“I cannot in good conscience rely upon his findings in cases where the cause of death is more than a simple gunshot wound or stab wound” - District Attorney Frank Phillips, letter August 17, 1995

NEWBURGH – Dr. Louis Roh, the pathologist whose autopsy on 25-year old Nathaniel Cobbs found that he had died not from the severe beating, mutilple taserings and bites from a police dog but from drug-induced cardiac arrest, “makes findings the district attorney says are “incomplete, inadequate or erroneous,” according to a letter issued in 1995 by then- and current Orange County District Attorney Frank Phillips.

“I cannot in good conscience rely upon his findings in cases where the cause of death is more than a simple gunshot wound or stab wound,” Phillips’ letter continued. Phillips urged county coroners to replace Roh.

Roh’s report, according to Newburgh police, found that Cobbs likely died of a condition known as “excited delirium,” in which subjects who are intoxicated with PCP or cocaine suffer accelerated heart rate which leads to cardiac arrest and death.

Many medical professionals reject the concept of “excited delirium,” terming it a legal, rather than medical, concept, devised to avoid liability in police and/or medical malpractice wrongful death actions.

Meanwhile, civil rights attorney Michael Sussman, an advisor to the Cobbs family, has arranged for an independent autopsy to be conducted by the Rockalnd County medical examiner.

Cobbs’ family was denied access to his body for more than 24 hours after they were notified of his death. Officials at St. Lukes Cornwall Hospital had claimed that a lock was installed by Newburgh police on thehospital morgue, denying both the family and hospital workers access. Police denied the claim when challenged by Sussman.

An article about Phillips’ letter in the local daily Times Herald-Record in 1997 noted that “the work of a forensic pathologist is critical to determining the causes of suspicious deaths. Such determinations are the foundation of criminal prosecutions. Mishandled autopsies or misdiagnosed causes of death undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system. They could result in defendants being wrongly accused or in guilty parties being acquitted.”

The article also references testimony given in an Orange County trial by Dr. Mark Taff, who suggested that an improper autopsy could destroy evidence. “Anatomical landmarks have already been disturbed,” Taff told the jury. “(Other pathologists) had to depend on Dr. Roh’s eyes and ears.”

NEWBURGH – Twenty-five year old Nathaniel Cobbs became the third apparent victim of fatal Newburgh city police brutality. Nathaniel died in police custody on Sunday, July 8, 2007 under suspicious circumstances. Noted civil rights attorney Michael Sussman and Newburgh Democratic mayoral candidate Lillie Howard, the long-time community activist whose grandson, Antonio Bryant, was shot and killed by Newburgh police last October 30th, are calling for the US Attorney and the NY Attorney General to conduct an immediate and impartial investigation of the department. They were joined Friday in the call for a federal investigation by former Newburgh mayor Andrew Marino.

Most speakers want no high rise towers on waterfront; developer seeks record borrowing, tax incentive package from city by Feb 13; media blackout on community opposition appears underway

By Don DeBar

January 25, 2007

YONKERS – Although the official handout neglected to mention it, most of the speakers who attended last night’s scoping session noticed that the response from the developer to community demands that no high rise buildings be allowed in the downtown waterfront has been to submit for review what appeared to be two 61-story buildings at one site and two 25-story buildings at another.

Most speakers decried the plan for rezoning to favor high rise development, and told this city’s officials not to allow it to happen.

Some dozen and a half speakers provided verbal testimony in the scoping session which kicked off the environmental review of the proposal by local developer Cappelli Enterprises, Inc and its partnership, called SFC Yonkers in publicity materials. The group was represented by Cappelli VP Joseph Apicella, who was accompanied by attorney Al DelBello and a phalanx of consultants.

Immediately following the scoping hearing, the council entertained a request by the developer for public financing of infrastructure improvements totaling $160,000,000, which would be borrowed by the city and paid off using the promised revenues from the proposed development under a unique device called TIF (Tax Increment Financing). An additional $40,000,000 would be borrowed under the plan to help pay the cost of carrying the development until it is completed and generating revenue. After that, the bond payoff would consume the tax revenues from the project until 2014. According to the Journal News, the developers want the City Council to decide by Feb. 13 whether it will back the plan.

NEW YORK STATE – Record flooding has created severe conditions for residents of at least thirteen counties in Central New York State, along with dozens of counties stretching from Pennsylvania to Maryland. Although New York’s Republican Governor has requested aid for thirteen affected counties in the state, Republican President George Bush has offered aid to only eight, prompting a strong response from the Governor. Further complicating the matter is the antagonism that exists between locals and the large presence of New York City, whose water supply is largely hosted in the region.

