* Unclean Hands

I have championed several lost causes since 1970: (LINKS)  Kent State; AIDS at Yale; the Boston bomber burial.

But always I had the sense that the Press was willing to do the background work.  This latest involvement with the cause of the young Yale professor who died in police custody in a New Haven jail at age 34, is the exception.


No one seems to want to do the simple investigative  leg work of obtaining and publishing documents-------first and foremost the restraining orders which propelled the professor into police custody..

Instead we spin our wheels reading endless posts filled with gossip and innuendo masquerading as attempts at clarification.

Even the latest (LINK) New Haven Register article while quoting a Quinnipiac University law professor (why not Yale Law School, may I ask?) about the intricacies of restraining orders, does not obtain and publish the actual orders.

Why not?


The entire news story hinges on the justification of the arrest.

Without that arrest, the professor would still be alive.

And the arrest was made based on the "existence" of the orders.

Well, WHAT DO THEY SAY!

I am discouraged, to say the least, at trying to untangle this very tangled web of speculation and character assassination in the Yale Daily News'  posting board when journalists almost three weeks after the death have failed to provide  the documents necessary to understand the legitimacy of official actions in this matter.

And I feel my hands have been soiled by continuing to  (LINK)  engage posters who smear the professor's reputation.

I won't wash my hands of the affair, but I do definitely feel the need to wash my hands.

In the meantime I hope others will feel the need to press the Press.



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