CLEVELAND, Ohio -- While many local massage therapists called for their colleagues to ban working for the Cleveland Browns, in light of the Deshaun Watson scandal, others defended the team, cautioning that many facts of the sexual misconduct allegations against Watson were yet unknown.
We’re talking about reactions to the case from within the industry that lies at the core of the controversy, on Today in Ohio.
Listen here online.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with impact editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and reporter Courtney Astolfi.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
Here’s a story I’ve been waiting for since two years ago. Does the modern Shingles vaccine, which works largely by boosting your t-cells, which battle viruses, also help battle Covid. It stands to reason that it does, but when we asked this question two years ago, local doctors told us we were out of our minds. Not so much, huh?
Massage therapists are at the heart of the Deshaun Watson story, with a bunch alleging he abused them. What do Northeast Ohio massage therapists make of all this, and are they worried more people will call them hoping to have sex?
Reporter Andrew Tobias spotted something interesting in the campaign finance reports of the two men seeking to replace Rob Portman in the U.S. Senate. Maybe this is not the JD Vance runaway some have predicted?
Much of the world marveled last week at deep space photos taking us to some of the origins of the universe. Mayfield Heights played a role in getting those photos. What was it?
Now that Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s team finally turned over the subpoena involving former Councilman Basheer Jones, we have more of an idea of what the investigation involves. What does it show?
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan finally settled up with the Federal Election Commission on some big abnormalities in his campaign finance filings. What’s the damage?
One does not think of Greater Cleveland as a statewide leader in wage growth, so a new reporter is an encouraging surprise? What does it show?
For weeks we’ve been told Jayland Walker was shot as many as 60 times. We finally have some specificity from the autopsy. It’s still a big number. What is it?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris: [00:00:00] It seems like COVID is everywhere again. And we have an interesting story to discuss with regard to its spread it’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn. I am here with Lisa Garvin, Courtney Yoffie and back from a much deserved week off Layla.
Tossi welcome back, Layla. Thanks. I
Leila: feel great. Refreshed, ready to
Chris: go. Well, and ju just a reminder, you’ll be doing the podcast all on your lonesome again in a couple of weeks. So I can’t wait I can either let’s begin. This is a story I’ve been waiting for since two years ago. Does the modern shingles vaccine, which works largely by boosting your T cells, which battle viruses.
Also help battle COVID stands. The reason that it does, but when we asked this question two years ago, Lisa local doctors said no, now we think it does.
Lisa: Yeah. It seems like things are starting to come around. Not [00:01:00] only for Shingrix, but also other vaccines that are typically given in childhood. So there are three current studies underway.
The us to test the theory that common vaccines might give a boost to COVID vaccines in preventing severe disease. So the study that looked at Shingrix, uh, was at Kaiser Permanente. They used data from, uh, patient records of patients who were 50 years. Of age and older from March 1st to December 31st, 2020, when the COVID vaccination was not widely available.
So they looked at a couple of different data sets to come to their conclusions. They looked at the hospitalizations of about 149,000 people with at least one dose of Shingrix and 298. Thousand who didn’t. And they also looked at the shingles vaccination status of 75,700 people who tested positive for COVID and 300 4898 who tested negative for COVID.
So what they found was that with [00:02:00] Shingrix, if you have at least one dose 16% were less likely to be diagnosed with COVID no matter how long ago they got the vaccine, 32% were less likely to be hospitalized for COVID. And so there was a study also here in the Cleveland clinic that was looking at, uh, MMR, which is measles, mums, and rubella, and the T D P, which is for dip theory and whoop whooping cough.
And they’re looking at, uh, 75,000 Cleveland clinic patients in Ohio and Florida who tested positive for COVID. They found a 38% decrease in hospitalizations, a 32% decrease in ICU, admissions and death for people who had MMR vaccines. The
Chris: reason. Was so interested in this is I had shingles a couple times and the first time it was the full month long, it was awful.
