Tag: tim kaine

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In brief: Kaine on Iran, police withdraw cameras, speaking in CODE

Senator Tim Kaine speaks at Batten about US-Iran relations. Photo: Sanjay Suchak

Kaine argues for peace

War with Iran may well be on the horizon—but U.S. Senator Tim Kaine has a few objections. He spoke about his new war powers resolution and his hopes for a return to diplomacy during an event at UVA’s Batten School of Public Policy on January 17.

Kaine has recently managed to drum up bipartisan support for a resolution that would limit the president’s powers of war and put more responsibility back in the hands of Congress. The resolution will almost certainly be vetoed by President Trump, but Kaine argued that on some level the veto is beside the point. “Congress should do whatever we’re supposed to do, [regardless of] what the president does,” the Virginia Democrat said. 

Trump’s decision to walk away from the United States’ nuclear deal with Iran was “one of the worst decisions” the country has ever made, according to Kaine. “If you abandon diplomacy, you make war more likely.”

“We won the Iraq war, and yet looking back at it, most people say it was a catastrophic mistake,” said the senator, who serves on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.

Kaine delivered his remarks in his usual wonky, earnest style, invoking everything from Thomas Jefferson’s interactions with Barbary pirates to his own experience as a lawmaker with a child in the military. Ultimately, however, he made his opposition to war with Iran clear. “There is not a war scenario with Iran that is a simple, easy mission accomplished,” Kaine said. “There’s just not.”

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Quote of the Week

“Twelve handguns a year is more than enough, for most citizens. If you need more than that, go to Texas. They don’t have any laws.”

­—State Senator Dick Saslaw, speaking in favor of Virginia’s proposed one-handgun-a-month law earlier this week

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In Brief

A police camera hanging on a telephone pole near Westhaven.

Caught on cameras

C-VILLE reported last week that the city had installed four surveillance cameras near Westhaven and Prospect, two majority black public housing neighborhoods in town. Since the article was published, the police have removed those cameras just as quietly as they hung them up. When asked why the cameras were taken down, police department spokesman Tyler Hawn said any questions about the cameras should be referred to city spokesman Brian Wheeler. Wheeler has not yet responded to requests for comment. 

Bias unmasked

Only one arrest was made at Monday’s massive pro-gun demonstration at the state Capitol: Mikaela Beschler, a 21-year-old Richmond woman, was arrested for covering her face with a bandana. It’s a felony to wear a mask in Virginia, but many gun-toting protestors had also covered their faces. “It’s become abundantly clear that the mask ban, which was intended to combat the Klan, is now only enforced against anti-racist activists,” tweeted Delegate Lee Carter.

Speaking in CODE

Construction is chugging along on the gigantic CODE Building, the office and retail space coming to the west end of the Downtown Mall in 2021. At a press conference last week, organizers promised that the building will emphasize “entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ideas” as well as “the principles of wellness and sustainability,” foster “unplanned interdisciplinary cross-pollination;” and have spaces where people can “maybe do a webinar, film it, blast it out.” 

Don’t Byers it

Albemarle County Police Department sent out a warning this week about a telephone scam: A mysterious caller has been ringing up locals, identifying himself as Captain Darrell Byers, and telling the marks they have an arrest warrant on their head that can be resolved by wiring money. Don’t fall for it. The local police aren’t perfect, but we’re pretty sure they’re not that corrupt.

 

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In brief: Plogging craze, Crozet shuttle, marathon man, and more

Plogging and other Earth Day events

A combination of jogging while picking up trash—who wouldn’t want to go plogging? Easter Sunday, from 1 to 5pm, is your chance.

“Instead of hunting for Easter eggs, we’re hunting for litter,” says organizer and self-proclaimed tree-hugger Brady Earnhart. He’s never been plogging, but was immediately intrigued when he read about the European craze in The New Yorker.

Earnhart says his event will probably be more of a stroll than a jog, and will start and end at Rapture on the Downtown Mall. “Get some exercise
while you’re making Charlottesville a prettier place, and hang out with a crowd who feels the way you do about it,” he says.

Participants will break into smaller groups and collect as much garbage as they can from the designated zones, which can be found on a map on the Facebook event page, “Easter Plogging: A Holiday Litter Hunt.”

Bring your smartphone and plastic grocery bags (for collecting) if you’ve got ’em, says Earnhart.

