did somebody tip Nancy Zimpher off about an investigation?

She's taking taxpayer's money and running:

http://blog.suny.edu/2016/05/a-letter-to-the-suny-family

It's the SUNY way, sadly.

More than a year after she abruptly left her job as president of the State University of New York at Albany, Dr. Karen R. Hitchcock was Topic A on her former campus yesterday after revelations that she had faced a state ethics inquiry into her actions while she led the university.

Baker, Al and Michael Slackman. "Questions at SUNY Albany on Why Ex-President Left." N.Y. Times. February 26, 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/26/nyregion/questions-at-suny-albany-on-why-expresident-left.html

Good riddance to Ohioan Nancy "Systemness" Zimpher, but one does really wish she'd been indicted before resigning. Dannemora would have been a great home for her - about as far from Ohio as one can get in New York.

"take one down, pass it around"

"Ms. Agudio, an exemplary young woman and an excellent student who has never previously been in legal trouble, asks that people not rush to judgment in this matter."

Del Valle, Lauren, with Ray Sanchez and Haimy Assefa. "Upstate NY students who claimed bias attack plead not guilty to charges." CNN. February 29, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/29/us/new-york-albany-assaults-pleas/

Being an (allegedly) "exemplary young woman and an excellent student who has never previously been in legal trouble" does not mean that a person is incapable of committing a crime! It also doesn't mean they've never committed one before - perhaps they've never been caught, or never been sentenced, or had a juvenile record expunged. It's true that one should not rush to judgment, though in this case much of the evidence has been publicly available for months. It's perhaps ironic that Ariel Agudio would ask that people not rush to judgment in this matter:

January 29, 2016 post on Twitter about plan to go out underage drinking:

ari [Ariel Agudio]

‏@ariYELLmyname

I really should stay in drink tea, eat soup and cuddle myself tonight but I'll cure myself with shots and dancing instead 😂

11:37 AM - 29 Jan 2016

https://twitter.com/ariYELLmyname/status/693155954808979457?lang=en

January 30, 2016 911 call after getting off the "drunk bus" (misidentified here as the 12) less than two hours later:

ARIEL AGUDIO: Now I’m walking towards Empire but I was just on the 12. Me and my three friends got drunk… ah, jumped. It was a racial crime. They were calling us n[*****] and all this stuff, and if someone doesn’t come? and, and and take this down? or something? I’m going to call the news, because it was ridiculous. They ripped out all of our hair and everything.

https://www.hightail.com/download/ZWJYaUNDeFVubVVVV01UQw

January 30, 2016 posting on Twitter within less than an hour of the incident, within perhaps less than a half hour of the 911 calls, to one of the witnesses who recorded parts of the incident and contradicted her story:

ari [Ariel Agudio]

‏

@ariYELLmyname

@sennypede don't tell me to watch my attitude, I got beat up by 20 people screaming racial slurs. Don't you dare tell me what to do

1:46 AM - 30 Jan 2016

https://twitter.com/ariYELLmyname/status/693369695936888832?lang=en

February 1, 2016 retweeting typical rising politician Marc Cohen:

ari [Ariel Agudio]

‏

@ariYELLmyname

“@MarcCohen_: Massive turnout at the #DefendBlackGirlsUAlbany Rally for social justice ”thanks everyone

6:37 PM - 1 Feb 2016

https://twitter.com/ariYELLmyname/status/694348767043129344

February 1, 2016 UAlbany Professor Schalk live-tweeting the rally:

Sami Schalk

‏@DrSamiSchalk

Black women students sharing list of demands #DefendBlackGirlsUAlbany 1. Expel students who committed violence

3:46 PM - 1 Feb 2016

https://twitter.com/DrSamiSchalk/status/694305941387395073

February 2, 2016 (campus?) police interview:

POLICE: And at no time you heard the N-word or any other, um, racial..."

ARIEL AGUDIO: No, no.

Tucker, Anya and Rachel Yonkunas. "Video of police questioning 3 women accused in CDTA bus assault released." News10 ABC. May 4, 2016. http://news10.com/2016/05/04/video-of-police-questioning-3-women-accused-in-cdta-bus-assault-released/

When one goes back to the January 29th post with the plan to go out and illegally consume alcohol, it's somewhat funny to note that what really seems to have provoked the three women to commit assault was another young woman who'd perhaps illegally consumed alcohol singing about consuming a massive amount of alcohol.

In one woman's statement, it was a passenger's obnoxious singing of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" that got things started.

