Top o' the Tuesday
If we didn't know any better (and some of you have told us as much), the Tazer would believe that John Geluardi was one of the 590 registered Greens in Richmond. He certainly knows how to recycle since his article repeats an accusation from the Richmond Globe:
"McLaughlin beat the well-funded Anderson in the three-way election by 242 votes. She got some help from former councilman Gary Bell, who despite losing his council seat in 2004 ran for mayor this year. Bell, who is black, received more than 5,000 votes Nov. 7. Had he not run, those votes most likely would have gone to Anderson, who is also black."
When the Globe babbled this nonsense we zapped them for it, and Geluardi will be no different.
To say that Irma Anderson didn't lose that election all on her own is multiple pokes in one. If her foibles as mayor were forgotten or overlooked is to say that the Richmond electorate was not only ignorant but racist, or "race loyal." If Gary Bell was the "OTHER African-American choice" is to say that he shouldn't have run because of Anderson's "divine right" to the mayorship. And if Anderson and Bell running at the same time was the only "perfect storm" that would've gotten Gayle McLaughlin into power, then that quite possibly says the mayorship actually fell to the most pathetic candidate possible.
Race dividing and poverty pimping, anyone?
---------------------------------
Man fatally shoots himself after crash
By John Geluardi and Scott Marshall
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
RICHMOND - A Benicia man in deteriorating health who had told family and friends he felt hopeless fatally shot himself after a minor traffic accident in Richmond Monday afternoon, police said.
Douglas Francis Scott, 64, was taken by ambulance to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond after the 2:30 p.m. incident and later was pronounced dead, according to police.
"He basically had deteriorating (physical) health and began to show signs of being at risk for suicide," such as giving away possessions, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan. "He had made some statements about being hopeless about life."
The accident occurred at Harbour Way and Cutting Boulevard, police said.
Scott was driving west on Cutting Boulevard when he rear-ended a black Pontiac, which in turn struck another car. None of the three vehicles was seriously damaged. A woman driving the Pontiac received minor injuries and was also taken to Kaiser.
After the accident, Scott exited the truck to check on the other drivers, Gagan said. Scott did not appear to be injured.
"The accident was not part of a suicide attempt, but he realized he would be contacted by police," Gagan said.
Scott then walked away from the accident scene across a gas station parking lot. When police arrived they found him critically wounded underneath a stand of bottle brush bushes along the fence line of Martin Luther King Memorial Park. Police recovered a handgun, Gagan said.
The Richmond Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Response Truck responded to the scene when officers noticed a strong chemical odor from containers in the open trailer hooked to Scott's truck.
The trailer was covered with a blue tarpaulin, and so they could not clearly see what was in the truck bed.
Firefighters shut down Cutting Boulevard in both directions and deployed sensor devices around the truck to monitor air toxicity.
Five hazardous materials technicians suited up in bulky, lime green protective suits with respirators and took samples from the containers before the truck was removed from the intersection. Firefighters had to move cautiously until they knew what the trailer contained, said Richmond fire Battalion Chief Merlin Turner.
Scott operated a fuel-polishing business in which he cleaned diesel tanks. The trailer contained 20, 55-gallon drums of waste oil products, Turner said.
The truck did not display required hazardous materials placards describing the content in the trailer, Turner said. He called the business number, which connected him to the cell phone in Scott's pocket. His business address was a post office box.
Turner consulted state records and Chevron experts before declaring the scene safe.
Reach John Geluardi at 510-262-2787 or jgeluardi@cctimes.com. Reach Scott Marshall at 925-945-4780 or smarshall2@cctimes.com.
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A very sad and unfortunate series of events, it seems. Our condolences to the Scott family, and we wish the crash victims a speedy recovery.
Lastly, an update on what were probably the late moments of Raijon Daniels' young life. No surprises, really...
---------------------------------
Boy died of abuse, report says
By John Simerman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
MARTINEZ - It wasn't ingesting Pine-Sol that killed 8-year-old Raijon Daniels, but years of abuse that left his slender body thatched from head to toe and front to back with burn marks, scars, swelling and purple bruises with "train track" patterns, according to an autopsy report released Monday.
The Richmond boy also suffered ketoacidosis -- dangerously high levels of acids that build up in the blood and can lead to diabetic coma or death. Although diabetes is a possible cause, the report suggests that for Raijon, starvation was a more likely culprit.
The report from the Contra Costa County coroner's office lists the cause of death as trauma "due to Battered Child Syndrome," a medical definition for physical child abuse.
That conclusion may cast the criminal case against Raijon's mother, 23-year-old Teresa Moses, in a different light. Moses faces charges of felony child abuse and torture in Raijon's Oct. 27 death. Prosecutors were waiting for toxicology tests before deciding whether to add a murder charge.
