD Blue?

I don't think the Carrboro interrogation situation has as much to do with lying to the accused as much as it does with how he was evidently THREATENED WITH HIS LIFE. Deception versus a written threat of the death penalty before he's been read his rights seem to cross 2 completely different lines to me. And for any intelligent public official (ie, Carl Fox) to not see a distinction is very odd to me.

You tell a man over the course of 3 hours in a police car that he's going to be KILLED if he doesn't tell you what you want to hear -- isn't that torture? Certainly shouldn't generate an admissable confession. Sounds more like the way Tony Soprano would operate.

As far as I know, it's still not against the law to be dumb. However, it is against the law to interrogate a suspect without reading his Miranda rights to him.

I hope his confession is admissiable. Otherwise, a confessed murderer goes free. Come on, this guy killed a young woman in cold blood. The police suspected him long before he was arrested for theft. Would an innocent man confess to murder just because the DA threatens to go after him with the death penalty? No way.

Crooks are dumb. Maybe they subconsiously want to admit their guilt, but I think mainly they are just dumb. Google "Dumb Crooks" and you can read lots of good stories.

No, it's not against the law to be dumb. But that explains why he might have confessed without being tortured, as James Barrett surmises.

As for the his miranda rights, that question is still to be decided. From the Herald:

Officers continued talking to Dalzell -- whether they "interrogated" him is a matter of debate -- at the Carrboro Police Department before finally telling him he could remain silent and have an attorney present, his so-called miranda rights. Dalzell then signed a waiver of his rights and wrote out a confession, at one point even using a computer to compose it, according to police.

Also, from the same article:

The chief also said her officers were not required to give Dalzell his miranda rights before they actually did because they did not interrogate Dalzell or ask him questions about Key's murder until after they read him his rights.

Before that, Dalzell made what authorities call "a spontaneous utterance," she said.

"A 'spontaneous utterance' is not the product of interrogation or interview," Hutchison said. "It's something someone offers before they have been questioned, and that's what happened in this situation."

The officers weren't required to give Dalzell his miranda rights as they rode back to carrboro, she said. "We had no intention of interrogating him in that vehicle, and we didn't," she said.

So let's not rush to judge the police, who, after all, got a murderer to confess, and without resorting to anything like mafia tactics.

Another article, this one in the N&O, in which the Carrboro police claim that, contrary to the charges by the public defender, no confession was made until after Dalzell had been read his rights.

At a hearing yesterday, Dalzell's confession was thrown out. Carl Fox is considering an appeal. But from the article I read in the Herald, there are good grounds for the decision to exclude. Among other problems, Dalzell was falsely told the arrest warrant was for murder, instead of larceny. I wonder if he can be charged with that crime, now?

It's our system at work. I agree with the outcome. But it's a shame. I don't think any of this caused an innocent man to confess to murder.