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PG County
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY
Prince George’s, William Green Reach $20M Settlement
By William J. Ford WI Staff Writer @jabariwill
Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks announced the county reached a settlement of $20 million with the family William Green, killed by a former police officer in January while handcuffed in a police cruiser.
Alsobrooks made the announcement during a press conference at the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building standing several feet from Green’s family members and their attorneys.
“I understand this will not bring back your son, but we want to thank you, Ms. Green, for your grace and for your patience during this process,” Alsobrooks said Monday, Sept. 28 looking at Green’s mother, Brenda. “In Prince George’s County, when we are at fault, we take responsibility. In this case, we are accepting responsibility.”
The family’s attorney, Billy Murphy, said the $20 million settlement represents the largest figure in Maryland and one of the largest in the country for an unlawful shooting by police.
Murphy also represented the family of Freddie Gray of Baltimore, who reached a $6.4 million settlement with the city of Baltimore five years ago after Gray died while in police custody.
Murphy said police reform in Prince George’s and nationwide should include all police departments implementing body cameras and subjecting perspective officers to psychological testing.
“I’ve been fighting for police reform … my entire life. There isn’t much that has changed in 50 years. The rhetoric has not changed. The police behavior has not changed,” Murphy said. “The Black community has never in this country been in charge of how it is policed. We have been policed in a way that reflects in the prevailing view that we are less than human.”
Members of Green’s family stood beside his mother, who wore a black hoodie with her son’s picture on it that read, “Rest In Peace. William Green.” He’s the father of two children.
Green’s daughter and youngest child, Shelly Green, said her father’s death on Jan. 27 rest on the same day as her mother’s birthday.
“For the rest of my life, the same day I celebrate another year of my mom, I will have to share that day mourning my father as well,” said Green, who added the family will use the monetary resources to combat police brutality.
The former Prince George’s police officer, Cpl. Michael Owen Jr., noticed Green sitting in a car in Temple Hills after Green struck three parked cars.
According to county records, Owen took Green out of the car, handcuffed him and placed him in a police cruiser. Several minutes later, Owen shot Green about six times and told author
5 Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, right, speaks to the family of William Green on Sept. 28 after she announced the county reached a $20 million settlement with his family. Former police Michael Owen, Jr. killed Green in January. (William J. Ford/The Washington Informer)
ities he feared for his life.
Green, 43, was pronounced dead hours later at a local hospital.
Police arrested Owen the next day and charged him with Green’s death, which Alsobrooks said marked the first time a county police officer was charged with murder while on duty.
In March, a grand jury indicted Owen for second-degree murder, manslaughter, first-degree assault and other charges. He remains in custody as he awaits a criminal trial.
Alsobrooks said the money from the settlement will come out of the county budget.
“This is not the way that we want to spend taxpayer dollars, which is
SETTLEMENT Page 37
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BUSINESS
Joe Biden Maintains Lead in National Polling but Can Americans Trust the Polls?
By Stacy M. Brown WI Senior Writer @StacyBrownMedia
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden enjoys a significant lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground states of Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to the most recent poll released before Tuesday’s debate.
That poll, ironically released by Trump-backed Fox News, was conducted among likely voters and showed Biden with an 11-point lead over the president in Nevada, where 52 percent of respondents said they want Biden elected.
In Pennsylvania, 51 percent supported Biden and 44 percent supported Trump. In Ohio, 50 percent supported Biden and 45 percent supported Trump.
Pundits noted that Trump’s 2016 victories in Pennsylvania and Ohio were critical to his electoral win that year. Nevada narrowly voted for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
However, most voters may recall that at this time during the 2016 election, Clinton led in most – if not all – polls. The former secretary of state would eventually lose in electoral college voting despite easily capturing the popular vote.
That – and Democrat Al Gore’s controversial 2000 loss to Republican George W. Bush – has made many Americans skeptical of polls.
“I constantly hear that you can’t trust the polls based on how the election went in 2016 but the national polling in that race was actually spot-on,” said political activist and lawyer Jeffrey Johnson.
A managing editor at FreeAdvice.com, Johnson noted that Clinton was polling at about 2 percent better than Trump and won about 2 percent more of the popular vote.
“That the national popular vote isn’t what determines who becomes president doesn’t change the fact that the polls were pretty accurate,” Johnson observed.
Marketing expert Karen Condor warned that political polls should face severe scrutiny.
“You should scrutinize political polls the same way you do when choosing your life insurance,” she proclaimed.
Department of Energy & Environment | Government of the District of Columbia PUBLIC NOTICE Anacostia River Sediment Project: Interim Record of Decision
Notice is hereby given that the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) will make available an Interim Record of Decision for the Anacostia River Sediment Project (ARSP) on September 30, 2020.
The Interim Record of Decision is a limited-scope early action selected for the Washington DC portion of the ARSP study area and selects remedies for PCB contamination at 11 early action areas (EAAs) in the main stem of the Anacostia River, Kingman Lake, and Washington Channel. Collectively, the 11 EAAs encompass approximately 77 acres of the total 815-acre study area and are generally the areas that contain the highest concentrations of PCBs in the study area, excluding areas for which a particular land-based source of pollution has been identified. The remedial alternatives selected for the EAAs vary by area and include enhanced monitored natural recovery, dredging and disposal, and containment of contaminated sediments.
Beginning September 30, 2020, a person may obtain a copy of the Interim Record of Decision by downloading it from the Department’s website: anacostiasedimentproject.com
By October 30, 2020, the following local libraries will have copies of the Interim Record of Decision for review during normal business hours:
Francis A. Gregory Library
3660 Alabama Avenue SE Washington, DC 20020
Benning Neighborhood Library
3935 Benning Road NE Washington, DC 20019
For further information about the site and remedy selected, please email Gretchen Mikeska at anacostiariversedimentproject@dc.gov.
5 Joe Biden with former President Barack Obama. (Photo courtesy Baltimore Times)
“Don’t go all-in on the first thing you see. Be discerning. Do your research. Shop around. Get the full picture. Both insurance companies and pollsters each use multiple basic factors for their results, but no two are the same.”
Condor determined that the problem with political polls lies in the importance placed on them.
“They are reported as news. They give an illusion of knowledge, of control, of being able to predict the future,” Candor said.
“Their purported importance leads many politicians to become poll-chasers, adjusting their stances to follow the polls even if it leads them astray from their platform and principles. It eventually backfires on them, and they are branded as flip-flops.”
Still, many news organizations and political watchers anxiously await post-debate polls, which generally provide a bounce to the candidate who performs best.
Logan Phillips, the editor-in-chief of RacetotheWH. com, a political news site that projects the winner of the presidential and senate elections, called polling the single most crucial element of his forecasting.
“When I tested it in past cycles, my model correctly predicts the winner of each state over 95 percent of the time,” Phillips proclaimed.
“Polls are the single most useful tool we have to understand the views of the electorate. However, we have to put them in their proper context. They are usually a snapshot in time of what people thought last week.”
Phillips noted that public opinion could, and often does, change over time. Additionally, he offered, no poll is ever perfect when it comes to predicting elections.
“They represent what pollsters believe the electorate will look like. Sometimes, like in Wisconsin in 2016, they can get that call wrong,” he stated. WI