Lawrence, J. P. “Court, UAlbany documents shed new light on CDTA bus incident; 3 UAlbany students plead not guilty as their statements, UAlbany report surface.” Albany Times Union. May 4, 2016.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Court-UAlbany-documents-shed-new-light-on-CDTA-7393885.php

If only they'd all really been exemplary young people and excellent students!

I still wonder where the underage drunks on the bus might have obtained alcohol.

Mishler v. Burlingame, Round 2! Pillow fight: BEGIN!

permissible or not, hearsay evidence (for example, Inspector Burlingame telling the Board what he says someone else says they heard or saw) is not deemed to be very reliable and is not considered to be the best way for a fact-finder to make factual determinations. Both Burlingame and Brennan basically told the Board - - ‘trust me’, ‘I’m an experienced police officer/ administrator’, essentially saying, ‘do what I tell you, because I’m very smart, I have reached a conclusion as to what happened on the bus - although I was not there - and you should accept what I tell you’. That is not really how the fact-finding process is supposed to work.

Mishler, Mark S. "Re: Appeal of Ariel C. Agudio." April 26, 2016. Letter. https://web.archive.org/web/20160504040418/http://www.caami.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Appeal-of-Ariel-Agudio-Mark-Mishler.pdf

Mishler had been up against Burlingame in Abdul-Wahhab v. State of New York, a case Mishler probably could not have lost more badly had he been paid to lose it. See older posts here, particularly "Albany attorney Mark S. Mishler's snow-job" and "'No Justice, No Peace' sums New York up pretty well".

It probably wouldn't have hurt to cite an authority when stating, "That is not really how the fact-finding process is supposed to work"?

Or, how about another student, who in a videographed interview with UPD, in response to a question about whether there were racial slurs used on the bus, acknowledged that some people said they had heard this, and added that the “n” word can be said in a “non-racist” way.

Mishler, Mark S. "Re: Appeal of Ariel C. Agudio." April 26, 2016. Letter. https://web.archive.org/web/20160504040418/http://www.caami.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Appeal-of-Ariel-Agudio-Mark-Mishler.pdf

Above, at least, Mishler comes closer to making a good point - though he elsewhere criticized hearsay, and a witness agreeing with the interviewer that some people said they heard racial slurs certainly sounds like hearsay as opposed to a witness statement volunteering the clear information "I heard racial slurs. What I heard was: [x]."

Can "the 'n' word can be said in a 'non-racist' way"? I think Larry Wilmore, who said it to the President of the United States, would say yes, it can be, though in many (most?) contexts it has been said in a racist way. Was the witness stating that word had actually been used, though? From Mark Mishler's description of the statement, it would seem not.

Mishler also dropped the ball in contrasting that particular video with a statement by UPD's "Chief":

“We took this incident very seriously and did a thorough and careful investigation,” said UPD Chief J. Frank Wiley. “The evidence shows that, contrary to how the defendants originally portrayed things, these three individuals were not the victims of a crime. Rather, we allege that they are the perpetrators.”

“I especially want to point out that what happened on the bus was not a ‘hate crime.’ We spent a great deal of time carefully reviewing the audio recordings to determine whether any racial slurs were used. The only person we heard uttering racial epithets was one of the defendants. And it is important to note that no witness reported hearing any racial slurs directed at the defendants. And those witnesses were people from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds” (emphasis added).

http://www.albany.edu/news/images/University-at-Albany-Police-Department-Incident-02770-16.pdf

While J. Frank Wiley is both incompetent and corrupt, if he was lying about ALL witness statements denying that ANY racial slurs were directed at the three women, one would hope one of the witnesses would have come forward to contradict him by now. If he was lying, one would hope that the defense attorneys in the case would call him out for lying and present their proof.

From: [Me]

Subject: UPD Officer Nagy, named as arresting officer of Alexis Briggs

Date: February 25, 2016 at 11:07:48 AM EST

To: Masai Andrews [...]

If Mark Mishler becomes the lawyer for the three women, I’ll be disturbed by that. Mishler’s lost at least three cases for UAlbany women against UPD; for the last one of which I’m aware see ABDUL-WAHHAB v. THE STATE OF NEW YORK, # 2012-032-004, Claim No. 116205 http://vertumnus.courts.state.ny.us/claims/html/2012-032-004.html

So, Masai, why haven't you taken issue with Mark Mishler handling the UAlbany bus incident case, given his record and the fact that he's employed by UAlbany, etc.?