So I, when, as soon as I could, I got the Shingrix vaccine and it knocked me out for five hours. It was like, The worst flu [00:03:00] symptoms I ever had. I couldn’t lift my head. I couldn’t do my job. I, I just, I was sitting there going, wow, what? I’ve never had a reaction to a vaccine. And when I looked it up, I saw it’s a whole new mechanism.
It doesn’t work the way old vaccines does it. This one works by greatly boosting your TCEs. Cuz when you’re old like me, they go away and that’s what fights off things like shingles. So when COVID came, I thought. I got all these extra T cells. That means I should be, I should be rocking if I get it. And we had a story done and local doctor said, yeah, it doesn’t work cuz your body doesn’t recognize the virus.
So the T cells won’t do anything. And that never rang true to me cause I thought, okay. But if you get it, the body will recognize it and they could send the T-cells at it. Evidently that is what’s happening. So if you’re of the age, how old do you have to be Lisa to get Shingrix 50?
Lisa: Um, right now it’s, it’s 50 years and older back in the old days, you know, I got the Shingrix or it was Zo Avax or whatever, several years ago, it was only one dose and you had to [00:04:00] be over 60.
So now it’s Shingrix, it’s a two dose and you have to be 50 years and older to. Yeah,
Chris: but it, it, but it does give you a huge boost in the cells that fight viruses. So if you’re older, this could be a, a help. And that Kaiser study certainly showed it. I’m glad that glad to hear it. And with COVID on the March, again, we know more and more people that are getting this.
Fifth vary. And it’s so contagious. This might be a way to help, uh, prevent hospitalizations. Good story. It, uh, ran the gamut of all of the different vaccines. As you said, having more vaccines in your body apparently helps fight this virus as well. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Massage therapists are at the heart of the Deshaun Watson story with a bunch alleging that he abused them.
What did Northeast, Ohio massage therapist make of all this? And are they worried more people will call them now hoping to have sex. Courtney, John Tucker put together a very interesting perspective [00:05:00] on the Deshaun Watson story. We published it over the.
Courtney: Yeah. John talked to several folks who are massage therapists around Cleveland and, and the suburbs and greater Cleveland area.
And, you know, I think the general takeaway from those conversations is that this whole Deshaun Watson episode is, has, you know, hurt a profession that’s integrated with modern medicine, but it routinely, you know, suffers from these false connections to sex work. So it seems like, you know, these, these massage therapists even acknowledge in interviews with John.
That that many, many men and potential clients walk into sessions with sexual intentions and, and local folks have, have dealt with that. And at the same time, there’s, there’s really little to do when you’re faced with that kind of sexual harassment on the job. And, you know, some were, were very speaking strongly against wa what Watson’s been accused of doing and.
You know, one Ohio city therapist said that she pledged not [00:06:00] to work on any member of the Cleveland Browns while Watson is employed there. And she thought kind of the conversations around these accusations has resulted in her profession being thrown quote into the gutter. So there’s a lot of, uh, dismay, I think, of, of the kind of attention that this Watson episode has brought on their profession at the same time.
There’s other professionals that John talked to. That, that kind of defended that, that most NFL players are great clients to work with, you know, and, and they don’t present these kinds of problems like Watson’s accused of doing so it’s a little bit of a smattering here, but it seems like there’s some dismay in how their profession’s being colored and in light of this.
These incidents.
Chris: I like the one that said that when that kind of thing happens, I just walk out. They can’t really chase you cuz they’re naked. That seemed like a, a pretty decent response to somebody who who’s dealing with offensive behavior. The, the two things I learned from this, I didn’t know, [00:07:00] one Ohio was the first state in the country to actually license massage therapists and try and regulate it.
But the second thing is. anybody in Ohio can hang out a shingle and say, I do massage that there’s no difference between the licensed, fully trained, regulated massage therapist and the person that just goes on Instagram and says, Hey, I’ll give you a massage. That should change. There. There is a bill, I guess that’s pending.
That would make it much clearer. What’s what, but I can imagine if you’re a massage therapist in Ohio doing. The right way, having somebody else right. Next door nearby doing it the wrong way does kind of inject the whole sex expectation into the whole profession.
Lisa: Yeah. Well, in fact, go ahead. Oh, I
Courtney: just thought that was really interesting.
You know, I, one thing that he found was that folks who aren’t licensed here in Ohio through the state medical board, you know, part of their training they receive is whenever it starts to [00:08:00] turn sexual or people start harassing you. Like you said, walk out, shut it down. That’s the professional response.
Lisa: Lisa. Well, and I was, I was gonna bring up that point because I had said before these women have agency, you know, they’re, self-employed, they, they can tell the customer to get out or they can leave, and I never could understand why they didn’t do that. And it’s interesting that the licensing actually requires you to do that when there’s, you know, a situation that comes up that you’re uncomfortable with, but they also pointed out too that most, if not all of the therapists that, uh, Watson hired through Instagram, weren’t licensed.
I said that one might have, it might have been her first massage she ever gave. So there’s this whole unlicensed massage issue that needs to be rectified.
Chris: Yeah. I gotta tip my hat to you. Lisa. You’ve been pointing that out pretty much throughout this conversation and the story really bore that out.
You’ve you’ve every time we’ve talked about this, you’ve said, Hey look, the, the [00:09:00] women involved in this ha have had the ability to get away from it. And that there is some responsibility there and clearly some of the therapists, John talked to felt the same way. It’s a great story. It really added an element to this debate that we had not seen.
So check it out on cleveland.com. It’s today in Ohio. Reporter Andrew Tobias spotted something interesting in the campaign finance reports of the two men seeking to replace Rob Portman in the us Senate. Maybe this is not the JD Vance runaway summit predicted Layla. Yeah, it
Leila: seems Democrat. Tim Ryan has surprised everyone with his.
Fundraising prowes and he is way ahead of Vance by, by the Friday deadline covering April through June Vance reported having 628,000 in, in his campaign’s bank account. Before that he had raised a million and spent a million to win the Republican primary in may three of Vance’s affiliated committees also had around a one and a half [00:10:00] million, but, but there are a lot of restrictions on how that money can be spent.
So it might not completely be available for him to use in this race. But meanwhile, Ryan reported having 3.6 million in campaign cash and raising 8.6 million during the same time. Period, of course, he, he faced a much easier contest to secure the democratic nomination, but he raised 9.1 million during the second quarter.
That includes $500,000. He had previously reported raising in a pre-primary report. The Republican party is they’re. I mean, they’re trying to downplay the significance of. Funding gap. They’re saying it’ll take a lot more than 9 million to convince voters that Ryan isn’t a part of the same democratic machine that brought them Biden’s failed policies and blah, blah, blah, blah.
But, but you know, some Republican strategists are really concerned about it. And they’re saying it’s it’s time for Vance to turn up the throtle here. Uh, so, you know, well that said, I mean, Vance has that super PAC behind him. So [00:11:00] it does, you know, I don’t know if this is really significant,
Chris: but still yeah.
Peter teal could come in and change that with one check. Right? Of course. I mean, that’s what he did in the primary. And so exactly, but the fact that Ryan is raising so much money, everybody thinks of Ohio as a red state and because Trump won. At seven, eight points, but everybody forgets. She brown wins handily every time he runs.
And I, I don’t think this is, is a runaway at all. Partly is JD Vance is so darn unlikable. I mean, he’s a severe, you know, constantly evolving chameleon of a guy who’s positions have changed to suit the wind. And Ryan is a guy people. Wouldn’t mind having a beer with, so I, I’m not sure how this goes in the end.
Uh, but it’s interesting that he’s got all that money to get his message out. It’s hard to,
Leila: it’s hard to gauge likability because where do you put Donald Trump on the likability scale? You know, [00:12:00] like there were a lot of peoples. Disgusting human
Chris: ever. But a lot of people liked him. I mean, he, and you know, there, he, he, he triggered something in people that, that, that seemed to, to work.
A lot of people tried to emulate him and it has not worked. I mean, Ted Cruz is a, is a terrible caricature of a Donald Trump. But yeah. So
Leila: I, I, it depends on how closely. People associate JD Vance with Donald Trump. How well does he, you know, does he, does he really play well into the hands of the, the Trumpsters who.
It’s it’s, it’s really hard to tell it, cuz this is a Trump state, very solidly. She, brown is a different animal, you know, he, he appeals to something else in people and
Lisa: um, but I think Ryan appeals along that same vein as she brown, quite frankly. Do you. Yeah, I think the blue collar, you know, he is trying to bring back in the blue collar [00:13:00] workers and he doesn’t always go along with this party.
Although I think shared might be more of that than Ryan, but,
Courtney: and it, it seems that, you know, some of the TV ads I’ve seen that Ryan’s been broadcasting the past couple months. It really seems like he’s. Appealing to some of those, what we would think blue collar in recent years, more red talking points.
He’s talking about mm-hmm, JD Vance being a coastal elite and leaving Ohio for the big city. And, and, and I think he’s like talking about, you know, NAFTA and just a lot of the, a lot of the talking points we see coming outta the right seem to be coming out of Tim Ryan’s adds in a bid for that middle lane.
Hm. He
Chris: didn’t appear with Biden when Biden was in Cleveland. I thought that was instructed that’s right, right. He, I, he, I think he recognizes that Ohio is anything, but the progressive side of the political window, it’s not AOC country at all. And he’s trying to appeal to that middle. And [00:14:00] JD Vance is fringe far.
Wingnut. So there’s a, there’s a pretty wide lane for Ryan to tap into. That is the basic Ohio. Most Ohioans are not the, the kind of, I mean, JD Vance just says the wildest nonsense. So it’d be interesting to see you. Don’t also, don’t see. JD Vance really. Campaigning with N Whaley. And you would think that you would start to put together a ticket.
Jennifer Bruner is she’s running for chief justice.
Lisa: Wait, I think you misspoke there. You said JD Vance and Nalley.
Chris: I’m sorry. I meant together. I met Ryan. Yes you’re. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I don’t see JD Vance and Nalley running together. Good point Lisa but they’re not running together. There’s not a democratic ticket yet.
And we’re fairly laid into this it’s July 18th. Good stuff. It’s today in Ohio. Talk about good stuff, much of the world marveled last week at deep space photos taking us to some of the origins of the universe. Mayfield Heights played a role in getting those photos. [00:15:00] Lisa, I was fascinated by the manufacturing process of barium in this story.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s all done by a company, Mayfield Heights called material. They’ve been around for about 60 years. They’re an advanced materials manufacturing company. They have a, a site in Toledo where the actual manufacturing takes place, but they made the 18 hexagonal slabs that make up the web telescope mirror.
Um, and this process actually started way back in the 1990s. You know, they were saying in this article that we, that we wrote is that this is a long. Process to, you know, build the components for this telescope. So back in the 1990s, Merion was making test pieces for NASA. So interesting, uh, manufacturing process.
So barium is what these slabs are made of. They’re lighter than aluminum. They’re easily polished and they’re stable in cold temperatures. So back in 2003, Merion got the contract for these mirrors. [00:16:00] They were mostly done in 2000. Six, but it all starts in Utah. They mine the barium, or in Utah, it’s converted to barium hydroxide powder, which is sent to the facility in Elmore, which is near Toledo.
And it goes through a multi-step process. They create these slabs that are 55 inches in diameter. They’re four inches thick. Then they’re sent to Alabama for machining where their weight is reduced to 46 pounds. And it’s got like a honeycomb structure then to California. For a full year of polishing and then they put a layer of gold on top of it.
But, uh, what if and Merion also made other web telescope parts, they, the secondary and tertiary mirrors, they worked on those. They also provided some components of the instrument that produced those unbelievable photos we’ve been seeing.
