You remember Rebecca Walker. She got herself a golden parachute job created just for her in the Office Of Forensic Science, formerly the Medical Examiner’s Office. Conveniently, the newly-created office ended up under the supervision of, wait for it, the police, essentially guaranteeing that incriminating evidence against cops would never see the light of day. Don’t trust my challenged memory for this, let’s take a trip into the Wayback Machine. Don’t bother to click (unless you want to read the comments, which are pretty good). I’m gonna post the whole bleeping article:
BREAKING: Ex-Legislator Rewarded For Burying Death Penalty Repeal Bill
Remember Rebecca Walker? She’s the former chair of the House Judiciary Committee who buried the death penalty repeal bill in her committee for most of 2013 and all of 2014.
Remember Rebecca Walker? She’s the former legislator who claimed she was running for reelection in 2014, had actually filed, waited until after the filing deadline, then withdrew her name, thus denying the Democratic voters in her district the right to choose her successor via primary. Remember why Rebecca Walker claimed she withdrew? She said that her work would not enable her to continue to serve. As if she just found that out right after the filing deadline.
Well, guess what ‘good fortune’ has been bestowed upon former State Rep. Rebecca Walker?
If you guessed a $92.5K state job that required no public posting and which reunites her with her police pals with whom she scuttled death penalty repeal, you would be correct. Oh, and it’s a newly-created job that had not previously existed (I know that’s redundant, but sometimes I feel the need to employ both belt and suspenders). An exempt position, no less. No pesky Merit System requirements like, say, qualifications. Or ethics. Tony DeLuca Part Deux. Oh, and she’s now in a position where, should inconvenient evidence not make the police look good, she can do something about it. Appointed by someone who opposed death penalty repeal in Delaware.
LADEEZ AND GENTLEMEN: The brand new ‘Deputy Director’ of the brand new (and profoundly ill-considered) Delaware Division of Forensic Science, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Delaware Department of Homeland Security: Rebecca Walker.
You got that? The forensics will now be under the purview of the state cops. What could possibly go wrong? My prediction: Evidence will still disappear. It will just be different evidence. If a cop has been alleged to have done something wrong, how can anyone trust the cops to ensure that the evidence is preserved? History teaches us that we can’t. And now Rebecca Walker will be reunited with her cop buddies and will have access to that evidence.
Once again proving that, with the Delaware Way, there is no justice. Just casual corruption that rewards the corrupt who play the inside game.
What. A Disgrace.
Guess what? She’s now been indicted:
A former state representative, who is now a high-level public health official, has been indicted for allegedly falsifying records of state employees under her supervision.
Between May 2015 and February 2020, Rebecca Walker – then the deputy director of the Delaware Division of Forensic Science – falsified employees’ records, claiming they passed alcohol tests they never actually received, according to the indictment.
I highlighted that May 2015 date because that’s when she was hired. In other words, according to the indictment, she had been falsifying records from the moment she went to work there.
Walker had oversight of the “Drug Free Workplace Policy and the randomized drug and alcohol testing of the Division’s employees,” said Arshon Howard, chief of community relations for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
For $92.5K a year, that hardly seems like an onerous responsibility. Especially when you’re not, you know, doing the randomized tests and, rather, are just faking the paperwork.
I have another question: She was narked out by her former employer, a state agency. How, then, did she fall upward to the Director of Nursing Job in Public Health? Wasn’t Public Health clued in?
Might as well close with Walker’s own words:
“I firmly maintain a high ethical work standard and believe that my qualifications and background demonstrate I am well suited to help move this Division forward,” Walker said in the 2015 article about her hiring.
Hokay.