And if you’re in the mood for more environmentally-friendly (and plogging!) events, here are just a few options:

Plog with the prez

Join UVA President Jim Ryan on April 19 at 7am at Madison Hall for running and litter pickup, one of more than 20 university-sponsored Earth Week events. A full schedule can be found at sustainability.virginia.edu.

Break out your bike helmet

Piedmont Environmental Council and other groups are leading a casual ride April 19 at 5:30pm through neighborhood streets, along bike lanes,
and greenways, with an optional social hour and advocacy brainstorming session to follow. Meet at Peloton Station.

Lace up your hiking boots

Join Wild Virginia on a guided two- to three-mile hike at Montpelier April 27 from 10am to noon. The cost is $10 with a $5 recommended donation to Wild Virginia, and those interested can sign up by searching “Nature Exploration Hike at Montpelier” on Eventbrite.

Quote of the week

“[Discriminatory symbols] certainly include Confederate imagery, which evokes a time when black people were enslaved, sold, beaten, and even killed at the whim of their masters.”—Educator/activist Walt Heinecke to the Albemarle School Board April 11

In brief

Don’t go

A petition started by UVA alumna Lacey Kohlmoos asks the men’s basketball team not to visit the White House in the wake of their NCAA championship win, and at press time, the online document had 10,900 of the 11,000 requested John Hancocks. But here’s the catch: While the winner may traditionally be extended an invitation to the president’s abode, as of yet, the Cavaliers have not been invited.

Rebel students

Since Albemarle Superintendent Matt Haas banned white supremacist and Nazi imagery on clothing as disruptive, six students have been counseled, Haas told the school board April 11. The first, reported as wearing a hat with Confederate imagery, also had on a Confederate T-shirt. That student spent several days at home.

Eze Amos

Riot free

Charlottesville police reported minimal mayhem as Hoos celebrated UVA’s national basketball championship into the wee hours of April 9. Police made three misdemeanor arrests for drunk in public, trespassing, and assault. UVA police reported three calls for vandalism, and fire and rescue responded to seven burned sofas/bonfires.

Crozet express

JAUNT is planning to launch a new bus service from Crozet to UVA and Sentara Martha Jefferson starting August 5, with other stops to allow riders to connect with transit options, according to the Progress. JAUNT, which is still seeking input, aims to keep the ride to no more than 45 minutes and will charge $2 each way.

Good pork

Virginia’s U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine get $43 million in federal funding from HUD for affordable housing in Virginia, including $875,000 for Charlottesville Redevelopment & Housing Authority.

Ryan’s run

UVA prez Jim Ryan ran his ninth Boston Marathon April 15 in honor of 26 teachers, one for every mile. Donors contributed $260 to get an educator who had made a difference listed on Ryan’s shirt.

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In brief: America’s Dad, Virginia’s tampons, A12’s price tag and more

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine stopped by York Place for a pizza party with UVA students. Eze Amos

New contender for America’s Dad?

Senator Tim Kaine stopped by his campaign office in York Place September 21 for a pizza party with nearly three dozen University of Virginia Democrats.

Supporters passed around campaign signs that said “America’s Dad,” although Kaine may have some competition for the title—a spokesman for Bill Cosby told reporters recently that Cosby is still America’s Dad, despite his conviction for sexual assault.

In an exclusive interview on the vital topic of “dad jokes,” Kaine confessed that he groaned when his staff introduced the signs during his 2016 vice presidential campaign. “I kind of found myself in the center of all these dad jokes. And I mean, this is a very dad thing to say, but until I was in the center of them, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a dad joke.”

Urban Dictionary defines a dad joke as an “indescribably cheesy” or dumb joke made by a father to his kids. “We’re in a business where people get called a lot of names, and being made fun of because of my dad quality? I’ll take that,” says Kaine.

Smells of pepperoni and cheese wafted through the air as Hillary Clinton’s former running mate also fielded questions about his favorite type of ’za.

“I will always have Canadian bacon, mushroom, and black olive if I can,” he said. “Not everybody has Canadian bacon. It was more popular back in the day, and with Trump in a trade war against Canada, I’m sure there’s no more Canadian bacon.”

Believe it or not, he was also there to talk politics. As was 5th District congressional candidate Leslie Cockburn, who was preaching to the choir when she said one of her top priorities is debt relief for folks with student loans.

Like his young constituents, Kaine said he believes in climate science, marriage equality, and reasonable rules to “stop the carnage of gun violence.”