Anti-war veterans led by Veterans for Peace in Saturday’s NYC Veterans Day parade (l), while onlookers cheer their anti-war message

Marching with anti-war vets, and seeing - first-hand - broad public support for their call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq

By Don DeBar

NEW YORK CITY – Veteran’s Day has always been a tough one for me. On the one hand, I have always understood and appreciated the sacrifices made by millions of our men and women who donned the uniform of service and suffered the horrors of war on our behalf; after all, my own family lost two of our promising young men to the Vietnam war. On the other hand, I have always been troubled by the shadow of militarism - which has loomed so large over the nation for the past five years, and which has always been present, if often latent, in our culture.

The historical root of the day itself overflows with irony - it began as a celebration of the end of “the war to end all wars” and survives today with ceremonial remembrances honoring those who have served in the many wars since.  I have thus viewed the day with mixed feelings – gratitude for the sacrifices made by veterans, coupled with apprehension that the willingness of so many to selflessly subsume their lives to military service has too often been, and could again be, exploited by unscrupulous leaders and placed at the service of their own personal ambitions.

Since the run-up to the Iraq war, I have, like many, many others, spent much of my time working to oppose it. First, we spoke out, and those of us with access to the media did our level best to insist that the opposition get coverage – or at least acknowledgement of its existence. Then we joined the effort to organize the growing opposition into a political force that could compel the US government to stop the war and bring the troops home.

Two years ago, my own efforts brought me to New York City to join with a group of anti-war veterans who were marching as a group in the 2004 official Veterans Day parade. Camcorder in hand, with my WBAI press credentials at the ready, I felt that I needed to witness and report on the response from the crowd of onlookers to the message being carried by such as Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War. I also wanted, should the mood get ugly and these people of peace face scorn or worse, to stand in solidarity with them and bear witness to whatever might have come their way as a consequence of their taking a stand.

“You will be surprised at the reception from the crowd,” Ben Chitty from Vietnam Veterans Against the War promised me that day, telling me that, even then, veterans and their supporters were in the main calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If the people lined along Fifth Avenue that day in 2004 were any indication, his estimation was an accurate one. Even uniformed NYPD officers threw the familiar peace sign to the marchers and joined in the chant “Bring the Troops home – NOW!”

Two years later, the war has somehow continued unabated, despite polls indicating that a majority of Americans – Democrats and Republicans, Red states and Blue – want the troops to come home. As if the very existence of that situation were not enough of an affront to democracy, this years crop of incumbent politicians from both parties failed to include a pledge to begin withdrawal from Iraq, compounding the insult.

Nevertheless, the strong identification in the public mind of the war with the Bush administration and the Republican congress led to a thorough trouncing of Republicans in last week’s elections, and the pundits of the airwaves – including the right, far right and center - have all acknowledged that the election was a referendum on, and repudiation of, the war and occupation.

With this hopeful note in mind, I waited at the corner of 26th Street for this year’s anti-war delegation to the Veterans Day march. After an hour or so, I saw them approach, and joined them as they passed.

I sought out David Kline, a veteran who has been a vocal opponent of the Iraq war since it was first proposed, and thanked him for his tireless effort. I marched with the veterans, whose members survived wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia and elsewhere. We joined in cadences that told of shared memories (Vietnam), war profiteering (Halliburton and Bechtel) and the neglect of veterans by the government. The call was issued frequently – “What do we want?” and each time was enthusiastically answered with “Peace!”

I am unsure if it was the emboldening result of the election, or simply that people have finally wearied of being fearful and intimidated, but whatever the reason, the crowds lining the avenue in review were extremely enthusiastic – no, exuberant – in their response to our message. They joined in the cadence, answered the calls, flashed the peace hand sign, held placards in support of the message. The people – and many of the veterans who were marching not with us, but with their own groups - were publicly and unequivocally demonstrating their support for the call for an immediate withdrawal.

I am now certain of where the people of New York stand on the question of withdrawal from Iraq – they want out, and they want it now. The question is, what is to be done about it?

FORT BENNING, GA - More than 30,000 people crowded outside this home of the former School of the Americas while some of its victims from El Salvador and Argentina testify as to their personal experience with this savage US export. Among the 30,000 are a group of Maryknollers from the region.

HARTFORD – US Senator from Connecticut and former VP candidate Joe Lieberman has been a staunch supporter of Bush’s war – and Middle East policy generally – from the start. Now anti-war activists in the Democratic Party seek to punish him for ignoring their demands by booting him out in next year’s primary election – perhaps by running a popular former Senator against him.