BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION JULY 20-22, 2018) — When you operate a site such as this one, after a while the news comes to you.

Each happening, civic joy or shame, crime, or subterfuge possesses a cast of characters. No matter how hidden, someone always knows something, and when you’re the only game in town when it comes to authentic enterprise reporting and investigative sleuthing, the characters involved in some way with these narratives often drop dimes.

This leads us to the following comment, posted in the previous edition of THE PLANET in reaction to our story on the upcoming primary election of the next District Attorney. We merely present the story. We haven’t vetted it and make no claims for it, but it has a ring of authenticity plus a healthy dose of relevance to make it newsworthy and worth sharing, especially for those who missed it.

With that, let THE PLANET also state the obvious. There are two or more sides to every story, and should anyone in, of, or formerly of the DA’s office care to respond, we stand more then ready — open for business, as it were. We present it as written, unedited:

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“Let’s not forget the new DA already has at least 2 high-profile murder cases, locally, to prosecute. The death of a 22-year-old girl who was shot in the head as a bystander to an act of violence between adults. And what appears to be a more calculated murder of a man in a park on the Fourth of July.

“Here’s an interesting story about the former DA. As the family of the slain girl was preparing her body for her private funeral, they were kicked out of the room in the funeral parlor to allow prisoner Christopher Davis to have a private goodbye with his alleged girlfriend. At the time Davis was being held at the BCHC, without the right to bail, pending a dangerousness hearing. Neither the parents nor any of the family of the murdered child was asked for permission for this to happen, or even made aware until the Sheriff showed up at the funeral home with the prisoner and told the family members to leave while he said his goodbye. This egregious violation was sanctioned by the DA and the sheriffs office, with zero respect for the family in an excruciating time of grief.
Here’s the kicker – Davis was granted this special permission by way of an agreement with the DAs office. He agreed to testify at grand jury in the murder case of James Dominguez, who was shot in the head and murdered outside a local bar the year before. Some readers here may remember the grand announcement made in the murder case of JD. Suspect charged! Hooray!

“A few weeks later you may also recall an article regarding the prosecution of Christopher Davis for lying to a grand jury in a capital murder case. What the police and DA didn’t tell the public was that Davis lied to the grand jury, he received an unpermitted and unwelcome special private visit with the murder victim to be the first person to say goodbye to her. Yanna’s funeral was a private service with family only, who wanted to express their grief prior to opening up the parlor to the public. Instead, they spent their last days with her, knowing that their privacy and respect and decent humanity had been violated by the sheriffs office, the district attorney, and the funeral parlor as well for allowing this to happen.

“And the murder of James Dominguez? You never heard anything more about that, right? That’s because they had to release the suspect they had charged with his murder based on the false testimony of Davis. But you didn’t see that in the newspaper.
Just another dead person for that new DA to tend with …”

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The DA’s office is under considerable pressure from within and without. The latter, forced by an election that will get increasingly nasty as we approach September, speaks for itself. Providing Andrea Harrington and Judith Knight aren’t scared off when the chin music gets in and under particularly close and personal, an explosion of some sort may happen. The former, the within, remains — “curious” is the word we’ll use. There seems to be a growing unrest in those offices, particularly following the comment made by the DA spokesperson following the report of a woman found shot up at the house of a Pittsfield Police Officer. The flack, without giving any substantive details about the troubling event, sought to assure “the public” that they were in no danger.

No danger. A woman is found gunned up in a police officer’s house. The DA won’t give out the particulars. But the public need not be concerned.

Really? Maybe the DA’s office needs to drive to Lincoln Street and Wellington. There, in the utility wires that overhang Lincoln, you’ll see a pair of boots slung over the line. We’re told its a gang-related warning to snitchers, as in “Don’t talk or else you end up like this, strung up.” The boots have been there for a month. Odd, isn’t it, that neither the mayor, the city councilor president, any public official, or the police have ordered the boots taken down.

Why, we wonder.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

“Home is always the impossible subject, multilayered and maddening” — Travel writer Paul Theroux.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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