The sheriff of San Francisco thinks behavior outside of his job doesn’t matter…and some miscellany…
Alcoholic victims of the month:
The tens of thousands of motorists and millions of Los Angeles taxpayers who paid for 19-year-old Abdul Arian’s run from police in both time in a traffic-snarled nightmare and cost of police services, as his shooting death was investigated, during a recent rush hour. You can read more on Arian and his enablers in TAR Lite, issues # 4 and # 5.
Quotes of the month:
“Mayor Ed Lee did not have authority to suspend him for an action that occurred before Mirkarimi was sworn in as sheriff in January.”
So wrote a journalist, reporting Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s assertion that because he falsely imprisoned his wife before he was sworn in as San Francisco Sheriff, he shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions Mayor Lee couldn’t suspend him, thereby paving the way for a city ethics commission and the Board of Supervisors to determine whether he should be removed from the elected office of Sheriff for his domestic violence-related conviction. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold E. Kahn said Mirkarimi’s case should be tried before the ethics panel and Board of Supervisors before resorting to the courts. Mirkarimi claims that he “accepts responsibility completely for grabbing my wife’s arm.” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said, “What he’s doing now is very typical of many criminal defendants. Criminal defendants have a tendency to minimize their behavior, to rationalize it, and on occasion they lie….” They also have a tendency to not accept responsibility. If the action had occurred after he was sworn in as sheriff, does anyone really think his behavior and claims would be different?
Irony of the month:
Thomas Kinkade, whose life is briefly chronicled below under “Enablers of the month” and “Sometimes, it takes an addict,” raised millions for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Salvation Army, which specializes in treating chronic late-stage alcoholics. The irony: alcoholism likely cost Kinkade his life.