"Tawdry means cheap, shoddy, or tasteless. It can be used to describe almost anything from clothes to people to events or affairs."
Back here in New Gahania, it's yet another Magical Mystery Detour.
No legal or policy violations found yet after NAHA Taser comment, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)
NEW ALBANY — One month after a New Albany Housing Authority resident said he felt threatened by a comment the interim director made about him that the director says was originally meant as a joke, little has been done on the part of the agencies the resident complained to, two of which say they found no legal or policy violation.
When it comes to ethics on Jeff Gahan's watch, the already subterranean bar already was submerged before the flood waters came, as Brandon Brown is learning.
Brandon Brown, a six-year resident of NAHA, filed actions with the New Albany Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the Indiana State Police, the New Albany Police Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after NAHA Interim Director David Duggins instructed a New Albany police officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun on Jan. 22 after a NAHA board meeting that Brown taped with his cell phone.
As words go, "staged" and "stooge" are interchangeable as they pertain to potted apologies.
Duggins apologized to Brown for his comment later in an email, and told the News and Tribune that while it was insensitive, he meant no malice toward Brown.
A regular stand-up comic, that "interim" buldozer contractor of ours.
Duggins said he prefaced his comment by saying that next time when Brown filmed the meeting he should get his good side, and if he didn’t, the police officer should shoot Brown with his stun gun. Brown’s account differs. He says that Duggins asked him if Brown was on his side, and then said something that sounded like “since you like videotaping,” before he told the officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun.
I deeply appreciate the follow-up on the part of the
News and Tribune, but once again, it must be asked whether anyone has asked for Gahan's viewpoint, even once. My guess: he'd hurriedly shunt the question to Irving Joshua.
Joshua said that personal problems have prevented him from scheduling a private, executive session among board members regarding the complaint, but that he plans to in the future.
First, he has to ask Duggins to provide him with a written summary of what happened, as well as one from Schneider.
Joshua said that he believes the board will have to do something about what Duggins said, although Joshua did not elaborate on what that could be.
Gahan probably would have us believe it's all about Joshua, who Gahan himself placed in the current position, meaning that the buck stops with Gahan and everyone knows it apart from Team Gahan itself, although it's been instructive to watch as the shadowy cronyist operator Joshua on loan to NAHA from redevelopment consistently flees the spotlight.
Then there's the police department.
The New Albany Police Department also has completed its review of the stun gun comment and its aftermath, prompted by the formal complaint made against its police officer, and has determined that no policy violations occurred, said New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey in an email. No punitive actions were taken against Schneider either.
“I will say however it was a good training opportunity for officer Schneider as well as the rest of the department,” said Bailey.
See, Brandon? Your distress can be blithely explained away as a mere training exercise.
Of course, since Team Gahan first charted a course for constant evasion in this case, the news cycle has provided an augmented perspective. Jeff Gillenwater threads the needle with devastating precision.
When a public official and fellow Gahan crony issues a threat, police chief Todd Bailey accepts “it was just a joke” at face value and calls it a training opportunity for the officer who witnessed it. Likewise, the county prosecutor does nothing. When a teenager issues a threat online and Bailey and others agree it was a joke and no real harm was intended, they immediately arrest the teenager, charge him with a felony, and go on TV to proudly announce there will be no tolerance of threatening language, that anyone who engages in threats will be arrested and prosecuted. Their political posturing and hypocrisy leaves one young man intimidated and at risk of more with no recourse and another in jail and facing a lifetime stigma for behaving like a public official. New Albany justice, much more a matter of political connections than actual behavior.
The number of functionaries who have, in words or effect, gone on record as finding zero issues with Duggins' characteristically intemperate taser threat now includes Gahan, Joshua, Bailey, Dickey and prosecutor Keith Henderson ... and NAHA board members like Robison, Ginkins and Norwood ... and councilmen Coffey and McLaughlin, with Barksdale and Phipps both straining to look the other way.
With one exception, they're white males; most are proud members of the Floyd County Democratic Party. In short, they're supposedly our best and brightest, although none care to fathom the sheer moral and ethical rottenness of Duggins in charge
of feeding your pet hamster, much less the future of actual human beings fearing for their future.
It's political business as usual, and it's power-trip
bullshit.
If you agree with me, don't forget to vote against each and every one of them when next you have the chance.
#FireGahan2019