Moses told police she thought her son may have drunk Pine-Sol before he died in the emergency room of Kaiser Medical Center in Richmond. There were several bottles of the cleaner in the house, and police found a blender top and a glass with what appeared to be a mixture of Pine-Sol and bleach, according to the report.
But the autopsy report says toxicology tests came back "negative for Pine-Sol constituents." Gregory Reiber, a forensic pathologist for the county, classified Raijon's death as a homicide.
Deputy district attorney Jerry Chang said he read the report Monday but wanted to discuss it with Reiber and other medical experts before making any decisions about whether to charge Moses with homicide. The torture charge alone carries a possible life sentence, he said.
"I don't think any rational person could read this and not be disturbed," he said of the report.
Moses, who has not yet entered a plea, is scheduled to return to court Friday. She remains in County Jail, her bail set at $1.15 million. The Times could not reach her attorney, Demetrius Costy, late Monday. At a November court hearing, he was adamant that Moses did not murder her son, calling her "a beautiful, articulate single mother of two ..."
Moses told police that Raijon would urinate, and she used the Pine-Sol to clean it up. Police suspect she locked Raijon away and poured chemicals on his penis so he would quit urinating on himself. Raijon's damaged body included ulcerations on his penis, the report says.
Among the symptoms of ketoacidosis is frequent urination.
In an eight-page report, Reiber details myriad injuries at various stages of healing. Among them: contusions and scars "consistent with cord or strap injuries"; hemorrhaging on his buttocks, thighs and left arm; scarring of his wrists and ankles, consistent with old marks from being bound.
More than 15 scratches and scars covered his abdomen. Eleven separate "train track" bruises, from dark pink to maroon, crossed his back. Others ran across his forehead, down the back of his thighs and calves, and over his shoulders and arms. In some cases, new marks replaced old ones.
The brown and pale-red scratch marks over both of his thighs and his right shin were "numerous, too numerous to count," the report said. According to a Kaiser emergency room doctor, Raijon's physician twice in 2005 noted symptoms of past sexual abuse.
The death, the autopsy report concluded, occurred from "Years of physical trauma to the body."
Just how many years was not stated in the report.
It is unclear whether Contra Costa County child welfare workers checked Raijon's body for signs of abuse. Six times from 2002 until last January, county Children and Family Services fielded allegations of abuse or neglect involving Raijon or his little sister. Most of the reports alleged that Moses neglected or failed to protect Raijon. One targeted a stepfather, another a boyfriend.
In three of the cases, county officials say, social workers investigated, visited the family and found Moses was doing what she could to protect her son and cooperate with police.
Nothing rose to the level of placing Raijon in foster care, so the county agency referred Moses to nonprofit agencies for help, said Joe Valentine, director of the county's Employment and Human Services Department, in an interview with the Times in November.
The agency is reviewing its actions in the case and is expected to deliver a "lessons learned" report to the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.
Nearly 1,500 U.S. children died from abuse or neglect in 2004, federal estimates show. Most -- 81 percent -- were under age 4. In nearly 80 percent of the cases, the perpetrator was a parent.
Carol Carrillo, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, said "battered child syndrome" is a term used in training sessions to help people who work with children to recognize and report abuse.
"It's unexplained injuries, unexplained kind of bruises, broken bones," Carrillo said.
Coined by a doctor in 1962, the term is now a commonly known medical diagnosis. Carrillo, however, could not recall a recent instance where it was listed as a child's cause of death.
She said Raijon's death has touched everyone who works in child abuse prevention.
"It's so difficult to even fathom what this little boy went through for such a long time," she said.
The council will be working improve outreach and education in West County, she said.
Staff writer Sara Steffens contributed to this story. Reach John Simerman at 925-943-8072 or e-mail jsimerman@cctimes.com.
---------------------------------
If a silver lining can be found to this case, we at the Tazer hope that it's a reformed system for monitoring child neglect and abuse.
"McLaughlin beat the well-funded Anderson in the three-way election by 242 votes. She got some help from former councilman Gary Bell, who despite losing his council seat in 2004 ran for mayor this year. Bell, who is black, received more than 5,000 votes Nov. 7. Had he not run, those votes most likely would have gone to Anderson, who is also black."
When the Globe babbled this nonsense we zapped them for it, and Geluardi will be no different.
To say that Irma Anderson didn't lose that election all on her own is multiple pokes in one. If her foibles as mayor were forgotten or overlooked is to say that the Richmond electorate was not only ignorant but racist, or "race loyal." If Gary Bell was the "OTHER African-American choice" is to say that he shouldn't have run because of Anderson's "divine right" to the mayorship. And if Anderson and Bell running at the same time was the only "perfect storm" that would've gotten Gayle McLaughlin into power, then that quite possibly says the mayorship actually fell to the most pathetic candidate possible.
