day (here is the first) that reflects well on Pitt police chief Tim Delaney:Pitt students now welcome to bring lawyers to meetings with University representatives.
I am told Chief Delaney (in white shirt, at center, surrounded by substantially lesser men) pushed for this welcome change in policy.
4 comments:
Wasn't Delaney the same law enforcement official who put the cart before the horse a couple of days ago, saying that if students could prove they aren't guilty then the charges might be dropped? I guess he's trying to make up for his lapse of knowledge about the presumption of innocence.
Chief Delaney is one of the few law enforcment/city-county adminstration/university participants in this debacle to whom I am inclined to extend the benefit of the doubt. He is a police officer, not a lawyer; I sense he chose words poorly while trying to act properly. I do not have complete information, although my sources seem reliable.
At a technical level, I doubt Pitt police were the arresting/complaining offers on many, if any, arrests. So Delaney is interceding as a matter of grace; if that is true, it seems reasonable for him to apply his standard in determining on whose behalf he is willing to provide assistance. That make the choice of the word "innocent" issue nearly a non-issue in my book.
The bad guys here, as I see it at the moment -- and the picture is yet to develop fully -- are the losers who put the wrong police in the wrong place and then loosed them on a campus, and the police officers who used that opportunity to abuse citizens, cover their badges to avoid accountability, lie on police reports, etc.
Delaney, who seems to be trying to wrong some wrongs not of his making, gets the benefit of the doubt.
Or maybe I just have a soft spot for police officers?
"... trying to wrong some wrongs ..."
Well, you know the saying, "Two wrongs don't guarantee your rights!"
Yes, Delaney misspoke. He is also, first and foremost, doing what he's told, i.e., the bidding of the Pitt administration. So I wouldn't crown his head with too many laurels.
Until and unless those students are cleared completely, this story will be short on laurels. Even then, they will have civil claims to root for.
If nothing else, Delaney looks great by comparison to the likes of Harper, Donaldson, Ravenstahl, Onorato and Nordenberg.
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