I have been ragging on Prince George’s County, Maryland (adjacent to DC) for most of this decade.
Good Ol’ PG just outdid itself.
The county prosecutor has signaled that there will be no charges in the case of an inmate murdered by prison guards.
Whoops – that’s not quite what PG officials said.
Instead, there will be no charges in the case of the mysterious death of an inmate whom prison guards claim might have committed suicide. Except that there was no evidence of suicide, and the evidence that did exist vanished or was otherwise mangled.
The county medical examiner concluded prisoner Ronnie White was murdered by strangulation. (White allegedly ran over and killed a police officer before being jailed).
But – oh bother – county officials are shrugging their shoulders and moseying along. They appeared to have made little or no effort to gather evidence – or to threaten guards with obstruction of justice or perjury charges. Instead, county officials have kowtowed to a Blue Wall of Silence and the prison guards’ union.
Don’t worry, though. You don’t need to fear being murdered by government officials in P.G. County unless some cop or prison guard thinks you are a bad person.
And luckily, cops and prison guards are omniscient. Or at least that is how they are treated in P.G. County.
Jim, ragging on PG County is a time-honored tradition and for me it dates back to the Terrence Johnson case of “shoot first, ask questions later” back in the late 70s or early 80s (I forget the exact date). I grew up for part of my youth in Beltsville (PG County) and the other part in Hillandale (Montgomery County) and as a kid I worked at a gas station whose young employees were from either Springbrook or High Point high school. We had a running feud with the High Point kids, usually accusing them of committing crimes by age 10 and having sex by age 11… usually with a farm animal or a younger sibling. We’d ask them if they even knew how to read or write.
PG has always been the redheaded stepchild of the DC suburbs. It’s a deserved reputation, in my view.
Sean, glad that you survived being raised (partly) in good ol’ PG.
Farm animals receive as little deference and respect in Maryland as in West Virginia. Oh, the horror.
I had not heard the phrase “red headed stepchild” before. checked it on Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=red+headed+stepchild
An amusing term….
I wonder if PG was as backward compared to other DC adjacent counties prior to the Second World War.
Jim, I think your historical question is a good one. The Hillandale area where I lived in HS, the New Hampshire Avenue corridor north of the Beltway, that stuff exploded after WW2. It was pretty rural back then. The development of the Naval Ordnance Lab on NH Avenue caused a big boom in the “bedroom communities” north of the Beltway. Pun intended.
I live out in the nowhere-west now, haven’t been back to Montgomery County for a long time — 12 years at least. I watched it grow from rural suburban on NH avenue north of Randolph Road. It used to be farms, with farm stands galore for excellent fruits, vegetables, and eggs. My brother now lives in Ashton, an area that was undeveloped when I was in HS in the late 70s.
I grew up around Terry. He was my brother’s age, or close to it.
Ironically, it was brought up in conversation tonight, the whole Terry saga. I was searching for something to send someone a link to about the whole story. (I live on the west coast, Terry wasn’t real big news out here.)
If you want to hear a “bird’s eye view” of what Terry’s life was before he was 16, give me a shout.
We were Montgomery Co. suburbanites.
Terry and my family crossed pathes because we knew his “Big Brother” from the Big Brother Organization.
All of it still makes me very sad.
It didn’t need to be, on so many levels.