KEN BURNS | LANDLORDS FROM HELL | THE AMAZING HILLARY
THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE
NOVEMBER 17, 2013
How the Death of Matthew David Stewart and a Botched Drug Raid Sparked Police Reform in the Unlikeliest State By Radley Balko
11.17.13 #75 CONTENTS
Enter POINTERS: Tragedy in the Philippines... The 60 Minutes Apology JASON LINKINS: Looking Forward in Angst DATA: U.S. Students’ Math Skills Are All Over the World Map Q&A: Ken Burns HEADLINES
ON THE COVER: AP PHOTO/JIM URQUHART (STEWART); AARON COBBETT/GETTY IMAGES (FRAME) THIS PAGE FROM TOP: AP PHOTO/STANDARD-EXAMINER, NICHOLAS DRANEY, POOL; MICHAEL BLANN/GETTY IMAGES
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Voices BOB COMIS: Consider the Slaughterhouse
THE RAID How a police reform movement in Utah got its legs. BY RADLEY BALKO
SETH ADAM SMITH: Marriage Isn’t for You QUOTED
Exit HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE: For the Sports Fan in Your Life THE THIRD METRIC: The Luckiest Farm Animals on Turkey Day TASTE TEST: The Best Chocolate Bars, British Edition MUSIC: Dog Ears
MONEY PIT When Wall Street owns your home. BY BEN HALLMAN
TFU FROM THE EDITOR: Under Fire
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Under Fire N THIS WEEK’S issue, Radley Balko looks at how an unprecedented police reform movement got its start in one of America’s most conservative states: Utah. Radley takes us back to Jan. 4, 2011, when Army veteran Matthew David Stewart’s home in
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Ogden — where he grew marijuana — was raided by 12 police officers in the middle of the night. Stewart exchanged fire with the police for about 20 minutes. By the end of the battle, one cop was dead, and according to various accounts, between 130 and 250 bullets had been fired. Stewart landed in prison, where he ended up hanging himself in May of this year. An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune after the incident ques-
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
tioned why the police decided to wage “a military-style attack on a small-time weed grower,” while Ogden’s Standard-Examiner called for a “re-evaluation of how local law enforcement handles its duties, particularly concerning raids and late-night police procedures.” The incident, and others like it, have caused many to wonder whether such middle-of-the-night raids are really necessary. As Radley puts it, “if instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work, or as he was coming home, or even at his job at Walmart, there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden.” Elsewhere in the issue, upstate New York farmer Bob Comis writes in wrenching detail about a task central to his livelihood: slaughtering animals. Here is his description of one particular lamb’s last moments, after the sheep have been
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If instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work... there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden.” carried by trailer from his farm to the slaughterhouse: The gun will make a loud popping sound and My Pretty Girl, the cutest, sweetest, most adorable little lamb you can imagine, will drop like a stone. It will have been a very stressful morning for her, anyone who denies that is a liar, a fool, or worse, but, at the end, she will drop like a stone. Finally, as part of our continued focus on The Third Metric, we take you inside an animal sanctuary outside Washington, D.C., where, in a twist on the usual Thanksgiving meal, it’s the turkeys that get served a meal to remember.
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PHILIPPINES FACES UPHILL RECOVERY Thousands of people have been declared dead so far from Typhoon Haiyan in
the Philippines, but the death toll could still rise dramatically. Workers buried 100 bodies Thursday during the first mass burial in the city of Tacloban, the site of the most devastation. About 11.5 million have been impacted by the disaster, said Valerie Amos, a U.N. humanitarian chief. “The situation is dismal ... tens of thousands of people are living in the open,” she said Thursday. “I think we are all extremely distressed that this is day 6 and we have not managed to reach everyone.”
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OBAMACARE NUMBERS FALL SHORT
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that 106,185 people have registered for Obamacare so far. The Obama administration has a long way to go before reaching the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that 7 million people will enroll in private insurance by March 31. The online website where people can shop for new insurance has been plagued with technical glitches since its launch. The administration has said it will make sure the website is fully functional by Nov. 30.
‘WE ARE VERY SORRY’
Lara Logan apologized Sunday night for her 60 Minutes report on the Benghazi attacks featuring Dylan Davies, a British security officer whose eyewitness account has been discredited. “We realized we had been misled, and it was a mistake to include him in our report,” she said. “For that, we are very sorry.” She did not explain why the show had defended Davies even as it became clear that he had provided contradicting accounts of the events to different people.
‘WE WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH’
Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross spoke to the media for the first time this week since offensive tackle Jonathan Martin said that members of his team had harassed him on a daily basis. Ross called the alleged bullying “appalling” and pledged to create a locker room culture that “suits the 21st century.” A special investigator will determine whether the harassment took place. “We simply don’t know what happened or didn’t happen yet,” team president Tom Garfinkel said. “We want to know the truth.”
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LIFE IN PRISON
James “Whitey” Bulger, 84, was sentenced Thursday to two consecutive life terms plus five years in prison. He was convicted in August on a racketeering indictment, which included murder, extortion, money laundering and weapons charges. A jury found him guilty of 11 out of 19 murders. Judge Denise Casper called his crimes “heinous” and “almost unfathomable.”
YES, NEW YORK’S IS BIGGER
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A committee announced Tuesday that after 40 years, Chicago is no longer home to the country’s tallest building. It ruled that New York City’s 1,776-foot One World Trade Center is taller than Chicago’s 1,451-foot Willis Tower. In dispute was the 408foot spire atop One World Trade Center, which some argued was a broadcast antenna and not actually part of the building.
THAT’S VIRAL YOUR DAILY LESSON IN EMPATHY
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A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories. HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES
FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL HYGIENE
APPARENTLY WE’VE BEEN EATING APPLES ALL WRONG
THE THINGS YOU MUST AGREE ON BEFORE GETTING MARRIED
THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE DYSLEXIC
ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
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LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST
JASON LINKINS
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AMAZING HILLARY CLINTON BEATS BACK NON-EXISTENT PRIMARY CHALLENGE WITHIN 24 HOURS OF IT NOT STARTING VER THE PAST WEEK, and three years before the next presidential election, a tidal wave of hype has swept o’er the land. That wave of hype concerns for-
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mer Secretary of State and Sen. Hillary Clinton, a woman who is presumed to be running for president, and a potential primary challenge from the left in the form of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMass.), a woman who has urged Hillary Clinton to run for president. You know, as one does when
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Hillary Clinton were placed in an imaginary primary battle before either announced their intention to run for president.
Enter one wants to beat someone in a presidential primary. Warren did not actually do anything, at all, that could be remotely construed as mounting a primary challenge. I actually cannot point to anything particularly noteworthy that Elizabeth Warren has done at all in recent days. The origin for all of this rampant speculation came in the form of a New Republic article that eerily followed the exact same rubric as another article that came out three years before the 2008 presidential election, describing the potential primary challenge to Clinton from the left in the form of Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who went on to adamantly refuse to mount that primary challenge. Nevertheless, there was much sturm und drang about an article in which an anonymous source — an anonymous “former aide,” which is very, verrrrrry low on the anonymous source reliability scale, by the way — saying, “Yeah, Hillary is running. And she’ll probably win. ... But Elizabeth doesn’t care about winning. She doesn’t care whose turn it is.” I mean, there you have it, right? Rando Mystery Aide probably knows best.
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Anyway, after a whole lot of coverage and frenzy, we get the news via Politico that, actually, steps have been taken to totally solve the problem of Elizabeth Warren’s primary challenge, which is not actually a real thing: If anything, Clinton’s world appears very aware that income inequality is an issue that matches the prevailing mood of
Take that, Elizabeth Warren! Not only is Clinton probably going to make a ‘strong progressive economics argument,’ she’s been making these strong progressive economics arguments all along, ha ha!” the Democratic base — witness incoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign manager. A Clinton ally, John Podesta, is launching a new think tank aimed at evaluating income inequality; it will be a subsidiary of the larger Center for American Progress, run by longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Neera Tanden.
