Pubdate: Tue, 9 Feb 2010
Source: Salem News (MA)
Copyright: 2010 Eagle Tribune Publishing Company
Contact: http://www.salemnews.com/contactus/local_story_015132129.html
Website: http://www.salemnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3466
Author:  Joseph F. Doyle
Related: Kin Mourn Dad Who Died In Cop Custody 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1066/a05.html

FAMILY STILL SEEKS JUSTICE

"Stop, children, what's that sound; everybody look what's going down."

- -- "For What It's Worth," Buffalo Springfield

We have recently been inundated by a flock of public officials trying 
to associate themselves with the high-profile Amy Bishop 
triple-homicide case because it opened up the possibility that Bishop 
was responsible for another homicide -- that of her own brother in 
1986. This case has elements of everything -- associations with 
Harvard, Hollywood, money and connections. The current investigation 
aims to assure us that no homicide will ever fall through the cracks 
again in Massachusetts.

If the governor, legislators and federal investigators are telling us 
the truth about wanting to seal up those cracks, I'd like to point 
out a Grand Canyon-sized one right here in Essex County. It concerns 
Ashleigh (15 years old), Dakota (10) and Rayne-Marie (13 months) and 
their mother, the widowed Margaret Howe.

Their father, Kenneth R. Howe, was brutally beaten to death on 
Thanksgiving Eve 2009 at what is known as a "sobriety checkpoint" in 
North Andover. Many Americans feel these checkpoints are violations 
of their rights. This one cost Howe his life.

Sobriety checkpoints are not legal in many states. In Massachusetts, 
they need something called a "conditions precedent" to justify their 
use. We don't know if that criterion was met in this case. 
Nevertheless, the medical examiner has ruled Howe's death a homicide.

Witnesses have said they saw 10 to 20 police officers stomping and 
kicking a man who was lying on the ground at the side of the road. 
One said there was no aggression on Howe's part to instigate a 
beating; he next saw Howe, inanimate, being shoved into a state 
trooper's cruiser.

According to the state police, Howe was a passenger in the vehicle 
that was pulled over and was in possession of a marijuana cigarette. 
We are waiting for the results of a DNA test on the alleged joint to 
prove that it was Howe's.

To put this in perspective, if I and nine of my friends had brutally 
beaten a state trooper by the side of the road on Thanksgiving Eve, 
do you think District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett would have seated a 
grand jury by now? Do you think everybody would know who the people 
who administered the brutal beating are, and everything about them?

But Blodgett's reaction to date reminds me of a frightened deer in 
somebody's headlights. He's not doing his job.

Margaret Howe's attorney, Frances King, two months ago requested new 
U.S. Attorney Carmin Ortiz to take over the investigation because 
"the state police can't investigate the state police." Never has an 
incident been more compelling for federal intervention. Howe was 
denied his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To date, there have been three different published versions of where 
and when Howe died. The one thing we do know is that he was beaten to 
death and there has been no grand jury, state or federal, seated. 
Meanwhile, the same officers are still driving around with their firearms.

Members of Howe's family -- the three young girls and their mother -- 
are suffering emotionally, psychologically and financially. Where is 
the justice for the nonfamous, nonwealthy and nonconnected? At this 
point, four months out, it is not being provided by either the state 
or the federal governments.

The famous Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth" contains 
another line that may be relevant: "There's a man with a gun over 
there, telling me I've got to beware."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake