John & Belle Have A Blog:

This one took me a while. I had to figure out what 30's style Owl and Squid looked like in profile. (As you can see - per comments on last night's post - I tried to make Owl's wings look like long hair, thereby accentuating the, y'know, androgynous mystery of this character.)

Tomorrow we are on to a different non-narrative saga. But I thought about actually turning this one into a story, I liked the design so well. The idea, y'see, would be that Squid and Owl have to fight The Old Man of the Flower. A floral version of Betty Boop's Old Man of the Mountain. Sort of like the Old Man of the Moutain wearing Jobriath's costume from this video. Anyway, the idea was that Squid would punch him out while Owl contended with all the other flowers pressing in, in sinister fashion.

Allegorically, sheer florality
Is an affront to mere morality.

Thus 'the Old Man of the Flower'
Is a figure of dark power.

Squid takes up a fistic stance
While Owl makes up a mystic dance.

The one will triumph pugilistically
The other centrifugalistically.

That's four more drawings, plus intertitles, that I didn't get around to, y'know, drawing. But tomorrow ... something more ballistic.

Speaking of flowers, I present Zoë's latest. Flower Island:

The Washington Post titled its article "Review of DeOnté Rawlings Case Paints an Ambiguous Picture." This is actually an inaccurate picture of the article, which might more aptly be titled "Review of DeOnté Rawlings Care Pretty Much Convinces You an Off-Duty Cop Killed a 14-Year-Old Unjustifiably, Without Any Consequences, in the Third Off-Duty Shooting of His Career in Law Enforcement." The intro:

Near dusk one September evening in 2007, a boy cruises on a stolen, red, gas-powered minibike down an alley in Southeast's Highland Dwellings public housing complex. A gold Chevrolet Tahoe passes with two men inside, both off-duty D.C. police officers, both armed. The driver is determined to recover his bike. He slams the SUV into reverse and races backward in pursuit.

There is an exchange of gunfire. When it is over, a 14-year-old lies dying in the fading autumn light, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

The shooting of DeOnté Rawlings was one of the most controversial and emotional the city had seen in decades, and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier publicly promised a thorough and open investigation. Their unusual stance, which included paying for the boy's funeral, brought political heat from the police union and the force.

But Fenty and Lanier were practically silent when the fatal shooting was declared justifiable last year by federal prosecutors and police officials who said the boy fired first at the officers.

Instead of being open, officials declined to release the details supporting their conclusions, saying their hands were tied by federal grand jury secrecy rules that ordinarily do not apply to local police shooting cases. The FBI and grand jury had been brought in to ensure an impartial investigation.

The lack of transparency left a host of unanswered questions throughout the city: If Rawlings fired, where was his gun? Why did the minibike vanish from the scene, then reappear days later? What evidence tied the boy to the shooting?

Even this is misleading, because the evidence raised in the article suggests that DeOnté may never even have been on the stolen bike at all. Basically the cops contend that while off-duty they found out that the mini-bike had just been stolen from the one cop's house. They got their guns and started driving around, and they saw a kid riding down the street on the mini-bike. They took off after him, told him to drop the bike without identifying themselves as cops, and he complied but then he fired at the cop (again, allegedly), who fired back and shot him dead. Then they drove off without attempting to give him medical attention, allegedly unsure he had even been shot (despite the fact that they then radioed in that someone was "down"), took the cop who fired the shot to his mom's house, and didn't talk to anyone investigating the shooting for hours. The cop doing the driving drove the car from the scene even though it had been struck and was part of the crime scene, didn't take any notes on the event, took the other cop to his mom's place, and talked to him on the phone several times before either talked to investigators. But wait, it gets way worse. Neither any gun nor the minibike was recovered at the scene, despite other cops' arriving moments after the first cops left. And:

Authorities tested Rawlings's clothing for lead residue and found none, police records show. No gunshot residue, soot or powder was found on his fingers or hands, according to the autopsy report.

Police cited an acoustic sensor system known as ShotSpotter, which detects and locates gunshots, as evidence that there were two shooters. But the system could not determine who fired or from what positions, raising the possibility that someone other than Rawlings might have fired at the officers. "The complexity of the audio makes it impossible to be certain exactly what happened based on audio evidence alone," the ShotSpotter report says.

The minibike turned up two days later, 16 miles away at the Upper Marlboro home of a longtime friend of Haskel's. The friend said that it was recovered in the neighborhood the day after the shooting and that he took it home at Haskel's insistence. Rawlings's fingerprints and DNA were not found on the bike.

There is also no forensic evidence tying Rawlings to the shooting. Police initially had said Rawlings used a .45-caliber handgun, based on shell casings they found near his body. But they had to retract that when the casings turned out to be too old to have come from the shooting.

A month after the shooting, a new narrative emerged: An 18-year-old named Clifton Coleman who was at the scene said Rawlings fired a .38-caliber revolver, which would leave no shell casings. Coleman had kept silent until he was arrested for shooting his girlfriend in the face in an unrelated incident.

The only known evidence supporting the .38 theory is paint discovered on a deformed lead bullet found at the scene. FBI technicians say that the bullet is from a .38 and that the paint matches Haskel's SUV. An indentation was found on the SUV's driver-side door, which investigators say is a bullet strike, but the FBI has declined to release its report analyzing the paint.

Gregory L. Lattimer, attorney for the Rawlings family, says the evidence points to a different theory: Someone other than Rawlings was on the minibike, and someone else fired at the SUV, prompting Haskel to fire eight bullets in 5.5 seconds, hitting the unarmed boy almost dead-center in the back of the head. That would explain why no gun and no minibike were found at the scene, Lattimer said.

D.C. police records show Rawlings had no arrest record.

This was the third off-duty shooting that the cop was involved in. Normally when the Feds get involved it's after the local authorities have failed to properly investigate the case to the public's satisfaction. In this case it seems like the Feds pre-empted any other investigation and now everyone claims the whole thing has to remain secret, citing the lawsuit and grand jury secrecy rules.

"I can't discuss that case at all," Lanier said. "Eighty percent of what can be discussed is protected by grand jury secrecy." Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said: "Our focus was whether a crime was committed and was there evidence to support a crime. There was very little question that someone fired at the officers that night. So when they fired back, we determined they were justified in returning fire."

What. The. Fuck? Doesn't it make just a teeny tiny bit of difference whether the kid they shot was the person firing at them? I thought the article was depressing enough, and then I read the comments. I mean, you know on some level that lots of people don't care about whether African-American boys in the city live or die, but daaaamn. Some highlights:

Darwinism. If the kid wasnt stealing bikes and pointing guns at cops this wouldnt have happened. His parents are at fault for letting run around like a little criminal.

don't steal, don't get killed.

I bet that this was not the good boy's first theft. probally society's fault. or his school's. or the government. or president bush. the little tyke will not grow up to steal, rob or hurt anyone else. of course the post is judge, jury and executioner condemming the police.

I guess the object lesson is don't take property that isn't yours. You might get shot in the head

do what you do...get what you get! stealing mini bikes today - robbing people tomorrow. Just another punk off the streets. It was a toss up when he would be killed. At least it was young enough before he could kill or maim others. Good riddance!

This 14 year old POS played with fire and got burned. Little punks like him know they can get away with most crimes because they are under 18. Justice was served and it was well deserved. This kid was not going to be doing anything positive for society anyway. The only crime the off duty cops committed was littering. Why is the city responsible? These officers were off duty thus they actions are not official. Greedy dirtbag lawyers... Justice was served the old fashioned way and the lawyers had to complicate it all up. I hope the family don't get penny. Screw them for raising a POS of a kid.

I have wasted precious minutes of my life reading this article. The kid was trash pure and simple and to waste precious resources on his story is insanity. Why not focus on the kids who are trying to do good?

Cant believe the WAPO devoted so much space to this little thug's death. Who cares? Just another piece of crap off the streets. DC picked up the tab for his funeral? What a bunch of idiots, glad I dont live anyplace near DC. District of Clowns.

I haves 50 bucks thats says his father spent more time thinkin up the best way to spell "De'Ontrie" than he did raising him. Just sayin.

Anyone with an idiotic name like DeOnte deserves his fate.

Good thing no one's racist, cause that would suck! Grr, losing faith in humanity.