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KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS
While Clinton has given speeches to banks, it’s not exactly clear what her messaging will be once she begins a likely campaign — it’s entirely possible that, seeing the current terrain among Democrats, Clinton will make a strong progressive economics argument. Her economic policy stances over the years generally have not been those of a centrist. She’s embraced, as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein noted Monday, many of the same policies aimed at lifting the middle class as Warren has. Take that, Elizabeth Warren! Not only is Clinton probably going to make a “strong progressive economics argument,” she’s been making these strong progressive economics arguments all along, ha ha! And in addition, all of Clinton’s pals in the lefty think-tank world are going to be doing a lot of lefty think-tanking for her between now and the presidential election, which I’ll remind you is in 2016, which is a whole different year from 2013, the current year in which we are living. If that doesn’t do the trick, Clinton will have to fall back on the fact that Warren has no cer-
LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST
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‘Yeah, Hillary is running. And she’ll probably win. ... But Elizabeth doesn’t care about winning. She doesn’t care whose turn it is.’ I mean, there you have it, right? Rando Mystery Aide probably knows best.” tain donor base for a presidential run, is less likely to secure the endorsement of influential Democrats, has no clear path to victory in a primary, doesn’t factor into the polling picture in a significant way, has already given Clinton her endorsement, and isn’t running for president. In short, there appears to be nothing that Hillary Clinton cannot do when there is nothing being done to her.
Clinton is currently the favorite to run on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2016.
Q&A
FROM TOP: YOON S. BYUN/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES; ERIKA GOLDRING/GETTY IMAGES FOR AMERICANA MUSIC FESTIVAL
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Ken Burns on the Trouble With Our Electronic Present “History can arm you with a sense of comparative understanding... I’m worried... that because we are distracted by this electronic present, we are unaware of the historical ties that brought us here.”
Above: Filmmaker Ken Burns in 2012. Below: Burns performs at the 12th Annual Americana Music Honors and Awards Ceremony in Nashville, Tenn., in September.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW, VISIT HUFFPOST LIVE
DATA
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S. KOREA JAPAN RUSSIA QUEBEC, CAN. ISRAEL FINLAND ONTARIO, CAN. USA ENGLAND SLOVENIA HUNGARY AUSTRALIA LITHUANIA ITALY NEW ZEALAND KAZAKHSTAN SWEDEN UKRAINE NORWAY ARMENIA GHANA
SOURCE: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS, TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL MATH AND SCIENCE LINKING STUDY
U.S. Students’ Math Skills Are All Over the World Map
HIGHEST SCORES
TAP BAR CHART FOR MORE INFO
Unlike students around the world, Americans do not take the international exam, Trends in International Math and Science Study, which measures how primary school students are faring in major subjects. However, a study released by the U.S. government last month shows how American students would fare, if they were to take the test.
LOWEST SCORES
The results were mixed. While Massachusetts, the highest performing state in the country, had scores aligning with the education powerhouse of Japan, other states, like Mississippi and Alabama, had scores that were similar to countries that aren’t typically lauded for their excellent education systems. — Rebecca Klein
NOEL CELIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (HAIYAN HELL: 10,000 FEARED DEAD); CBS NEWS (CBSMESS: ‘REPORT’ PULLED!); AP PHOTO/MARK LENNIHAN (TWTR SOARS); AP PHOTO (HARDER DEEPER FESTER LONGER)
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The Week That Was TAP IMAGE TO ENLARGE, TAP EACH DATE FOR FULL ARTICLE ON THE HUFFINGTON POST
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Northrup, Germany 11.08.2013
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Fans of gothic culture attend the first-ever Gothic Evening Mass led by Pastor Uwe Brand. The pastor’s sermon was accompanied by a student presentation, fog effects, light shows, video clips and music.
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Tacloban, Philippines 11.11.2013 A survivor walks among the debris of Super Typhoon Haiyan. Emergency aid has been mobilized by the United Nations, the U.S. and Australia in response to the tragedy. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Melbourne, Australia 11.05.2013 Race 3 of the Carnival Handicap during Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington Racecourse. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Madrid, Spain 11.09.2013 A child plays video games during Madrid Games Week in IFEMA. The first annual Games Week ran from November 7-10 and featured products from some of the industry’s leading software producers. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Rio de Janiero, Brazil 11.06.2013 A man and a construction worker walk along the Via Binario do Porto, a new transit route. Rio has started a multibillion dollar urban renewal project in anticipation of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Herat, Afghanistan 11.10.2013 Laborers work at a brick factory outside of Herat. More than a third of Afghans live in poverty, according a UN report. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Gaza City, Palestine 11.10.2013 A Palestinian woman and her family light candles during a power outage, which have been more frequent in Gaza due to problems with a local power plant and the halting of Egyptian fuel supplies. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Shan, Myanmar 11.09.2013 A fisherman sits in his boat in Inle Lake. Myanmar’s recent economic reforms look to embrace technology and shift away from traditional agriculture. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Colesberg, South Africa 11.08.2013 Giet Hentricks comforts her baby, Blinkkop Joggem. The family is part of a sheep shearing tribe that has been forced to give up their traditional nomadic lifestyle — due to how the area has developed — leading to a life of abject poverty. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Beirut, Lebanon 11.11.2013 Two Syrian women talk inside a former prison that now houses Syrian refugees. After three years of war, neighboring Lebanon is now home to the largest number of Syrian refugees that have fled the conflict. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Srinagar, India 11.07.2013 A Kashmiri man assists firefighters in extinguishing a warehouse fire in a busy downtown shopping district. Winter in Indian Kashmir brings widespread fire from the ignition of charcoal stored on top of many Kashmiri homes. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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New Delhi, India 11.06.2013 Tibetan schoolchildren hold portraits of the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi during a protest in the Indian capital. The rally sought to bring international attention to the plight of Tibetans and political prisoners in China. Tap here for a more extensive look at the week on The Huffington Post. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Voices
BOB COMIS
Consider the Slaughterhouse THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE of the farm, though not the whole point, is to raise animals to be slaughtered and butchered so that we can eat their meat. While this might seem simple and straightforward, it is not.
