Morning y'all! After a rough start (a bit more on that later), I'm here and ready to give you the news.
Two prosecutors from Hamilton County will lead the state’s investigation into the police shooting death of John Crawford III, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced yesterday.
Stacey DeGraffenreid and Mark Piepermeierand were appointed by the AG yesterday. Piepermeierand, of Sharonville, heads the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s office criminal division and has handled many high-profile cases in that capacity. He’s responsible for reviewing all police use-of-force issues in Hamilton County and has done so for the past 15 years.
Police shot Crawford inside a Beavercreek Walmart Aug. 6. Another customer called 911 when he saw Crawford with what he thought was an assault rifle. Officers arrived and demanded Crawford drop the weapon, which turned out to be a pellet gun from the store. When he didn’t comply immediately, officers shot him and he died. Crawford’s family, along with activists, have called for answers as to why he was shot.
• The state of Ohio has ordered embattled restaurant Mahogany’s closed after it didn’t follow state sales tax rules. The restaurant on The Banks has struggled to pay rent and loans owed to the city and was almost evicted in April. The restaurant was able to catch up on the rent but still owes more than $300,000 to the city in loans. Owner Liz Rogers has said that the restaurant has struggled after $80,000 was embezzled from the establishment and a rough winter kept business slow. Rogers has also pointed the finger toward someone in the city’s administration who she says has been leaking untrue information about the business. Mahogany’s can reopen after it pays back the undisclosed amount it owes the state in sales taxes.
• Think sky-high executive pay is kind of absurd? You’re not alone. Former Kroger CEO David Dillion said during a panel on management at the Aspen Ideas Summit last month that his paycheck for leading the company was “ludicrous." A video of that summit is just now trickling out, with Huffington Post covering the statement yesterday.
Dillion’s $13 million paycheck last year was actually below the $15 million average for CEOs in America, which makes his compensation “seem a little more responsible,” he said during the summit. “Still you’d argue, I think,” he continued, “it was pretty damn high.”
Dillion said his eight-figure pay package started out fairly reasonable but ballooned out of control as Kroger’s stock went up. That’s a terrible problem to have. That dang stock price, that dang paycheck, both just rising and rising and rising like the temperature needle on my poor struggling car as I sat in traffic this morning (yes, my car overheated on the way here and I’m bitter). There’s just nothing you can do about that. If only Dillion had like, RUN THE COMPANY or something, maybe he could have gotten that ludicrous pay rate under control. Oh, wait…
• Speaking of big ole billowy clouds o’ cash, former 20102 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is on his way to Kentucky to help make it rain for Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is fighting a tough battle against his Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan-Grimes. McConnell has been pulling out all the conservative A-listers to raise cash, a sign that he’s seriously worried he could lose his seat in what looks to be one of the most contentious and expensive Senate campaigns in history. It’s certainly the fight of his career, but the stakes go higher than that. Every seat matters come November, when Democrats will struggle to maintain their slim majority in the Senate. Should Republicans take enough seats, they’ll run both that chamber and the House, making President Obama’s last two years in office one big bummer.
• Another politician experiencing a big ole bummer right now is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was indicted a couple weeks back on some pretty serious felony charges involving abuse of power. It's a long, complicated story that involves a DUI (not Perry's), some backroom dealings, a possibly shady cancer research organization and more. So much more. Anyway, Perry's been kinda sailing through this whole thing, smirking in his mugshot and getting ice cream afterward, the whole deal. He's also played it well politically, refusing public money for his defense team of all-star attorneys. But he recently dropped a comment about that that is less than great PR. He's not turning down public money for his defense because it's the right thing to do, but "to keep folks from grousing about it," he said. The whole Texas-sized imbroglio (gotta love that word) has also hit Perry where it hurts: his holster.
• I usually try to end with some weird news to lighten the mood a lil, but this story is just crazy and sad and confusing. A shooting instructor in Arizona died Monday while teaching a 9-year-old girl how to shoot an uzi. The girl lost control of the semi-automatic weapon due to its recoil as she was firing, and the instructor was shot in the head. An investigation is ongoing to determine the exact sequence of events.