“I feel like politics is a lot like a train that’s run away and we need to pull the emergency brake,” Kaine told the crowd of students. And when recruiting young supporters, he said he no longer just talks about the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

“It’s not just that there’s a difference between the two sides,” he says. “It’s that you make a difference.”

As for defeating opponent Corey Stewart? “I feel good about what I see, but we take nothing for granted.”

Quote of the week

“If someone chooses to visit a Virginia Department of Corrections inmate, he or she cannot have anything hidden inside a body cavity.”—Spokeswoman Lisa Kinney tells the AP why women can’t wear tampons or menstrual cups when visiting state prisons.

In brief

Tourism bureau slam

Adam Healey, interim executive director for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, called the agency a “weak marketer,” its messaging “confusing,” and its positioning “dusty” rather than modern, according to Allison Wrabel’s story in the Daily Progress. And he wants to bump the bureau’s advertising budget from around $400,000 to $6 million.

Weekend traffic fatalities

UVA engineering grad student Rouzbeh Rastgarkafshgarkolaei, 27, died on U.S. 29 in Culpeper around 4:50am September 23, when his 2006 Audi sideswiped a Dodge Caravan, ran off the road, and caught fire. Virginia State Police said speed was a factor. That same day, Mary Elizabeth Carter, 19, died when her Mazda crossed the center line in Louisa and struck a Ford F150. Police said she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

Jowell Travis Legendre faces multiple charges. Charlottesville Police

Student assaulted, robbed

A UVA student was robbed and sexually assaulted around 9:30pm September 19 on the 500 block of 14th Street NW, city police said. Louisa resident Jowell Travis Legendre, 29, was arrested the next day and charged with object sexual penetration, forcible sodomy, robbery, grand larceny, and credit card larceny.

Well endowed

UVA’s endowment jumped almost $1 billion in the last fiscal year, from $8.6 billion to $9.5 billion. Even more impressive, the endowment has seen a 10.9 percent annual return over the past 20 years, according to COO Kristina Alimard.

Nuts wanted

The Virginia Department of Forestry is seeking acorns and nuts from 12 different species, mostly oaks, from state landowners. The department wants to plant them at its Augusta Forestry Center for tree seedlings.

 

 

Pricey preparations

While Jason Kessler was in D.C., Virginia State Police sent 700 officers to Charlottesville during the
August 12 anniversary weekend that brought out hundreds of anti-racist activists, students, and
mourners, but little to no opposition. The cost?

$3.1 million, according to VSP spokesperson Corinne Geller, who says the department has submitted the bill to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management for reimbursement. That number includes: $953,000 for equipment and vehicles,
and $885,000 in salaries (for officers who would have been working anyway). It does not include costs for Charlottesville, Albemarle, and UVA.

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In brief: Interim imbroglio, Miller Center imbroglio, gunman imbroglio and more

Mayor Nikuyah Walker takes it to social media.

Infighting implodes council

The hiring of an interim city manager, an event that usually takes place behind closed doors, has become heated and public, with reports of shouting at a July 20 closed City Council session. Mayor Nikuyah Walker has gone on Facebook Live twice to express her concerns that the process is part of the old boys’ network because someone suggested a candidate for the position to Vice Mayor Heather Hill, which she calls a “white supremist practice.”

On July 23, councilors Hill, Mike Signer and Kathy Galvin issued a five-page response to Walker’s Facebook Live video. “We regret that our rules requiring confidentiality about closed session discussions for personnel choices—which are in place under Virginia law, to protect local elected officials’ ability to discuss and negotiate employment agreements—were broken by the mayor.”

The search for an interim city manager became more urgent when Maurice Jones took a town manager job in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, leaving the city without a chief executive as the anniversary of August 12 looms.

Chris Suarez at the Daily Progress reports that three sources have confirmed U.S. Army Human Resources Command Chief of Staff Sidney C. Zemp has been offered the job.

In the councilors’ response, all three say they’ve never met the candidate, and that review panels are not used when filling interim positions.

In her July 20 video, Walker walked back a comment she made on Facebook and Twitter July 19: “We might have to protest a City Council decision. Are y’all with me?” She said she didn’t want supporters to shut down a council meeting, but did want them to pay attention to the process.

Walker was back on Facebook Live July 23, blasting her fellow councilors for their “very privileged” backgrounds and questioning their integrity.

She says she favors an internal candidate—the two assistant city managers and a department head have been floated—which councilors Wes Bellamy and Signer initially favored.

Bellamy issued his own statement: “Elected bodies agree and disagree all of the time” and that can lead to “healthy debate.”