I recently re-read David Foster Wallace’s 2004 Gourmet magazine article “Consider the Lobster” in which his assignment to report on the Maine Lobster Fest turned into a discourse on the ethics of eating lobster. I had long since forgotten how one could feel Foster Wallace’s own anxiety coming through in almost every
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Voices paragraph. I identify with that anxiety very much. Nevertheless, I will continue to load pigs and lambs up and drop them off at the slaughterhouse to be killed because I am — so deeply that I feel it in my bones — a livestock farmer, and as such, I kill for a living. On the farm, the way I interact with and care for the animals is driven by ideas, about the idea of ethical care, of sound ecological management, of community, and about the idea of finding a viable, satisfying alternative to my life in a cubicle. The slaughterhouse, however, is the place where ideas go to become reality. I feel that to continue raising animals for the express purpose of having them killed so people, myself included, can eat their meat, I must consider the slaughterhouse, as the stark reality of the slaughterhouse is, so to speak, the meateater’s ethical moment. There is a lamb on the farm that I call My Pretty Girl. She is the cutest, most adorable thing I have ever seen. She has the whitest, cleanest, most delicatelyfeatured face you can imagine. She has great big doe eyes. And, while skittish, she is quite bold
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and curious. She approaches me with her little nose stretched out, crinkling it as she sniffs the air between us. As “My Pretty Girl,” she is the perfect lamb with whom (not, note, with which) to consider the slaughterhouse. The morning that I take My Pretty Girl to the slaughterhouse will be stressful for her. Animals are critters of routine, and when I come to load My Pretty Girl and
The slaughterhouse... is the place where ideas go to become reality. I feel that to continue raising animals for the express purpose of having them killed so people, myself included, can eat their meat, I must consider the slaughterhouse.” her group onto the trailer, that routine will be shockingly interrupted. Instead of bringing the lambs their feed, I will open the pen and slowly herd My Pretty Girl and her pen-mates first into a holding area, then up an aisle, and finally onto the trailer. While I herd them, the group of lambs will be extremely nervous and will
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Voices travel in a tightly wound blob, sort of like a school of fish. At the slaughterhouse, when the slaughterman steps onto the trailer to unload the lambs, My Pretty Girl will get scared and turn with the rest of her group and scurry up to the far end of the trailer away from the slaughterman, who will walk slowly and calmly up the length of the trailer so that he can get behind the lambs. My Pretty Girl will then rush back to the other end of the trailer while the slaughterman walks slowly behind them, saying “Come on sheep,” and making “woosshh, wissshhhh, wissssh” sounds. The lambs will hop down out of the trailer and anxiously walk the length of the chute into one of the holding pens inside the building. In an hour or two depending on how busy the slaughterhouse is, the slaughterman will reappear. He will gently herd the lambs out of the holding pen into the kill chute, which is a narrow aisle that forces the lambs into single file. Within a few minutes of herding My Pretty Girl into the kill chute the slaughterman will quickly and confidently place a captive bolt stun gun against her forehead and pull the trigger. The gun will
BOB COMIS
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There is a lamb on the farm that I call My Pretty Girl. She is the cutest, most adorable thing I have ever seen. She has the whitest, cleanest, most delicately-featured face you can imagine... And, while skittish, she is quite bold and curious.” make a loud popping sound and My Pretty Girl, the cutest, sweetest, most adorable little lamb you can imagine, will drop like a stone. It will have been a very stressful morning for her, anyone who denies that is a liar, a fool, or worse,
Voices but, at the end, she will drop like a stone. In the time it takes her to flutter those pretty long lashes, she will go from conscious to unconscious. And within seconds of that, the life will rapidly drain out of her after the slaughterman deftly inserts a very sharp knife into My Pretty Girl’s throat. With the force of her still beating heart, My Pretty Girl’s blood will gush out of her neck and splash onto the kill room floor. The slaughterman will leave My Pretty Girl’s body to dangle for a while to ensure that all of the blood has drained out. Then, using that same sharp knife, the slaughterman will methodically take My Pretty Girl from a cute woolly lamb to a familiar-looking skinned carcass ready to be rolled along the rails into the cooler where she will hang for a week before being cut up by the butchers in the cutting room, while other lambs, or cows, or pigs, though almost certainly none as cute, are being killed on the kill floor. One of the interesting things about Foster Wallace’s article is that it ends with the issue unresolved. Most of us who admit the ethical quandary about eating the meat of vital, gregarious, sentient
BOB COMIS
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beings into our lives end up living with it perpetually; very few of us become vegetarians and/or vegans. Being a livestock farmer is a hard life, both physically and psychologically. However, by accepting things as they are while being mindful of the struggles and aware of how I interact with them, I am able to keep going, taking lives to provide sustenance, surely, but pleasure as well. I take
The gun will make a loud popping sound and My Pretty Girl, the cutest, sweetest, most adorable little lamb you can imagine, will drop like a stone.” pleasure in consuming the flesh of the animals I care for, that I raise up from wee pigs and wee lambs. As long as I am going to eat meat, I want the animals that are killed to be raised on a farm like mine, where the ideas infuse the meat with values every bit as essential and nourishing as those of the flesh itself. Bob Comis is a farmer and writer who blogs at stonybrookfarm.wordpress.com.
COURTESY OF SETH ADAM SMITH
Voices
Marriage Isn’t for You
SETH ADAM SMITH
HAVING BEEN MARRIED only a year and a half, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn’t for me. Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading. I met my wife in high school
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Seth Adam Smith and his wife, Kim, on their wedding day.
Voices when we were 15 years old. We were friends for 10 years until... until we decided no longer wanted to be just friends. I strongly recommend that best friends fall in love. Good times will be had by all. Nevertheless, falling in love with my best friend did not prevent me from having certain fears and anxieties about getting married. The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? Was Kim the right person to marry? Would she make me happy? Then, one fateful night, I shared these thoughts and concerns with my dad. Perhaps each of us have moments in our lives when it feels like time slows down or the air becomes still and everything around us seems to draw in, marking that moment as one we will never forget. My dad giving his response to my concerns was such a moment for me. With a knowing smile he said, “Seth, you’re being totally selfish. So I’m going to make this really simple: marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to
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make someone else happy. More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them?
The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? Was Kim the right person to marry? Would she make me happy?” Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.” It was in that very moment that I knew that Kim was the right person to marry. I realized that I wanted to make her happy; to see her smile every day, to make her laugh every day. I wanted to be a part of her family, and my family wanted her to be a part of ours. And thinking back on all the times I had seen her play with my nieces, I knew that she
Voices was the one with whom I wanted to build our own family. My father’s advice was both shocking and revelatory. It went against the grain of today’s “Walmart philosophy,” which is if it doesn’t make you happy, you can take it back and get a new one. No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. Selfishness demands, “What’s in it for me?” while Love asks, “What can I give?” Some time ago, my wife showed me what it means to love selflessly. For many months, my heart had been hardening with a mixture of fear and resentment. Then, after the pressure had built up to where neither of us could stand it, emotions erupted. I was callous. I was selfish. But instead of matching my selfishness, Kim did something beyond wonderful — she showed an outpouring of love. Laying aside all of the pain and anguish I had caused her, she lovingly took me in her arms and soothed my soul. Marriage is about family. I realized that I had forgotten my dad’s advice. While Kim’s
SETH ADAM SMITH
side of the marriage had been to love me, my side of the marriage had become all about me. This awful realization brought me to tears, and I promised my wife that I would try to be better. To all who are reading this article — married, almost married, single, or even the sworn bachelor or bachelorette — I want you to know that marriage isn’t for you. No true relationship of love
You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy.” is for you. Love is about the person you love. And, paradoxically, the more you truly love that person, the more love you receive. And not just from your significant other, but from their friends and their family and thousands of others you never would have met had your love remained self-centered. Truly, love and marriage isn’t for you. It’s for others. Seth Adam Smith is the editor-in-chief of ForwardWalking.com
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; HELEN H. RICHARDSON/ THE DENVER POST; AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA; OLIVER LANG/DAPD/AP PHOTO
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“ So in other words the DA felt these two had way too much money to be prosecuted.”
— HuffPost commenter Vondrazy_Priest on “JonBenet Ramsey Indictment Released”
“ I couldn’t fit this award in my bag, but I did find this.”
— Miley Cyrus
at the MTV Europe Music Awards, before pulling a joint out of her purse and lighting up
“ We sold our soul to the devil for revenue.”
— An anonymous Moody’s employee
on the credit rating agency in an internal document revealed during a fraud lawsuit filed against the company
“ Sometimes, no matter how much and how carefully you prepare, the disaster is just too big.”
— Zhang Qiang,
an expert on disaster mitigation at Beijing Normal University’s Institute for Social Development and Public Policy, on Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: FRANCO ORIGLIA/GETTY IMAGES; JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTYIMAGES; ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS; SARAH PALIN/FACEBOOK
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QUOTED
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“ Amazing how some people feel their rights are violated when they can no longer tell everyone else what to do.”