Race dividing and poverty pimping, anyone?
---------------------------------
Man fatally shoots himself after crash
By John Geluardi and Scott Marshall
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
RICHMOND - A Benicia man in deteriorating health who had told family and friends he felt hopeless fatally shot himself after a minor traffic accident in Richmond Monday afternoon, police said.
Douglas Francis Scott, 64, was taken by ambulance to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond after the 2:30 p.m. incident and later was pronounced dead, according to police.
"He basically had deteriorating (physical) health and began to show signs of being at risk for suicide," such as giving away possessions, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan. "He had made some statements about being hopeless about life."
The accident occurred at Harbour Way and Cutting Boulevard, police said.
Scott was driving west on Cutting Boulevard when he rear-ended a black Pontiac, which in turn struck another car. None of the three vehicles was seriously damaged. A woman driving the Pontiac received minor injuries and was also taken to Kaiser.
After the accident, Scott exited the truck to check on the other drivers, Gagan said. Scott did not appear to be injured.
"The accident was not part of a suicide attempt, but he realized he would be contacted by police," Gagan said.
Scott then walked away from the accident scene across a gas station parking lot. When police arrived they found him critically wounded underneath a stand of bottle brush bushes along the fence line of Martin Luther King Memorial Park. Police recovered a handgun, Gagan said.
The Richmond Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Response Truck responded to the scene when officers noticed a strong chemical odor from containers in the open trailer hooked to Scott's truck.
The trailer was covered with a blue tarpaulin, and so they could not clearly see what was in the truck bed.
Firefighters shut down Cutting Boulevard in both directions and deployed sensor devices around the truck to monitor air toxicity.
Five hazardous materials technicians suited up in bulky, lime green protective suits with respirators and took samples from the containers before the truck was removed from the intersection. Firefighters had to move cautiously until they knew what the trailer contained, said Richmond fire Battalion Chief Merlin Turner.
Scott operated a fuel-polishing business in which he cleaned diesel tanks. The trailer contained 20, 55-gallon drums of waste oil products, Turner said.
The truck did not display required hazardous materials placards describing the content in the trailer, Turner said. He called the business number, which connected him to the cell phone in Scott's pocket. His business address was a post office box.
Turner consulted state records and Chevron experts before declaring the scene safe.
Reach John Geluardi at 510-262-2787 or jgeluardi@cctimes.com. Reach Scott Marshall at 925-945-4780 or smarshall2@cctimes.com.
---------------------------------
A very sad and unfortunate series of events, it seems. Our condolences to the Scott family, and we wish the crash victims a speedy recovery.
Lastly, an update on what were probably the late moments of Raijon Daniels' young life. No surprises, really...
---------------------------------
Boy died of abuse, report says
By John Simerman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
MARTINEZ - It wasn't ingesting Pine-Sol that killed 8-year-old Raijon Daniels, but years of abuse that left his slender body thatched from head to toe and front to back with burn marks, scars, swelling and purple bruises with "train track" patterns, according to an autopsy report released Monday.
The Richmond boy also suffered ketoacidosis -- dangerously high levels of acids that build up in the blood and can lead to diabetic coma or death. Although diabetes is a possible cause, the report suggests that for Raijon, starvation was a more likely culprit.
The report from the Contra Costa County coroner's office lists the cause of death as trauma "due to Battered Child Syndrome," a medical definition for physical child abuse.
That conclusion may cast the criminal case against Raijon's mother, 23-year-old Teresa Moses, in a different light. Moses faces charges of felony child abuse and torture in Raijon's Oct. 27 death. Prosecutors were waiting for toxicology tests before deciding whether to add a murder charge.
Moses told police she thought her son may have drunk Pine-Sol before he died in the emergency room of Kaiser Medical Center in Richmond. There were several bottles of the cleaner in the house, and police found a blender top and a glass with what appeared to be a mixture of Pine-Sol and bleach, according to the report.
But the autopsy report says toxicology tests came back "negative for Pine-Sol constituents." Gregory Reiber, a forensic pathologist for the county, classified Raijon's death as a homicide.
Deputy district attorney Jerry Chang said he read the report Monday but wanted to discuss it with Reiber and other medical experts before making any decisions about whether to charge Moses with homicide. The torture charge alone carries a possible life sentence, he said.
"I don't think any rational person could read this and not be disturbed," he said of the report.
Moses, who has not yet entered a plea, is scheduled to return to court Friday. She remains in County Jail, her bail set at $1.15 million. The Times could not reach her attorney, Demetrius Costy, late Monday. At a November court hearing, he was adamant that Moses did not murder her son, calling her "a beautiful, articulate single mother of two ..."