Will council actually vote for an interim city manager at its August 6 meeting? Stay tuned.

Mayor Nikuyah Walker expressed concern in a July 20 Facebook Live video about the hiring process for an interim city manager.

In brief

Too much heritage

The Louisa County Board of Zoning Appeals said the giant Confederate battle flag on I-64 must come down because its 120-foot pole is double the county’s maximum allowable height. Virginia Flaggers erected the “Charlottesville I-64 Spirit of Defiance Battle Flag” in March and argued that after putting up 27 flags across the state, they wouldn’t have spent $14,000 on this one without confirming county code.

Controversial hire

A petition with more than 2,000 signatures of UVA faculty and students objects to the Miller Center’s hiring of Trump legislative affairs director Marc Short as a senior fellow. The petitioners are opposed to Trump administrators using “our university to clean up their tarnished reputations.”

Presidential paychecks

New UVA president Jim Ryan commands a higher salary than his predecessor, but can’t touch Brono Mendenhall’s paycheck. Photo UVA

Outgoing UVA prez Teresa Sullivan’s base pay of $580,000 and total compensation of $607,502 last year makes her one of the higher paid university chiefs, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her successor, Jim Ryan, starts with a $750,000 base pay, but to put those numbers in perspective, remember that UVA football coach Bronco Mendenhall makes $3.4 million—with a possible $2 million-plus bonus. At this week’s ACC Kickoff event, media members predicted—for the fifth straight year—that UVA will finish last in the conference’s Coastal Division.

New tourism director

Adam Healy, the former CEO of online wedding marketplace Borrowed and Blue, which closed abruptly last October, will now serve as the interim executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Standoff on Lankford

A state police vehicle on the outskirts of the standoff.

About 50 city, county and state police and SWAT team members were on the scene of a four-hour standoff with 29-year-old Alexander Rodgers, who had barricaded himself inside a Lankford Avenue home on July 19. Someone called police around 8am and reported shots fired. Rodgers, who has a history of domestic violence and was wanted on six outstanding warrants, eventually surrendered and was charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor.

Quote of the week:

“The fish rots from the head.”—Senator Tim Kaine, after U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and UVA alum Kirstjen Nielsen said about last summer’s violence in Charlottesville at a July 19 press briefing, “It’s not that one side was right and one side was wrong.”

County crime report

The Albemarle County Police Department released its annual crime report for 2017 last month. Here are a few things that caught our eye.

-Police misconduct has been reframed in a new “cheers and jeers” section, where police complaints are compared side-by-side with commendations.

  • Complaints: 57
  • Commendations: 69

-The award section may come as a surprise, because Detective Andrew Holmes, who faces five lawsuits for racial profiling, was granted a community service award.

-Albemarle County had the second-lowest crime rate in the state while Charlottesville had the highest. Crime rate is measured by tallying the number of crimes committed per 100,000 people.

  •   Fairfax: 1,273
  •   Albemarle: 1,286
  •   Prince George: 1,334
  •   Arlington: 1,355
  •   Prince William: 1,370
  •   Chesterfield: 1,450
  •   James City: 1,611
  •   Roanoke: 1,638
  •   Henrico: 2,548
  •   Charlottesville: 2,631

-County police officers made 2,296 arrests and used force “to overcome resistance or threat” on 14 occasions.

-Assaults on police officers have gone up and down.

  • 2015: 3
  • 2016: 10
  • 2017: 7
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Soering supporter: Sheriff Chip Harding says evidence points to his innocence

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding wrote the governor that he believes Jens Soering is innocent and that two unknown killers involved in the case are walking around free today. Photo by Sarah Jane Winter

Former UVA student Jens Soering has insisted for decades he’s innocent of the notorious double homicide for which he’s been imprisoned for 31 years. He was an international sensation even before then-Governor Tim Kaine agreed to ship Soering back to his native Germany, a decision rescinded by his successor Bob McDonnell immediately upon taking office in 2010.

That didn’t slow the drumbeat that Soering, 50, was wrongfully convicted of the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom. Now, along with the German Bundestag and Chancellor Angela Merkel calling for his release, Soering has another heavy hitter proclaiming his innocence.

No one would call Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding soft on crime. He’s spent a career going after the bad guys, most of it with the Charlottesville Police Department, relentlessly investigating crimes and lobbying the General Assembly to fund Virginia’s moribund DNA databank back in the late 1990s and turn it into a national model.

So when Soering’s pro bono attorney, Steve Rosenfield, asked Harding to take a look at the investigation and trial, Harding says he knew little of the case, thought Soering was probably guilty and that “McDonnell did the right thing” in nixing the reparation.

Two hundred hours of investigating hefty case files later, in a 19-page letter to Governor Terry McAuliffe, Harding says, “In my opinion, Jens Soering would not be convicted if the case were tried today, and the evidence appears to support a case for his innocence.”   

Even more disturbing: Recent DNA results from the crime scene indicate “not only was Soering not a contributor of blood found at the crime scene, but two men left blood at the scene.”

Harding’s theory is that the dead couple’s daughter, Elizabeth, whose uncommon type B blood was found at the scene and who has claimed her mother sexually abused her, had the motive for the savage slayings and used either an emotional or a drug connection to entice the unknown accomplices.

“I totally understand why the jury found him guilty,” Harding says. But multiple factors convinced him that the jury had been misled and that Soering had an inadequate defense, including a lead attorney who “was mentally ill and later disbarred,” he writes the governor.

“If I had to pick one thing,” he says, “it was the DNA.”

The DNA databank was established in 1989, the year before Soering’s trial. “There was a lot of blood available at that crime scene,” says Harding. “Why it wasn’t tested, I don’t know.”

He also mentions the bloody sock print found at the scene, about which a so-called expert was allowed to testify that it was likely Soering’s. “That was totally outrageous,” says Harding. Qualified experts have since said the print excludes Soering from the scene, but one juror said in a 1995 affidavit that the sock print testimony swayed him to convict.

Echols scholars Soering and Haysom met his first year at UVA in 1984 when he was 18 and a virgin, he’s said. He was smitten with the 20-year-old Haysom. The weekend of the murders, the two went to Washington in a rental car. Soering initially confessed that he was the killer to protect Haysom because he mistakenly believed he would have some sort of diplomatic immunity.

He quickly recanted and said it was Haysom who disappeared for hours and drove to Bedford, but Haysom, who pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact, still maintains Soering was the one who single-handedly butchered her parents.

Harding notes that her court-appointed doctors said at her sentencing “Haysom had a personality disorder and lied regularly.”

Last year Rosenfield, who is the attorney for now-exonerated Robert Davis, filed an absolute pardon with McAuliffe. A German documentary, The Promise, details the case and concludes Soering is innocent.

To have Harding, who has a national reputation in law enforcement, agree, only bolsters Soering’s case, says civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel. “What a coup.”

Harding, who investigated the wrongful conviction of Michael Hash that led to Hash’s release, joins the list of those who believe Soering is innocent, a position not shared by many in Bedford, including the case’s lead investigator, Major Ricky Gardner, who did not return a call, nor current Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance.

Nance says the DNA evidence is not new, and he takes issue with concluding it proves two unknown males were in the Haysom house. “I do take some issue with [Harding’s] self-reported investigation,” such as talking to former lead investigator Chuck Reid, but not Gardner, citing a “movie with an obvious bias position,” and failing “to account for Ms. Haysom continuing to accept responsibility for her role in her parents’ death and continuing to confirm Mr. Soering’s role in those brutal killings,” he writes in an email.

“When you make a false confession in Virginia, it’s hard to get it changed,” says Harding, even when Soering had multiple details from the crime scene wrong. He mentions the Norfolk Four, who were convicted of a 1997 rape and murder and just received pardons. “It was just unbelievable how much evidence there was these guys didn’t do it,” says the sheriff.

“DNA is the truth,” avows Harding. “It proves the innocent, it convicts the guilty. It’s not that I’m hard on crime. I’m just trying to get it right.”

Correction: Elizabeth Haysom’s blood type—B—was found at the scene but it has not been tested to determine whether it’s actually her blood.

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In brief: Tim Kaine drops by, Dish drops Newsplex and more

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine visits with UVA School of Medicine Dean David Wilkes during a recent trip to Charlottesville. Eric Swensen

Kaine’s campaign continues

Fresh on the heels of an unsuccessful run for vice president, Senator Tim Kaine was in Charlottesville January 13 at UVA’s Claude Moore Medical Education Building for a town hall with med students on the Affordable Care Act, which faces repeal by the GOP in Congress.

Kaine on health care under Donald Trump:

  • Repeal without replacement: “I will jump off a cliff and figure out how to land once I’m in the air.”
  • Worst victims of repeal: Rural hospitals, reproductive health
  • Upside: Trump’s negotiating skills could help prescription drug costs
  • Cooperation across the aisle in reforming Obamacare: It’s possible.
  • Overall mood: Optimistic and maybe a little naive

ACA repeal protests

Two separate rallies January 15 drew demonstrators to the Downtown Mall and to Republican Tom Garrett’s Charlottesville office to denounce plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Jane Dittmar’s latest gig

Jane Dittmar was unable to overcome the odds in the GOP-heavy 5th District. Photo Eze Amos
Photo by Eze Amos

The former 5th District congressional candidate joins House of Delegates minority leader David Toscano as his chief of staff, succeeding Carmen Bingham. Dittmar has served as chair of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors and as president of the Charlottes-ville Regional Chamber of Commerce. She lost in November to Garrett.

Weekend woundings

Police responded to two separate stabbings January 14. Marc Gardner Carson, 58, is charged with malicious wounding following a 5am call to 7½ Street SW, where the incident resulted in a 58-year-old man being taken to the hospital. Sadie Michie, 27, is charged with malicious wounding for a Sixth Street SE incident that injured a 26-year-old male.

Dish drops Newsplex

The local ABC, CBS and Fox affiliates—found on channels 16, 19 and 27—will no longer be available to Dish Network customers, according to a press release sent January 17. “We are shocked and disappointed,” says Jay Barton, the station’s vice prez and general manager.

School bus fire

schoolBusFire2-I64_VSP
Virginia State Police

An Albemarle County bus carrying the Monticello High swim team began smoking and then ignited on I-64 on Afton Mountain around 5pm January 13. All 23 team members, three coaches and the driver escaped unharmed, and the cause of the conflagration is under investigation.

By the numbers: The General Assembly

Virginia’s legislature kicked off its short session January 11 with Governor Terry McAuliffe giving his last State of the Commonwealth address. So far, a bathroom bill is getting attention, but for many, there are more pressing issues.

45 – Number of days Virginia’s part-time legislature meets

1,272 – Number of bills introduced in the House of Delegates

843 – Number of bills carried in
the Senate

$1.2 billion – Budget shortfall and biggest issue

Quote of the Week:

“[T]his bill serves as a vehicle to undo the monstrosity that is Obamacare.” —U.S. Representative Tom Garrett January 13 after the House approved a budget resolution that would begin the process of dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

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Kaine campaigns for healthcare

Senator Tim Kaine says he's optimistic about the fate of health insurance. Photo Eric Swensen

Senator Tim Kaine, fresh on the heels of a losing run for vice president alongside Hillary Clinton, hosted a town hall event with UVA medical students Friday to discuss the Affordable Care Act.

Kaine was recently appointed to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, alongside other heavy hitters such as Rand Paul, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and he joked that this new position was a “consolation prize for winning the popular vote, but losing the bid to be vice president.”

His stop in Charlottesville is one of many in which he has listened and learned from healthcare professionals. And on Sunday he attended a rally against the repeal of affordable care in Richmond.

Kaine told the UVA audience that rural hospitals and reproductive health are most at stake if the ACA is repealed. He described attending a remote area medical project event at the Virginia-Kentucky fairgrounds, and seeing cars from as far away as Oklahoma. Repealing Obamacare without a proper replacement is saying, “I will jump off a cliff and figure out how to land once I’m in the air,” he said.

When Kaine opened the floor for questions, many hands shot up. Sam Kessel, a second-year med student from Massachusetts, asked about prescription costs and what Congress was doing to protect consumers from monopolies like the manufacturer of EpiPen.

Kaine explained that there’s no “all-purpose price control” in government and that some pharmaceutical companies are taking a “patient as hostage model.” He also suggested that President-elect Donald Trump’s deal-making skills could be a good thing in negotiating prescription drug pricing.

Thomas Xiao, a fourth-year from Fairfax, asked about Democratic and Republican cooperation within in the Senate. Kaine said that sometimes he’s a little too optimistic and naïve, but he thinks that some cooperation for a reform instead of a replacement plan or a replacement-repeal at the same time might be possible.

The event ended with Kaine talking to the press and students who still had questions and posing for Facebook and Instagram photos. He and his team then climbed into a salt-smeared station wagon to visit the Boys & Girls Club on Cherry Avenue later that afternoon.

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Absolute pardon: Soering petitions another governor

Two young lovers and two heinous murders: A documentary of the Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Soering story heads to the U.S. as Soering seeks an absolute pardon. Courtesy Filmperspektive

During the 30 years he’s spent in prison, Jens Soering has maintained he had nothing to do with the brutal 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom, and that he only confessed to protect his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, from the death penalty.

Now Tim Kaine, the governor who agreed to send Soering back to Germany in 2010, a decision overturned by his successor, Bob McDonnell, is running for vice president, and Soering’s attorney has filed a petition for absolute pardon with Governor Terry McAuliffe, thrusting the case back into the international spotlight.

Germany, from its highest levels of government, has long lobbied for Soering’s return, and Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the case with President Barack Obama. German filmmakers have made a documentary, The Promise, on the heinous case in which two UVA Echols scholars were convicted that premiered in Munich in March and will be screened in the U.S. later this year.

Attorney Steve Rosenfield filed the petition August 23 and says he has indisputable scientific evidence that proves Soering, 50, is innocent. He points to a 1985 lab analysis of blood taken from the Haysoms’ Bedford home, which documents five stains of type O human blood—the same as Soering’s, but also the most common blood type.

In 2009, DNA analysis was done on two of those samples—the others were too degraded—and Virginia’s Department of Forensic Science said that Soering was “eliminated as a contributor.”

“That completely undermines the government’s argument it was Soering’s blood,” says Rosenfield.

But that’s not all. Rosenfield has a laundry list of errors made during the investigation and prosecution of Soering, who says he confessed because he thought his father’s mid-level diplomatic status would give him immunity.

An expert on police interrogations and confessions, Dr. Andrew Griffiths spent four months reviewing all statements Soering made to police and prosecutors after he and Haysom were caught in London a year after the murders, and concluded British and American investigators “violated a host of British laws,” says Rosenfield, including holding Soering incommunicado and denying him access to his solicitor.

Soering also failed to accurately describe the crime scene, says Rosenfield. The UVA student claimed he was in the dining room, walked behind Derek Haysom and sliced his throat. “Why didn’t we find blood on the table?” asks Rosenfield. Haysom was found with 38 stab wounds in the living room, which was awash in blood.

Nancy Haysom was wearing her night clothes, and FBI profiler Ed Sluzbach said the killer was someone she was very comfortable with because she was a “proper woman” and wouldn’t have entertained in her pajamas. Soering said she was wearing jeans, says Rosenfield.

Elizabeth Haysom, who is serving 90 years in the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women as an accessory before the fact, claimed she was in Washington, D.C., to establish an alibi while Soering drove to Bedford to kill her parents. Yet a dishrag was found near Nancy Haysom’s body with type B blood, the same type as Elizabeth’s, says Rosenfield.

Elizabeth also alleged she was on a street in Georgetown when Soering drove up in the rental car, covered in blood and wearing only a sheet. Detectives sprayed the car with Luminol, which causes even minute flecks of blood to light up in blue. No stains turned up in the car, according to Rosenfield.

Prosecutors in the 1990 trial also tied Soering to a sock print, the use of which has been discredited by the FBI and American Academy of Forensic Scientists, along with bite marks. In 2009, Innocence Project cofounder Peter Neufeld and UVA law professor/wrongful conviction expert Brandon Garrett wrote an article that asserted sock prints are not accepted as scientific evidence.

And then there’s the mysterious man. About two months after the murders, transmission shop owner Tony Buchanan said he called Bedford investigators because a woman and man brought a car to his shop that had blood on the floorboard and a hunting knife, the type of weapon police believe was used, in between the seats. After Haysom and Soering went on the lam, Buchanan said he recognized her from news photos, but the man with her was not Soering. Police never responded to his information, Rosenfield says.

Rosenfield held a press conference August 24, during which he criticized Republicans and right-wing media who are “uninterested in the facts of the case” and who instead are targeting Hillary Clinton’s running mate Kaine for attempting to repatriate Soering under the terms of an international treaty.

Present at the press conference were Kaine staffers who spent months investigating the case, which McDonnell rejected immediately upon taking office with no investigation, according to Rosenfield.

Not only does Rosenfield want Soering given an absolute pardon, but while the parole board investigates the case, he wants Soering released from the Buckingham Correctional Center on parole “in light of Jens’ innocence.”

Rosenfield represented former Crozet resident Robert Davis, who spent 13 years in prison after making a false confession. McAuliffe granted him a conditional pardon December 21, 2015.

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They’re here: Search and rescue drone registered in the county

Retired Charlottesville fire chief Charles Werner, a longtime drone hobbyist, became interested in using them for search and rescue purposes after seeing them used to look for missing person Hannah Graham in 2014. Photo: Eze Amos

Flying drones is no longer just for hobbyists in Albemarle. Earlier this month, the county was gifted a DJI Phantom 3—its first unmanned aircraft system for search and rescue purposes.

David King, who donated the drone, is a founder of King Family Vineyards, a longtime pilot and attorney, and a current search and rescue team member and reserve deputy with the Albemarle Sheriff’s Office. He and a team of those working to incorporate this new technology locally have practiced flying and run missing person simulations on his farm in Crozet.

Though drone users don’t need the county’s permission to use their aircrafts, for the Sheriff’s Office to routinely use unmanned aerial systems, they must be owned by the county and registered with the Federal Aviation Administration. King’s gift made that possible, says Board of Supervisors Chair Liz Palmer.

King was at a 2015 legal conference in Wise, Virginia, in which drones were discussed, and “it became clear to me that it was an emerging technology that would be very useful to the people who do the [searching],” he says. He immediately became interested in pursuing them. “The only purpose of this is to give the troops on the ground—the real heroes—a useful tool,” he says. “It’s not a silver wbullet, it’s only to help them do their job.”

Charles Werner, an unmanned aircraft systems adviser for the state and former city fire chief, also has been a major player in introducing this technology in our area. As a hobbyist, he has owned a drone for years, but he became interested in its ability to aid in search and rescue missions when Hannah Graham went missing in 2014. Though she was not located by an aircraft, he said it potentially reduced search time by thousands of hours.

“It revealed the value that could be benefited from searching hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of land,” he says. After retiring, he joined the search and rescue team.

But he acknowledges there are concerns with the technology.

“We’re trying to be very diligent in the issue of privacy,” Werner says. “Because of the concerns of being spied on, that’s something we, at all costs, are trying to steer away from.”

He says the drones will not be used for law enforcement or surveillance, but he does intend to use them to provide situational awareness in the instance of a natural disaster or major flood when it would be too dangerous to put a human in a boat. “It immediately gives you the ability to see the lay of the land,” Werner adds.

Around 80 percent of missing people are found within two miles of where they were lost, according to Werner. From the air, a drone can cover that distance quickly, even searching mountains or rough terrain that humans can’t access.

Says Werner, “If you have a situation where you have a lost child near a body of water, it becomes paramount.” In simulations his team did at King Family Vineyards, Werner says the lost children they were searching for were often found within two minutes.

“I think during our experimentation, we validated that it’s going to have a huge impact on how much we’re able to see and the areas we’re able to cover,” he says.

Also using King’s farm for practice are students at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where some of the first courses in the country are now being offered to certify search and rescue responders in operating drones.

Similarly, U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced last week that the National Science Foundation awarded the Old Dominion University Research Foundation almost $1 million for the purpose of advancing drone technology training in local colleges.

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VP candidate and convicted murderer in spotlight again

The Dem VP candidate okayed Jens Soering's return to Germany in 2010—to no avail. Photo Clements Mayes

Former UVA student Jens Soering has spent more than 30 years in prison while protesting his innocence. And Tim Kaine, shortly before he left the Governor’s Mansion in 2010, agreed to repatriate Soering to Germany, a move that was immediately overturned by his successor, Bob McDonnell.

Now Kaine has been tapped to be the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and Soering is still in prison–and still claiming his innocence in the heinous murders of his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom’s parents in 1985 in Bedford. His story, which has gained international attention, was made into a documentary that premiered in Munich last month. 

Because of the notoriety of the murders, Kaine experienced some fallout from his decision to send Soering back to Germany, but not enough to derail his run for the U.S. Senate in 2012. But according to Soering’s lawyer, Steve Rosenfield, the then-governor was doing what Congress and the president wanted him to do when they created an international treaty for the transfer of prisoners in 1977 to aid in rehabilitation and to save money.

“Tim Kaine spent nine months investigating the case,” and Rosenfield calls it “very commendable” that he did so. “McDonnell and [Ken] Cuccinelli had a press conference and did no investigation,” he says. “For them it was all politics.”

Soering has advocates at the highest levels of German government, and Chancellor Angela Merkel broached the topic with President Barack Obama in 2014. The position of the Germans, says Rosenfield, “always has been Jens should be returned to Germany under international treaty.”

Governor Terry McAuliffe rejected a petition to do so last year. But with Kaine running for vice president, and a documentary headed to the U.S., Soering’s story is unlikely to go unnoticed.