— HuffPost commenter David_O_Anglin
on “‘So Help Me God’ Optional In Air Force Academy Honor Oath”
I think porn, like anything else, can be enjoyed. It can be productive for both men and women. — Scarlett Johansson in the December issue of Marie Claire UK
“ This is why I support the right to arm bears.”
— HuffPost commenter KeyWestDan on a tweet from Sarah Palin to Piers Morgan including a photo of a bear she just shot
“ The irony is the ketchup was the only thing on a McDonalds burger that could be qualified as food.”
— HuffPost commenter et68 on “McDonald’s Drops Heinz Ketchup”
GETTY IMAGES/BRAND X
11.17.13 #75 FEATURES
POLICING THE POLICE IMPOSSIBLE LANDLORDS
POLICING
THE POLICE WHEN THE RAID
DOESN’T FIT
THE CRIME B Y
R A D L E Y
B A L K O
This is the first in a six-part series by HuffPost investigative reporter Radley Balko about a fascinating police reform movement in Utah. Subsequent articles examine the other figures involved in the movement: a far-left progressive activist, a libertarian policy wonk with a background in Republican politics, a former sheriff who has watched SWAT teams become “bullies with badges and guns,” a D.A. who’s willing to hold cops accountable, and a police chief who’s calling for a new approach to policing. Together, they not only shed light on the problems brought about by the drug war and police militarization, but point to a better way. To read the full series, tap here.
RADLEY BALKO
OGDEN, Utah —
IT’S LATE SUMMER, and the house at 3268 Jackson Ave. has been boarded up for months. The front door, riddled with bullet holes, is pasted over with police tape and a “No Trespassing” sign. As Erna Stewart pries open the door, shards of glass from the edges of its already shattered window fall to the ground. Matthew David Stewart’s home in Ogden, Utah, was raided by police on Jan. 4, 2011.
POLICING THE POLICE The air inside is stale and hard to breathe. Belongings are strewn about. There’s a dusty television, an answering machine, a computer printer still in its box, some video games stacked on bookshelves. The police have ripped up sections of floor that had been soaked with blood, leaving a scar in the bathroom and another in the kitchen. More bullet holes call out from all sides: the walls, the doors, the ceiling, the floor, the windows, the molding, the kitchen cabinets. Two of the bullets hit the brick siding of a neighbor’s house. One pierced a bedroom window. The trail of damage leads out to the pockmarked backyard and the shed where Erna’s brother-in-law, Matthew, attempted to take refuge. Between 130 and 250 bullets were fired in all, according to various accounts, an arsenal’s worth. A cleaning service recently found a bullet while vacuuming. In the basement, in a small room to the left of the stairs, there’s a large pile of tubing and plastic containers. It’s here that Matthew David Stewart, a 37-year-old Army veteran, committed the crime that precipitated the armed raid on his home
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If instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work, or as he was coming home, or even at his job at Walmart, there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden. — an assault that left one police officer dead and five others wounded, and eventually led to Stewart’s death as well. It’s here that he grew marijuana. Michael Stewart says his son, a former paratrooper, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, and may have been self-medicating. Others have suggested that he smoked pot to alleviate his shyness and social awkwardness. Perhaps the pot was simply for pleasure. There were 16 plants in all. But there is no evidence that he ever sold the drug, and there were no complaints from neighbors. Still, on the night of Jan. 4, 2011, 12 members of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force assembled in the parking lot of the church across the street from Stewart’s house. At 8:30 p.m., according to a neighbor, they exchanged high-
JIM URQUHART/AP
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fives. Then they broke down Stewart’s door with a battering ram. The police claim to have knocked and announced themselves several times. But Stewart said he never heard them. He worked the graveyard shift at a local Walmart and was asleep at the time. Awaking to the sound of armed men storming into his house, he jumped out of bed, naked, threw on a bathrobe and grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta.
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Who shot first remains in dispute. But after exchanging fire with the officers for about 20 minutes, Stewart dove out a bedroom window and attempted to take shelter in the shed behind his house. The police opened fire on the shed, “lighting it up,” as one officer later put it. Stewart, who had been shot in the arm and the hip, crawled out and surrendered. One of the members of the strike force, Jared Francom, 30, had been shot seven times, and died at the scene. Stewart was arrested, taken to the hospital for his injuries, and
Michael Stewart holds a photo of his son, Matthew, who was accused of shooting six police officers and killing one during a drug raid in Ogden.
POLICING THE POLICE charged with murder. Francum’s death elicited a wave of “cop killer” outrage directed at Stewart. Eight days after the raid, Weber County Attorney Dee Smith announced that he’d be seeking the death penalty. As more details emerged, however, a growing chorus of critics began to question whether the aggressive police tactics had really been necessary, and whether the battle on Jackson Avenue could have been avoided entirely. An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune asked why the police decided to wage “a military-style attack on a small-time weed grower.” The editors of Ogden’s Standard-Examiner expressed similar concerns over “beefedup police tactics” and called for a “re-evaluation of how local law enforcement handles its duties, particularly concerning raids and late-night police procedures.” “It’s very clear that middle-ofthe-night arrest warrant servings by armed officers need to be reconsidered,” the editors wrote. In the months following the raid, a number of other controversial police actions hit the news. Police in Salt Lake City broke into the home of a 76-year-old woman during a mistaken drug raid. A SWAT
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An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune asked why the police decided to wage “a military-style attack on a small-time weed grower.” team in Ogden went to the wrong address in search of a man who had gone AWOL from the Army and ended up pointing its guns at an innocent family of four. Two narcotics detectives shot and killed a young woman in a suburb of Salt Lake City as she sat in her car. Together, these incidents have spawned a budding police reform movement in Utah. At the head of it, Stewart’s family members have been joined by a political odd couple: Jesse Fruhwirth, a longtime progressive activist rabble-rouser, and Connor Boyack, a wonky libertarian with a background in Republican politics. And independently, in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the police chief and lead prosecutor have already begun to adopt some unconventional, reform-minded approaches to crime and punishment. That Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country, would become a hotbed for police reform, is surprising. But these
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AP PHOTO/RICK BOWMER
reformers have carefully crafted their approach, honed a message that seems to be resonating with the community, and won over some early converts. As botched raids and excessive SWAT-style tactics have gained increasing notoriety around the country, other communities may soon be looking to Utah as a model for less aggressive but more effective approaches to public safety.
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HE TIP ABOUT the marijuana plants came from an ex-girlfriend of Stewart’s named Stacy Wilson. They had dated for about a year and a half
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but broke up in the summer of 2010. Erna Stewart introduced them. “I still feel guilty about that,” she says. “He caught her cheating on him, they broke up, and it ended really badly. She was angry with him. He was heartbroken. She tried to get him fired from his job. She really had it out for him.” Wilson reported Stewart to a tip line that the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, a federally funded anti-drug task force that serves both counties, set up to collect information about illicit drugs. In a bus ad promoting the initiative, the strike force members pose in full SWAT attire: armor, face masks, camouflage and guns. The tip line number is at the top
Weber County Attorney Dee Smith speaks during a news conference on May 24, 2013, in Ogden. Smith initially announced that he’d be seeking the death penalty for Matthew David Smith.
