Marion County Republican Chairman Kyle Walker Throws Stones, Apparently Unaware He Lives in a Glass House

Marion County GOP Chairman
Kyle Walker

The Indianapolis Star has a story this morning on the local parties exchanging jabs following the arrest of Democratic Councilor Joe Simpson.  Simpson was arrest Sunday and preliminarily charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and refusal to leave an emergency area.  The arrest stemmed from the allegation that Simpson interfered with a burglary investigation.
Marion County GOP Chairman Kyle Walker used the incident to issue a statement:

“The arrest of Democrat City-County Councillor Joseph Simpson is the second time in less than four years that a Democrat Councillor has been arrested for violating the law and then resisting law enforcement. Our police officers have a tough enough job without such disrespect and interference from Democrat members of the City-County Council. This pattern of contempt for our public safety officers needs to stop immediately. I call upon Council President Maggie Lewis to remove Councillor Simpson from the Public Safety Committee and Law Enforcement Study Commission and to condemn the actions of her fellow Democrats in hopes that this pattern does not continue.”

The Star reports that Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy responded listing Republican elected officials involved in scrapes with the law, including former Councilor Lincoln Plowman, who was convicted after a federal corruption trial.

If Walker had been smart, he would have made a gracious statement that the Simpson incident was unfortunate and that the legal process should play itself out.  Instead he tried to twist things in order to make Simpson's troubles a political football.  Of course, that didn't do anything but highlight the obvious hypocrisy in his one-sided criticism of councilors accused of violating the law.  The worst thing though is that Walker's foolish statement placed the ball on the tee so the repugnant Treacy could hit it out of the park.

Public corruption is far more damaging to the body politic than an isolated incident in which some elected official gets arrested for acting the fool, interfering with police officers doing their job. Yet has Walker ever expressed concern about public corruption in Indianapolis and the need to clean up the City?  Nope.  Has he ever expressed concern about out-of-control pay-to-play where a big contributor like Keystone Construction gets a garage built with our tax dollars and gets to keep 100% of the revenue from the building?  Nope. 

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't criticize the coverage of the Simpson arrest.  Too many reporters  are simply accepting what is recounted in the arrest report as 100% true.  If you do much criminal law, you pretty quickly find out that police reports are often not factually accurate and often omit key details. That's not surprising as police officers are human beings who want their role in an incident viewed in the best possible light.  So let's not judge someone based on the unproven accusations made in an arrest report.