Moses told police that Raijon would urinate, and she used the Pine-Sol to clean it up. Police suspect she locked Raijon away and poured chemicals on his penis so he would quit urinating on himself. Raijon's damaged body included ulcerations on his penis, the report says.
Among the symptoms of ketoacidosis is frequent urination.
In an eight-page report, Reiber details myriad injuries at various stages of healing. Among them: contusions and scars "consistent with cord or strap injuries"; hemorrhaging on his buttocks, thighs and left arm; scarring of his wrists and ankles, consistent with old marks from being bound.
More than 15 scratches and scars covered his abdomen. Eleven separate "train track" bruises, from dark pink to maroon, crossed his back. Others ran across his forehead, down the back of his thighs and calves, and over his shoulders and arms. In some cases, new marks replaced old ones.
The brown and pale-red scratch marks over both of his thighs and his right shin were "numerous, too numerous to count," the report said. According to a Kaiser emergency room doctor, Raijon's physician twice in 2005 noted symptoms of past sexual abuse.
The death, the autopsy report concluded, occurred from "Years of physical trauma to the body."
Just how many years was not stated in the report.
It is unclear whether Contra Costa County child welfare workers checked Raijon's body for signs of abuse. Six times from 2002 until last January, county Children and Family Services fielded allegations of abuse or neglect involving Raijon or his little sister. Most of the reports alleged that Moses neglected or failed to protect Raijon. One targeted a stepfather, another a boyfriend.
In three of the cases, county officials say, social workers investigated, visited the family and found Moses was doing what she could to protect her son and cooperate with police.
Nothing rose to the level of placing Raijon in foster care, so the county agency referred Moses to nonprofit agencies for help, said Joe Valentine, director of the county's Employment and Human Services Department, in an interview with the Times in November.
The agency is reviewing its actions in the case and is expected to deliver a "lessons learned" report to the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.
Nearly 1,500 U.S. children died from abuse or neglect in 2004, federal estimates show. Most -- 81 percent -- were under age 4. In nearly 80 percent of the cases, the perpetrator was a parent.
Carol Carrillo, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, said "battered child syndrome" is a term used in training sessions to help people who work with children to recognize and report abuse.
"It's unexplained injuries, unexplained kind of bruises, broken bones," Carrillo said.
Coined by a doctor in 1962, the term is now a commonly known medical diagnosis. Carrillo, however, could not recall a recent instance where it was listed as a child's cause of death.
She said Raijon's death has touched everyone who works in child abuse prevention.
"It's so difficult to even fathom what this little boy went through for such a long time," she said.
The council will be working improve outreach and education in West County, she said.
Staff writer Sara Steffens contributed to this story. Reach John Simerman at 925-943-8072 or e-mail jsimerman@cctimes.com.
---------------------------------
If a silver lining can be found to this case, we at the Tazer hope that it's a reformed system for monitoring child neglect and abuse.
posted by Plunda Claus @ 11:11 AM
7 Comments:
At January 09, 2007 1:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
If the alleged accusations against are John Geluardi are true. Thene he should resign from the Times. And as well, the Times management should do their own internal investigation he helped to discredit and undermine Gary Bell's campaign! The Times editioral staff and mangement should be ashamed of having such people employed as writers if this turns out to be true!
At January 09, 2007 2:06 PM,
Anonymous said…
Geluardi only seems to cover certain politicans and community activists. If they do not tow his political or community line of thought, he simply will blacklist them from his byline. Many of us are applalled by his elitist white attitude.
John is just as guilty of being entrenched into racist plantation politics here in Richmond as Anderson and McLaughlin are now.
His style of writing has no place here in Richmond.
At January 09, 2007 6:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
Based on his writings, Geluardi seemed to be a closeted Green but now he is an overt racist. Funny how he never said "Gayle McLaughlin, WHO IS WHITE" but felt the need to point out that her opponents were black.
Does he and the Times do that for everyone he writes about, or just black people, or just opponents of his candidate?
At January 09, 2007 8:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
You go,Roscoe! You go boy!
At January 10, 2007 3:40 AM,
Anonymous said…
Oh you mean that white guy that writes about black folks? Okay I got it now. Right on Tazer, I can follow the script.
At January 14, 2007 4:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
even if Geluradi is racist trash so is Tazer. Just the pot calling the kettle black.
At January 14, 2007 6:56 PM,
Plunda Claus said…
Dear Ann Nonymous,
We never called Geluardi racist trash. We only said that we believe his bias is showing through in his reporting.
And unless you can point to anything we have ever written that is racist -- CONGRATULATIONS! -- you're now completely wrong.
Do not pass Go, do not collect $200,
The Richmond Truth Tazer
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