POLICING THE POLICE of the ad, along with a plea for citizens to report “drug abuse,” a term more often associated with drug use than with distribution. Below the photo, the ad reads, “We’ve got your back!” According to police documents, Wilson called the tip line in November 2010, two months before the raid, and spoke with Officer Jason Vanderwarf. Vanderwarf visited Stewart’s house three times, but no one answered. After finding what he described as signs of a marijuana grow, however, he filed an affidavit to get the warrant. That appears to be the extent of the investigation. The police never ran a background check on Wilson to assess her credibility. In fact, after their initial conversation, Vanderwarf said that he was “unable to contact her.” He later told investigators that “she kinda fell off the face of the earth.” Neither Wilson nor officials from the Ogden Police Department and Weber County Sheriff’s Department responded to requests for comment. There was also no investigation of Stewart himself, and the warrant makes no mention of any evidence that Stewart had ever
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“ Everyone says I’m looking great in the newspaper pictures of me. I see a man... who’s [sic] world was destroyed, where everything he once cared about was stolen from him, everything he found holy was defiled.” sold drugs. The Salt Lake Tribune later obtained a threat assessment document — the criteria some police departments use to determine whether to send a SWAT team, or to ask a judge for a no-knock warrant. For Stewart’s case, all of the criteria — the presence of dogs, weapons, surveillance and “other” factors — were listed as “unknown.” As a result, when the members of the strike force moved on Stewart’s house, they weren’t wearing bulletproof armor or carrying the ballistic shields and powerful rifles typically used in SWAT raids. “I don’t think they thought anyone was living there,” Erna Stewart says. “They called it a ‘lowlevel’ raid.” A few months earlier, Stewart’s brother Gabriel — his roommate
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POLICING THE POLICE at the time — and some friends had gotten into an altercation at a party. The other men had followed Gabriel Stewart back to the house, where the fracas continued. After someone called the police, the men left — but they promised to come back to burn down the house. Matthew David Stewart played no part in the altercation, and he was asleep when it happened. But Gabriel told him about the threat later. “I think it may have been in his head when he woke up the night he was raided,” Erna Stewart says. Statements by Matthew David Stewart’s neighbors support his assertion that he didn’t know police officers were in his house. They told Stewart’s attorneys and the local media that they heard gunshots first, then lots of yelling, but never any police announcement. Photos of the police taken after the raid show strike force members wearing dark, dingy clothes. Some are wearing black hoodies. One is wearing a Cheech & Chong t-shirt. The police say the raid team wore bulletproof vests that clearly identified them as police, and removed them after the raid, before the photos were taken. But there’s evidence that at least some
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of the officers weren’t. One police dashcam video, for example, shows several of them scrambling back to their cars to get their vests after the shooting begins. What is clear, however, is that if instead of raiding the house, the police had simply arrested Stewart as he was leaving to go to work, or as he was coming home,
Matthew’s mother, Sonja Stewart, holds pictures of her son.
POLICING THE POLICE or even at his job at Walmart, there would have been two fewer funerals in Ogden.
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EFORE THE RAID, Erna Stewart, 31, had considered becoming a cop. “I had done some ride alongs. I had bought my own gun, and I knew how to clean it. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I thought I’d either be a police officer or a personal trainer.” She’s now a personal trainer. “It wasn’t even the raid itself that turned me off to cops,” she says. “It was the way they treated my family after it happened. We got hate mail from cops and their families. I mean, the way we were treated in the community ... it just made me jaded. And angry.” It also motivated her. Soon after the raid, Erna quickly became the family’s liaison to the press, and she’s since become a leading advocate of reform. In the days and weeks after the raid, the task force, the district attorney and other Weber County officials began to malign Matthew David Stewart in the media. A “source close to the investigation” first told the Ogden StandardExaminer that police had found a
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“ I don’t think they thought anyone was living there. They called it a ‘low-level’ raid.” picture of Stewart “dressed as a terrorist,” and “posing in a suicide bomber’s vest” in the house. The police reported that they had found a bomb in Stewart’s closet and child pornography on his computer. He was portrayed as a violent, anti-government extremist. Wilson, his ex-girlfriend, told investigators that Stewart had once told her that if the police ever came for his marijuana plants, he’d “go out in a blaze,” and he’d “go out shooting.” She claimed that he didn’t believe the federal government had the authority to collect taxes, and that he had told her of plans to shoot up the IRS after he lost his job there working as a security guard. Family members say that Stewart was a government skeptic who could sometimes indulge in conspiracy theories, but that Wilson and the police’s portrayal of Matthew was an exaggeration. “I know the drug war really bothered him,” his father Michael says. “He was passionate about the way the government was going. He didn’t like it,” Erna adds. “I remember he was really upset about
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what Obama was doing with indefinite detention. But he was never volatile about it. I think he just internalized it. It made him sad.” In one postcard he sent to his sister from jail, Stewart cautioned her against vaccinating her son, because, he explained, he didn’t trust pharmaceutical companies. In another, he told her that despite his depression, he refused to take anti-depressants. He didn’t trust them or the companies that made them. Michael Stewart, a private in-
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“ It wasn’t even the raid itself that turned me off to cops. It was the way they treated my family after it happened.” vestigator, says his son lost his security job for accessing IRS computers without authorization. “He worked the night shifts. He got bored. So he started surfing the web on the computers inside. He probably accessed some conspiracy websites,” Stewart says. “That’s what got him fired.” “He would sometimes go on
Matthew’s sister-in-law, Erna Stewart, has been a leading advocate for police reform.
POLICING THE POLICE the Internet and read sites like Infowars. He’d start to question things like how 9/11 happened. I would get on him about it, because it always put him in a bad mood,” Erna Stewart says. “But he never expressed any desire to hurt anyone.” The photo of Stewart dressed as a terrorist was actually him posing in an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume, his family says. Regarding the bomb that police allegedly found in a closet, an agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms later told the Salt Lake Tribune, “to characterize it as a bomb or device is not accurate.” “He and his brother were trying to build smoke flares once. Remember, they were in the Army,” Erna Stewart says. “So he probably had some chemicals to make smoke flares. That’s probably what it was.” “Matt was really shy. He was introverted. A little nerdy. You could tell he was a child of the 80s,” she says. “He wore his jeans up high, he liked video games and fantasy novels. We’d give him a hard time about it. Socially, he didn’t have a lot of friends. But once he felt comfortable, he was the sweetest guy.” Stewart didn’t do well in jail.
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“ I remember he was really upset about what Obama was doing with indefinite detention. But he was never volatile about it. I think he just internalized it. It made him sad.” Judging by the letters he wrote to his family, his mood clearly darkened as the months wore on. The jail conditions, the way the public perceived him, and the isolation began to break him down. At one point, the extremely fit former paratrooper told one of his sisters that he had quit exercising. “Everyone says I’m looking great in the newspaper pictures of me. I see a man that was betrayed by someone he thought he loved, who’s [sic] world was destroyed, where everything he once cared about was stolen from him, everything he found holy was defiled,” he wrote. “Now he is locked in a box away from those he loves, with the worst weight on his shoulders.” In May, a judge ruled that the search warrant for Stewart’s home and the raid were both legal — a huge setback for Stewart’s argument that he was acting in self defense. A little over a week later, at 12:50 a.m. on a Friday morning,
Stewart didn’t do well in jail. Judging by the letters he wrote to his family, his mood clearly darkened as the months wore on.
AP PHOTO/STANDARD-EXAMINER, MATTHEW ARDEN HATFIELD
Matthew David Stewart in the 2nd District Court in Ogden on May 14, 2012.
