Controversy Over "Suicide" of LA Town's 1st Black Mayor

Yes.

This is from blackamericaweb.com. (I wish I could say I was suprised the major news outlets are still ignoring this.):


"Here was a guy who spent a lot of time and energy trying to get elected just a few months ago," Broussard said, "and now people are saying he was depressed so much he wanted to kill himself. We're all just in disbelief right now."

Washington's son, Geroski Washington, believes his father was murdered. A longtime community leader in Westlake, La., Gerald Washington was about to uncover some questionable financial practices of the city prior to his being elected last September, Geroski said. Westlake is a suburb of Lake Charles, La., which is about 200 miles west of New Orleans.

"This is not a race issue; this is a greed issue," Geroski Washington, 35, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "My father was in the process of doing an external audit on the previous administration."

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/suicidemayor108

ooooohhhhh, bad. Humans suck. I am pretty POd that I am not finding anything on news sites about this.

If not for this thread, it would be unknown to me.

and I as well, edgar. Something tells me that we will never know.

http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5903985&nav=0nqx

I found this story, but it was from Lake Charles, La.

People have to want to know. If everyone just shrugs, it might be easier to bury.

Actually, I just found a lot of stuff on Washington:

http://alacarte.lexisnexis.com/partners/int/lexisnews/results.asp#

Phoenix, I didn't wait for your site to download, but I did find this. Hope I'm not being redundant:

New details about the shooting death of Westlake Mayor-elect Gerald "Wash" Washington are expected to be released Tuesday afternoon. The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office is holding a news conference at 1:30 PM Tuesday, where new details from the on going investigation will be announced. For the time being, local authorities have only released the basic facts about the shooting. Authorities also say that they are investigating the case as a homicide.

When it finally downloaded, it said "an invalid document has been located", and nothing else.

Check out my response, snood

Weird- I checked the link when I "previewed" my post, and it worked. I'll take another look, and get back to you.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MAYORS_DEATH?SITE=RIWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Here is a more recent story - may be connected only tangentially, but the town in the story is only 150 miles away from Westlake, and the mayor there is black...

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006085129

Here's the latest breaking about this I could find...
Still baffles me how this escapes the greater media's scrutiny...

http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20070129g

Holy cow!

Quite a lot of time passing..

So..... what do we do? Who does someone from Boston write a letter to?

Unbelievable.

Two of them. It does look like racial vigilantism--based on the tiny bit of information we have. Of course, it could have nothing to do with race--(I think it does)

The second murder/death should have taken this story national.

I'd like us to write some letters as lilk suggests.

I think one should include a news organization or Oprah. I'll get some information. I'd appreciate anyone else thinking of appropriate people/institutions to add to the mailing list.

Start here, maybe...?

Click e-mail and just give a short description of the cities and lack of confidence in the investigations.

...to burn off steam until someone comes up with a plausible plan.

If you don't feel like writing an explanation, cut and paste this and change words as you wish:



Open season on black mayors in Louisiana.
Please review the facts of these two cases. I feel the investigation has not met acceptable standards and this phenomena should be held to public scrutiny.

(Okra's site didn't take the link, so I just copied the first couple of paragraphs.)

Thanks Lash, I emailed the DOJ and the boston globe.