Commentary: Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Just Doesn't Get It

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. just doesn't get it.

A suspected serial killer by the name of Darren Deon Vann this past weekend led police investigators to the bodies of six women in Gary, after Hammond police arrested Vann in connection with another murder at the Motel 6 in Hammond.

Seven women--and perhaps many more--are dead.

And, McDermott makes Monday's news conference about himself and his fine police officers.

Here was a tweet posted on his Twitter account on Sunday:

On Monday, he took advantage of that "national story" opportunity to tout his police department, which is also the subject of a lawsuit over the arrest of a passenger during a routine traffic stop. And there's another lawsuit over shooting a dog.

"Yesterday, a murder case broke that is now national." McDermott said. "Hammond and Northwest Indiana are safer today because of the work of the Hammond police department. Congrats on a job well-done."

There is no question that the officers did a fine job. And the merits of those lawsuits will have to be settled by the courts.

However, seven people are dead, Mr. McDermott.

There is more: The mayor of Hammond then fired a shot at Gary, implying that the crimes wouldn't have happened if that city didn't have so many abandoned buildings.

"I want to remind Hammond residents that here we board them up," he said.

Seven people are dead, Mr. McDermott.

That part of the story was mentioned as a afterthought in McDermott's self-serving remarks, when he spent about five seconds saying his "thoughts and prayers" are with the families of the victims.

Seven people are dead, Mr. McDermott.

And there could be many more.

The public finally got that detail when Mayor McGrandster allowed his Police Chief John Doughty to say the killings could go back as far as 20 years.

But wait, there's even more.

Mr. McDermott, on Twitter, also congratulated the NWI Gazette, a citizen journalist blog written by Ken Davidson, with breaking the story before the traditional media.

That's great for Mr. Davidson.

But that's not the story here, either.

Checking the NWI Gazette Facebook page around lunchtime on Monday, one would find the picture of the inside of a room, purportedly at the Motel 6.

The Gazette inaccurately said it was the room where Vann was caught, indicating that there was a struggle.

At Monday's news conference, Doughty said Vann, who on Monday was charged with the Hammond killing, was arrested in Gary without incident.

However, the problem isn't the veracity of the information. We all make mistakes or get bad information from sources.

The problem is the picture itself.

It shows a bare-bones hotel room with the position of the beds indicating a possible struggle.

The Facebook caption says the telephone and lamp have been removed, presumably from the night stand. Although it would be impossible to know where the phone and lamp were originally located, unless somebody told the Gazette that information, Mr. Davidson saw that evidence being removed, or that part is wrong, too.

The real question is: What are we seeing and where did it come from?

Is it a photo of the room at the Motel 6 where Afrikka Hardy was murdered? The image is consistent with details described in the investigating officer's affidavit, which describes the beds being "moved away from the headboards to suggest there was possibly a struggle there." Hardy's body was found in the bathtub, according to the affidavit.

Was it a photo taken by investigators at the scene? Or was Davidson allowed access to the room to take the picture?

If so, then somebody either leaked a crime scene photo, which is a really, really bad idea -- the image was published before Vann was even charged.

Or Davidson somehow got close to the crime scene, which would also not be a good idea, raising the possibility of evidence contamination.

There are other photos on the Facebook page that appear to show the exterior of the Motel 6 room, taken on the outside, farther away.

I have emailed Mr. Davidson for a response.

In:
• Hammond Indiana