POLICING THE POLICE a guard found Stewart hanging in his jail cell. His was the third suicide at the Weber County Jail in seven months. “Matthew had his problems. He had severe social anxiety,” Erna Stewart says. “And things got worse after the breakup. But we were working on all of that. He was getting so much better. He was doing so fricking good until all of this happened. He was going to the gym with us. He was laughing a lot. He was just doing so well.” At a public forum in August, where this reporter also spoke as part of a book tour, Stewart fought back tears while talking about her late brother-in-law. She then quickly collected herself to confidently tick off a list of changes she wants to see from area police. She wants an end to home-invasion raids to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes. She wants more transparency. She wants a civilian review board, so police accused of wrongdoing aren’t investigated by their fellow cops. The audience bathed her with applause. Stewart says her role as family spokesperson — and later, as a voice in the broader reform movement in Utah — came naturally. “I
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In May, a judge ruled that the search warrant for Stewart’s home and the raid were both legal... A little over a week later, at 12:50 a.m. on a Friday morning, a guard found Stewart hanging in his jail cell. knew that no one in the family was fully operational after the raid,” she says. “So I had to step up. I’ve always been outspoken, and not easily intimidated. And the more and more I got involved, the more I thought this is where I belong.” In August, Stewart received a phone call from the Ogden police. More than 19 months after the raid, they were calling to let her know that, despite their earlier allegations, they had never actually found any child pornography on her brother-in-law’s computer. “That’s about par for the course,” she says. “They told the world he was a pedophile, attacked him in the press. Now, months after he’s dead, they quietly call to say they were wrong.”
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IMPOSSIBLE LANDLORDS What Happens When Wall Street Builds a Rental Empire
BY BEN HALLMAN
PREVIOUS PAGE: STEPHEN SWINTEK/GETTY IMAGES
There’s no escaping the stench of raw sewage in Mindy Culpepper’s Atlanta-area rental home. The odor greets her before she turns into her driveway each evening as she returns from work. It’s there when she prepares dinner, and only diminishes when she and her husband hunker down in their bedroom, where they now eat their meals. For the $1,225 a month she pays for the three-bedroom house in the quiet suburb of Lilburn, Culpepper thinks it isn’t too much to expect that her landlord, Colony American Homes, make the necessary plumbing repairs to eliminate the smell. But her complaints have gone unanswered, she said. Short of buying a plane ticket to visit the company’s office in Scottsdale, Ariz., she is out of ideas. “You cannot get in touch with them, you can’t get them on the phone, you can’t get them to respond to an email,” said Culpepper,
whose family has lived with the problem since the day they moved in five months ago. “My certified letters, they don’t get answered.” Most rental houses in the U.S. are owned by individuals, or small, local businesses. Culpepper’s landlord is part of a new breed: a Wall Street-backed investment company with billions of dollars at its disposal. Over the past two years, Colony American and its two biggest competitors, Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent, have spent more than $12 billion buying and renovating at least 75,000 homes in order to rent them out. This new incursion by hedge funds and private equity groups into the American single-family home rental market is unprecedented, and is proving disastrous for many of the tens of thousands of families who are moving into these newly converted rental homes. In recent weeks, HuffPost
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spoke with more than a dozen current tenants, along with former employees who recently left the real estate companies. Though it’s not uncommon for tenants to complain about their landlords, many who had rented before described their current experience as the worst they’ve ever had. “I’ve been renting homes for 15 years and I’ve never had a landlord be this ridiculous about getting stuff repaired,” said Henry Cecil, who moved into a fourbedroom house in Winter Haven, Fla., owned by Invitation Homes in March. Invitation Homes is an arm of Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world. The firm booked more than $4 billion in revenue in 2012. Tenants of these Wall Streetbacked rental companies have also posted hundreds of scathing reviews on Internet message boards, such as Yelp, Topix and Zillow. (These sites also include a sprinkling of positive comments, though they comprise a distinct minority.) Most who spoke with HuffPost said they moved into their rental homes only to find that renovations they were assured were comprehensive amounted to little more than a fresh coat of
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“ You cannot get in touch with them, you can’t get them on the phone, you can’t get them to respond to an email.” paint and new carpeting. Tenants said they immediately discovered major mechanical and plumbing problems: broken water heaters and air conditioners, broken toilets and in some cases even vermin infestations, including fleas, silverfish and rodents. Attempts to get the issues fixed usually end in frustration, the renters said. Local management companies hired to service the homes ignore calls and emails, sometimes for weeks. When tenants try to get in touch with the owners — the firms buying up the
Mindy Culpepper (second from left) and her family outside their Lilburn, Ga., home.
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properties — the result is often the same, they said. When unpacking their belongings, Cecil and his wife said they found rat feces in the dishwasher. The sliding-glass door that opened onto the back yard was unusable. They tried to take showers, but the hot water heater was broken, they said. Invitation Homes sent a repairman to fix the water heater, but other repairs — including to an air conditioner that broke down three times — were slow, leaving the couple to swelter in the Florida heat, they claim. “If we had known the problems that we were going to have we would have never rented from these people,” Cecil said. “I really don’t think they care.” Some tenants have grown frustrated enough to sue. James Atwood alleges in a lawsuit filed last month in a Georgia state court that WRI Property Management, the local agent of Colony American, failed to respond to dozens of phone calls, even as problems mounted in his $2,000-a-month home. Among his allegations: the air conditioner did not work when he moved in, forcing the family to stay in hotels and with friends; tubs and sinks sprouted huge
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leaks. Lights would flicker on and off, and the home was infested with fleas, roaches and even a family of racoons, which lived in the attic, the lawsuit claims. Many tenants complain that the problems with their homes are so severe they’ve all but consumed their lives. Several weeks after Rosemary moved into the Raleigh, N.C., house she’s renting from Ameri-
Many tenants complain that the problems with their homes are so severe they’ve all but consumed their lives. can Homes 4 Rent, her hot water tank exploded. Rosemary, who declined to use her last name for fear of losing her security deposit, said she couldn’t shower for days. It took constant calls and emails to the rental company before they sent someone to replace the tank. “It was quite a fiasco, very stressful,” Rosemary said of the incident. She’s paying $1,550 per month for her four-bedroom house. Former employees of the companies, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they worry about jeopardizing their careers, said their former colleagues can’t keep up with the volume of
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complaints. The rush to buy up as many homes as possible has stretched resources to the point of breaking, these people said. “Complaints were coming at us like out of a fire hose,” said a former Invitation Homes employee, who worked in the property management division and routinely fielded maintenance requests. Initially, the former employee said, the company took care to make sure renovations were up to snuff. But before long, the task of overseeing dozens of independent contractors tending to thousands of homes spread out over huge geographical areas became simply too much, even though the company was hiring staff as quickly as it could. Call centers were overwhelmed. “Getting someone on the phone was next to impossible,” the employee said. “I have no doubt the customer experience was compromised.” Other ex-investment company employees spoke of increasing pressure to fix up the homes cheaply and quickly. A former inspector for American Homes 4 Rent who worked in the Dallas office said he routinely examined homes just prior to rental that were not habitable. Though
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it wasn’t his job to answer complaints, he said he fielded “hundreds of calls” from irate tenants. “I didn’t know what to tell them,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything about it. It was like pulling teeth to get [the company] to send out a repairman.” In an email, B.J. Poznecki, a construction superintendent for American Homes 4 Rent — which has spent more than $3 billion
“ If we had known the problems that we were going to have we would have never rented from these people. I really don’t think they care.” in the past year to acquire about 20,000 houses — said that buying and renting single-family homes on a large scale is a new business model, and as such “systems, process and procedures” are evolving. Poznecki said the Malibu, Calif.-based company just opened a new call center that handles all incoming maintenance calls, which he said will improve the customer experience. American Homes 4 Rent is “working around the clock to help us achieve our goal of excellence in the shortest
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timeframe possible,” he said. In a statement, an Invitation Homes spokeswoman said feedback from its tenants is “consistently positive.” The company does its best to address complaints quickly, and is “always striving to enhance the customer service experience for our tenants.” In the past year, the company has spent approximately $7.5 billion to buy more than 40,000 properties. Colony American has invested $2 billion in more than 15,000 houses. Asked about tenant complaints, a spokeswoman wrote in
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Former employees of the companies... said their former colleagues can’t keep up with the volume of complaints. an email, “We take these concerns seriously and every single issue either has been or is being addressed.” Thousands of other tenants are satisfied with their rentals, the spokeswoman said. The investment companies are focusing most of their attention on cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas and Tampa, hard hit by the fore-
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closure crisis but with good prospects for long-term growth. They are buying up so many houses in these places — 200,000 in the past two years, according to Bloomberg News — that they are edging out ordinary buyers. They are also driving home prices higher: a boon for millions of people with underwater mortgages, but a scary proposition to many real estate experts, who are already warning about new housing price bubbles forming in some areas. Whether these investment companies will continue to swoop up homes, and whether they can thrive long-term, remains unclear. The real estate investment industry as a whole has struggled this year, with investors worried that rising interest rates and other factors will slow the rapid increase in home prices and sales. American Homes 4 Rent’s $811 million public offering in July raised less than projected, and the company fired 15 percent of its workforce, according to a Bloomberg News report. Colony Capital had planned a public offering for this summer, but put it off indefinitely. Even so, the firms that are buying up homes have raised enormous sums of cash, and seem
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determined to spend it as quickly as possible. Agents continue to swarm auctions and open houses, and investors are moving into new markets, such as Memphis. For Culpepper, this mad scramble to acquire properties has had very personal repercussions. She was forced to go to court to fight
“ I didn’t know what to tell them. I couldn’t do anything about it. It was like pulling teeth to get [the company] to send out a repairman.” an eviction after Colony American returned two of her rent checks with no explanation, she said. Though she won the right to stay in her home, the judge told her she can’t force the company to fix her toilets. So for the next seven months, until her lease expires, she is stuck with the stench. “It’s just a slumlord,” Culpepper said of Colony American. “A huge, billion-dollar slumlord.” Ben Hallman is senior financial writer and Jillian Berman is an associate business editor at The Huffington Post.
