Cornejo Case: The Arrogance of Power

The Washington City Paper has picked up on the murder case of Steve Cornejo, which has been extensivley covered at the Democrat blog Bluewwds and bullhorned by Providence resident and CA candidate Patrick McDade. Horan and Morrogh have been in power much too long, and this drastic case proves that they do not feel accountable to the public anymore. THIS is the most galling part:

Gotwalt was never arrested in the killing, and even before the corpse was cold Horan began mounting a very public and ultimately bogus defense of the shooter, telling local media that Gotwalt was only being a good Samaritan who had prevented a drunk Cornejo from beating a woman, and that Gotwalt only used the gun in self-defense. Horan, known as a hardball law-and-order man in his several decades in power, took the odd (for him) step of not making any recommendation to indict when the case was presented to a grand jury. No witnesss to the killing testified before the grand jury, and no indictment was returned.

Horan’s failure to prosecute Gotwalt has looked almost criminal ever since Cornejo’s survivors sued Gotwalt for wrongful death in Fairfax County civil court. The plaintiffs won a verdict against Gotwalt of $1.96 million for the killing, plus $15,588 for funeral expenses.

Testimony in the civil case was devastating. Though Horan had insisted to Cornejo’s family members that nobody had seen the killing, two men in separate apartments heard Cornejo yelling, “Why are you trying to take my life?” as Gotwalt beat him in the head with the .38 caliber pistol, just before shooting him in the back. Evidence at the civil trial showed that there was no basis in fact to Horan’s version of Gotwalt as Good Samaritan: There was no woman being assaulted when Gotwalt encountered Cornejo. There wasn’t even a woman on the scene.

A travesty. This might help explain why the liberal Falls Church News-Press endorsed McDade over Morrogh.

Comments

[Disillushioned Independent]

I received a mailer today from DPV (authorized by Morrogh) that has the tag line "A Tradition of Effective Prosecution".

A little bit of puffery? At odds with McDade's never-refuted-with-real-numbers figure of the current CA only prosecuting 28% of charged felonies, as well as numerous examples similar to that experienced by the Cornejo family.

[Anne]

I kept flipping my flyer around looking for the hidden "...NOT!" to follow the "Tradition of Effective Prosecution" tag line.