REV is Right – This is Appalling
This is some fucked up shit wrapped in racism and money:
Last week state Senator Darius Brown was arrested on charges of offensive touching and disorderly conduct after police claim he punched a woman with whom he was dining at a North Wilmington restaurant and threw a water glass, breaking it, before leaving the establishment.
Brown turned himself in to the Delaware State Police a few days later. The State Police issued a press release including Brown’s booking mug shot and held a press conference regarding the incident. The local media accordingly ran the police narrative and many outlets included the mug shot. DelawareOnline had to subsequently add this editor’s note exposing the fact that they had simply reported exactly what the police gave them:
This story has been updated to reflect the correct date. Delaware State Police initially gave an incorrect date for the incident in a press release.
The story was picked up by the Philadelphia affiliates of NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX, All duly ran the mug shot as well.
The other outrage is that both committed acts of domestic violence. Sen. Sokola has (correctly, IMO) stripped Brown of his Judiciary Committee chairmanship.
Speaker Pete has not lifted a finger to sanction one of his cop cabal supporters for her actions.
Senator Sokola’s statement was clear in saying that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That applies to Senator Brown, as it does to Representative Bennett (and as it did to then Representative John Atkins who was ultimately removed by his caucus).
Senator Brown has not had his day in court. The charges against Representative Bennett were withdrawn. She has not been and will not be “guilty” of any offence.
The issue to me is whether or not Senator Brown should have been removed as chair of the Judiciary Committee before resolution of the charges and whether or not Representative Bennett should have lost her committee chair and vice-chair positions before resolution of her charges.
Mitch – All due respect, but if you don’t see a fucking mountain of institutional racism in this you’ve got your head up your ass.
I believe that the apparent conflict of interest — legal charges, judiciary committee — might have played a role in his removal. If he is cleared of the charges he could be reinstated, one supposes, but the disorderly conduct charge is a complicating factor. Those could be pressed by the restaurant, which brings up a key difference in the cases: Brown did this in public.
None of Rep. Bennett’s committee assignments present a conflict of interest, and whatever she did happened in private. Charges are dropped in many such cases, and that makes not much difference IRL. I still don’t want to see her on any domestic violence panel.
None of this justifies the difference in how police treated the cases, but it could — not does, could — explain why Brown was removed and Bennett was not.
Alby, as you well know from your time in the newsroom, individuals and businesses don’t press charges. They can make a report or file a complaint, but the charging decision rests with police/DOJ.
I suspect Sokola’s decision was more about optics and the desire to advance some meaningful legislation. Do supporters of police reform want someone who was just arrested by our largest police agency presiding over hearings on police reform bills?
Poor language use on my part. The charges have already been filed. In domestic abuse cases, such charges are often dropped because the victim will not testify. I doubt the business will be have the same motivation to do so that a domestic partner usually has. The police always refer to this as “refused to press charges.”
The cooperation of the victim or other witnesses is necessary for successful prosecution. Bennett had no witnesses but the victim. Brown had plenty of witnesses — throwing and breaking a glass in a restaurant is bound to get some attention.
I agree with your point. I don’t know how much moving legislation has to do with it. It would be poor optics even with no bills in the pipeline.
And let’s face it, there’s not much hate out there for husband-beaters. Wife-beaters, sure. Husband-beaters, not nearly so much. So nobody but us is going to complain about the unequal treatment.
Cross posted at Daily Kos:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/25/2032049/-Two-DE-State-Senators-arrested-for-the-same-crime-guess-who-s-mugshot-ran-in-the-paper?_=2021-05-25T08:21:55.000-07:00
Sorry, REV. I was doing other things. I am not afraid of debate.
I fully agree that there is no excuse for the DSP treating these two incidents so differently. Is the reason racial, perhaps. Is it gender based? Perhaps. Either is wrong.
Word.
And like Al wrote, I get the Senate sanction for those reasons. I’m critiquing the cops and media, not Senate leadership
Your take is lazy and stupid.
Did the DSP make Darius punch a woman in plain day light?
So you’re saying DSP did a full press blitz for Brown and not Bennett due to gender?
Ok.
We are more concerned you are more upset about what’s in the newspaper then Darius brown actually assaulting a woman in a restaurant.
Yes there is a difference
Deek is so accustomed to institutional racism, he can’t even see it. He is like a fish that doesn’t know he is swimming in water.
So we are all overlooking Darius Brown being a tax cheat and throwing a glass of water at a woman after punching her in the face.
Where did me too go? Not here in Delaware?
Even if the woman magically made up a story about being punched in front of a bunch of people in a busy restaurant shall I run down Browns rap sheet of shady past?
Having this guy anywhere near leadership is a disaster? Much like his personal life
As for Bennet. She’s a hard drinking boozer who had enough of her husband. That’s what it sounds like to me. Both should not hold public office in my opinion but if you all want to make this about race…
Have at it…tootalooo
Deek has gender hand up folks. We hate to see this, don’t we? Sad.
@Deek: Darius Brown can be (probably is) a bad guy, a criminal even (yet to be determined), and it still would be wrong to give him the mug shot treatment while sparing Bennett the same treatment, which is as close as the DSP can get to a perp walk in a state without local TV news. Capisce?
Brown is a loser and should resign. Typical Liberal zero respect for the law.
https://baytobaynews.com/stories/delaware-senator-failed-to-report-tens-of-thousands-in-back-taxes,16251?fbclid=IwAR0jnWiClYYl_c7G6EGVMkhwnPXqkvHTnPisXGOm35WTZ_1c5KF6xKQVNpk
If you can read The Call and your take away doesn’t have anything to do with different standards being applied, you are just a racist, or a cop or (most likely) a racist cop.
Sometimes it is that simple.
Jeez. Mention Andria Bennett and the scumbags really come out of the woodwork. Correlation or causation? The eternal question.