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The T Luckiest Farm Animals on Turkey Day BY ARIN GREENWOOD
HIS ISN’T WHAT people usually mean when they say they’ve got a chicken heating up in the kitchen. Harrison the chicken sits on a padded cushion on top of a heater, by the kitchen window, so that he can keep an eye on his companion, Clarice, and his enemy, a rooster named Alvin. Though he has long white feathers, Harrison is 6 years old and “he gets cold,” his owner,
Harrison the chicken sits on a padded cushion on top of a heater in the window of Terry Cumming’s kitchen.
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Exit Terry Cummings, explained. Cummings and her husband, Dave Hoerauf, run one of the country’s only farm-animal rescues, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, on 400 acres in Western Maryland. The farm is only about an hour from the nation’s capital, but with the trees and hills and chickens — not to mention the lack of folks in khakis talking about the debt ceiling — it seems much farther. And speaking of chickens: In addition to Harrison and Clarice, plus Harrison’s clucking nemesis, Alvin, Cummings and Hoerauf have some 60 other chickens of a variety of provenances. They fell off trucks, or came from animal shelters after backyard hen-keeping didn’t work out for suburbanites. Some recent acquisitions had been mailed in a box to a man who decided he didn’t want the chicks and just threw the box away. Then add in about a half-dozen turkeys, 40 pigs, three horses, several donkeys, 22 goats, 19 sheep and 11 cows, all of whom have names and many of whom also bear stories of abuse, neglect or lucky escapes from slaughter. They’ve got it better these days. During a recent visit, a 1,000-pound pig named Patsy, who was removed from her home
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in North Carolina where she was being starved, was treated to a belly rub. And Sophie — a newly arrived pig, still small — snuggled with a teddy bear under a heat lamp before getting up for some treats. She’d been sold as a potbelly to a family by a farmer at the side of the road; they quickly discovered that she wasn’t as advertised and dispatched her elsewhere before she landed at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary. “I taught her to sit!” Cummings said, holding out a banana to Sophie.
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Terry Cummings opened Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in 1996 with her husband, Dave Hoerauf.
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Cummings and Hoerauf opened the sanctuary in 1996. The pair had been renting a farmhouse dated to the 1730s on the site — with Cummings commuting to D.C. to work as a veterinary technician at the National Zoo, and Hoerauf working in printing — while the surrounding property was rented out to a beef cattle farmer. The couple got to know the animals. They developed relationships. Then one day the slaughter truck arrived. “It occurred to me that my next hamburger could be one of my friends,” is how Cummings described this development to The Washington Post.
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Poplar Spring’s six turkeys get their own table — in a twist on the usual Thanksgiving meal, visitors feed them.” Meat exited the diet, and, after a long talk with the property’s owner, rescued farm animals replaced the beef cattle. Over time, the land was donated by the couple’s landlord — the one who’d once rented property to the farmer whose animals were destined to be meat, and whose original lease, somewhat ironically, prohibited cats and dogs in the house. “We didn’t have any cats and dogs,” Cummings said. “We had ducks and chickens.”
Hoerauf with one of Poplar Spring’s goats.
ARIN GREENWOOD
Exit There still aren’t any traditional pets running around. (And, being vegan, the birds’ eggs aren’t eaten by humans; every day, they’re collected and left in the woods for skunks and foxes.) Poplar Spring specializes in animals that Cummings and Hoerauf say are often overlooked — kids aren’t generally taught to love cows and chickens, and even animal abuse laws generally exempt farm animals. So on top of caring for the 200-odd rescues who will live out their natural lives at Poplar Spring, the sanctuary is open to visitors such as school groups, as a way to promote the message that all animals, including farm animals, deserve humane treatment. “Here they’re treated with love and tenderness,” Cummings said. “Of all the animals that need help, it seems like farm animals need it the most.” On Nov. 23, the sanctuary will hold one of its annual events. It’s a vegan potluck, where Poplar Spring’s six turkeys get their own table — in a twist on the usual Thanksgiving meal, visitors feed them. One of the guests of honor this year will be a turkey named Perry, who arrived at Poplar
THE THIRD METRIC
Spring in 2012, on the night before Thanksgiving. Here’s how Cummings and Hoerauf described Perry’s origin story on Facebook: We received quite a Thanksgiving Day surprise when we discovered this beautiful boy turkey in a crate in the middle of our driveway late last night!! No note or phone call or any clue as to who brought him or where he came from. It is a mystery, but we will welcome him in to live happily here with our other rescued turkeys, who he will hopefully be friends with. Unlike the millions of other turkeys on this day, he is a very lucky guy. You could think of this bird as a living, breathing, lucky feathered Thanksgiving parable. Or maybe he’s a sign that the farm’s outreach is having some effect.
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Cummings feeds a banana to Sophie the pig, the newest arrival at Poplar Spring.
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TASTE TEST
HUFFINGTON 11.17.13
The Best Chocolate Bars, British Edition BY KRISTEN AIKEN
HEN WE RECENTLY ranked the 25 best American candy bars, we made it clear that we were strictly ranking American candy bars. But our commenters had none of it, and insisted on bragging about the superiority of Brit-
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAMON DAHLEN
ish candy bars. Case in point: “Do Americans not have Crunchie bars from Cadbury’s? I know Cadbury is a British company but you really NEED to try one if you haven’t.” Okay, okay! We get the point. So in true HuffPost Taste spirit, we knew we had to set up a taste test. We visited the magical London Candy Co. here in New York, and the friendly Brits there helped us round
HUFFINGTON 11.17.13
TASTE TEST
Exit up all their favorite must-try chocolate bars from across the pond. One thing you should know about English chocolate bars: They’re made with glucose syrup rather than the high-fructose corn syrup that we’re so (disgustingly) familiar with here in the States, and it makes a big difference in
terms of texture and quality of sweetness. Also? The Brits love a good crunchy texture. There are bits and bobs of crunchiness in a great deal of their candies, and we really, really like it. Now let’s take a look at the 16 bars we tried, and see how they ranked.
As always, this taste test is in no way influenced or sponsored by the brands included.
TAP FOR THE TASTERS’ VERDICTS
DOUBLE DECKER
CRUNCHIE
LION
TWISTED
GALAXY CARAMEL
CADBURY DAIRY MILK
AERO
KIT KAT DARK
BOOST DUO
CADBURY BOURNVILLE
TWIRL
FLAKE
YORKIE
WISPA
FRY’S CHOCOLATE CREAM
TURKISH DELIGHT
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MUSIC
HUFFINGTON 11.17.13
Dog Ears: Experimental Pop to Doo-Wop In which we spotlight music from a diversity of genres and decades, lending an insider’s ear to what deserves to be heard. BY THE EVERLASTING PHIL RAMONE AND DANIELLE EVIN
POP LEVI English rocker Pop Levi (a.k.a. Jonathan James Mark Levi) was born in Surrey in 1977. By his 20s, Levi moved to Liverpool, formed his first band, and supported himself with odd jobs, before making a career in L.A. and Europe. His whip smart and elegant sense of humor, self, and sound has opened the gate to his unapologetic 10-plus projects to date. Levi has collaborated with N.W.A’s Arabian Prince, the model Bunny Holiday, Ladytron, Marius Simonsen, and Luke Muscatelli, among many others. Get some “Blue Honey,” from Pop Levi’s 2006 old-time rock ’n’ roll Blue Honey–EP. It’s all fun. BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Rock ARTIST: Pop Levi SONG: Blue Honey ALBUM: Blue Honey–EP
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Super Furry Animals are an intensely creative five-piece experimental poprock band founded in Cardiff, Wales, in 1993. The lineup includes Gruff Rhys (lead vocals, guitar), Guto Pryce (bass), Cian Ciarán (keyboards, electronics), Huw “Bunf” Bunford (guitar, vocals), and Dafydd Ieuan (drums). Super Furry Animals command a depth and imagination amidst their ever-creative soundscapes. After the release of their ninth album (with Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand guest-starring), the group went on hiatus. Revisit their lush and graceful “Sex, War & Robots,” from the 2003 release Phantom Power. Turn it up! BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Alternative ARTIST: Super Furry Animals SONG: Sex, War & Robots ALBUM: Phantom Power
THE COASTERS American R&B quintette The Coasters were born in Los Angeles out of doo-wop ensemble The Robins in the mid-’50s. Founding members comprise Billy Guy, Bobby Nunn, Carl Gardner, Leon Hughes, and Adolph Jacobs. The Leiber & Stoller–penned “Down in Mexico” was to be their first hit in 1956. From there, the Coasters’ trajectory was set, smashing with a 45 double-side of “Young Blood” and “Searchin,” followed by “Charlie Brown” and Yakety Yak,” to name a few. The Coasters went on to issue scores of records throughout their five-plus decades of music-making, and were the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Remember their beginnings with “Down in Mexico,” from Rumba DooWop, Vol. 2 (1955-1956). BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: R&B/Soul ARTIST: The Coasters SONG: Down in Mexico ALBUM: Rumba DooWop, Vol. 2 (1955-1956)
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MUSIC
KURTIS BLOW
TORTOISE
KOKO TAYLOR
Artist, MC and producer Kurtis Blow was born Curtis Walker on Aug. 9, 1959, in Harlem, New York. Kurtis Blow blazed the trail for many rap artists including Grandmaster Flash and Run-D.M.C. Walker started out as a break-dancer, became a DJ, and then the notorious MC Kurtis Blow. At the age of 20, the trailblazer became the first rapper to be signed by a major label. His 1979 single “Christmas Rappin” sold over 400,000 copies. Collaborations include The Fat Boys, Run-D.M.C., Russell Simmons, Wyclef Jean and Bride Dressed in Black. Blow, who has worked with Sirius Satellite Radio on old-school station Backspin 43, is founder of the Hip-Hop Church and became a minister in 2009. His breakthrough track “The Breaks,” from the 1980 album Kurtis Blow, was the first rap single to go gold; remember it and play it loud!
Chicago-based experimental instrumental band Tortoise was founded in 1990 by Doug McCombs (bass, sixstring bass, lap steel), Johnny “Machine” Herndon (drums, percussion, vibraphone, xylophone, keyboards, drum programming), John McEntire (guitar, drums, percussion, EML 101, marimba, drum programming, melodica, etc.), and Bundy K. Brown (bass guitar). By the late ’90s, when the iconic “post-rock” group released their third studio album TNT, Dan Bitney (drums, hand percussion, guitar, keyboards, drum programming), Jeff Parker (guitar, vibes, keyboards), and Dave Pajo (bass, guitar) had joined up, with Brown exiting. Collaborations include Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Beck, Thurston Moore, Paul Duncan, and director Eduardo Sánchez (Lovely Molly). Tortoise’s sound leaves an alternatingly saturnine and joyful aftertaste. With more than a dozen releases to collect, rewind with “TenDay Interval,” from their 1998 TNT, an exquisite transmission.
Grammy-winning “Queen of the Blues” Cora Walton (a.k.a. Koko Taylor) was born in 1928 in a small town near Memphis, Tenn. Koko and her five brothers and sisters grew up poor on a sharecropper’s farm. As a child, Koko developed a deep love of gospel, blues, and chocolate (hence her nickname). By the age of 11, Koko and her siblings were orphaned. After marrying, she held a variety of jobs, but would sit in with Chicago blues acts until the early ’60s, when Willie Dixon recognized her greatness, and she found her calling. With a career spanning five decades, Taylor has collaborated with Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, Robert Plant, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Buddy Guy, to name a few. Her voice is a monument. The 1966 Willie Dixon-produced “Wang Dang Doodle (Single),” from Koko Taylor (Remastered Bonus Tracks), is a serious must-have.
BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Hip-Hop/Rap ARTIST: Kurtis Blow SONG: The Breaks ALBUM: Kurtis Blow
BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Alternative ARTIST: Tortoise SONG: Ten-Day Interval ALBUM: TNT
BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Blues ARTIST: Koko Taylor SONG: Wang Dang Doodle (Single) ALBUM: Koko Taylor (Remastered Bonus Tracks)
TFU
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JOHN LAMPARSKI/GETTY IMAGES (NYC APARTMENT); GETTY IMAGES/CAIAIMAGE (BAR); J&D FOODS (BACON DEODORANT); RAGIP CANDAN/GETTY IMAGES (VEGETABLES)
An Entire Island Is Cheaper Than the Average NYC Apartment
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Woman Calls 911 to Report Drunk People in Bar
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BACON DEODORANT EXISTS
A Boy Was Suspended for Wearing a Purse to School
Voters of Washington State Don’t Want to Know If Their Food Was Genetically Modified
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TFU
HUFFINGTON 11.17.13
OYCE MARSHALL/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/MCT (BUSH); MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES (PENTAGON); COTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES (KMART); SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES (GETTY IMAGES)
George W. Bush Is Raising Money for a Group That Convinces Jews to Accept Jesus
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Military Sexual Assault Reports Are Up 46 Percent, the Pentagon Says
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KMART SIGN EMERGES DEMANDING EMPLOYEES WORK HOLIDAYS
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Pundit Compares Being Gay to Trans Fat: ‘A Hazard to Human Health’
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Man Says Its His Constitutional Right to Take ‘Upskirt’ Photos
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