Chris: Yeah, Sean did a great job in laying out that process. I read it twice, just cuz I was so interested in what went into it.
Who, who had any idea, that’s what it took to get [00:17:00] mirrors. That would be so valuable for the telescope in space. And then we saw the photos, the, the folks laying out the plain dealer were all excited. It’s like, oh good. We get to use one of these photos in a big way. And uh, turned out to be a really strong story.
You’re listening to today in Ohio. Now that Cleveland mayor Justin’s bid team finally turned over the subpoena involving former city Councilman Bashier Jones. We have more of an idea of what the federal investigation involve. Courtney, what does it show?
Courtney: Yeah. So now that we have our hands on this document, we’re able to see what the FBI was seeking from the city and they wanted.
Any documents, records, invoices, time sheets, contracts, checks, any correspondence, just really any records at all, related to, uh, you know, block grant requests made by Faco foundation and Lexington be bell. Now the foundation is the CDC. That serves the Huff neighborhood and the ward [00:18:00] that former Councilman Bashi Jones represented and Lexington bell is a community center located over there.
And, and they wanted documents, uh, from 2018 through 2022. So the last handful of years, and, you know, I think it’s also interesting. They also ask the city to provide documents, anything to do with. This extensive list of 24 people or organizations. A lot of them, you know, close ties to Bashi Jones and is, and working in his ward.
Um, one of the, one of the documents, one of the people named on that list was Mecca east to whom Jones has referred in the past to, as his wife. Um, you know, a lot of other groups are in there too, though. Like. You know, there’s a range from individuals to organizations like an early learning academy to a development and consulting looking group to the real BR black Friday, which is this group that really promotes, uh, you know, black [00:19:00] cooking and, and chefs.
I know there’s some been some events at rocket mortgage Fieldhouse in the past. Then there were also a couple of potential non-profits like linked to Jones himself, such as. Be she Jones foundation. So unclear exactly where they’re going in here, but they do give us some context that this goes back to block grant funding, probably in, in Jones’ ward.
Chris: Yeah. The one that wasn’t mentioned that was interesting was project neon, which was very questionable. And in his last days, he managed to get legislation passed to give them $2 million. I don’t think they’ve actually transferred that money to neon yet, but that wasn’t mentioned in this thing, I do wanna close out the conversation.
We had Friday, Friday, we discussed how the city was violating the records law and not turning over the subpoena. I was distressed to learn later in the day that the law department had actually sought. Permission from the FBI and the justice department to provide it. That is ridiculous. The federal government [00:20:00] has no say over the Ohio public records law.
I was also distressed that the law actor, Mr. Griffin was not aware that these were automatically public. He worked in the county where they did turn them over. Armen. Buddhi learned that you had to turn these over immediately. Uh, the whole, the whole affair was pretty ugly. I want to. Former city law, actor, Sebo, Chandra for sending a note to the city saying, Hey, this is a no brainer.
You have to turn these over. As soon as you get the request, um, hopefully going forward, they will understand this is automatically public record and you should not jerk us around also Layla, I think we had a story early this year saying Jeff Sleeman was gonna be put on the RTA board, but then it didn’t happen because of some other things.
Is, was I, is that, was that correct? Yeah, I think that was correct. All right. So I wanna slap him around he’s on Twitter, attacking us for raising hell about the public records aspect of this that’s distressing for [00:21:00] a guy who could be headed to a public agency. O we always. Always always defend the public records, law and fight to make sure government follows it.
And for a future RTA board member to be attacking, that is shameful. I hope he gets his sense right before he’s in a position where he could be withholding public records himself. Mm it’s. Today in Ohio. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan finally settled up with the federal elections commission on some big abnormalities in his campaign.
Finance filings, Layla. What’s the damage?
Leila: Well, his campaign paid a conciliation settlement fee, OFS. $60,000 to the FEC for all those issues in his old reports, according to his most recent filing last week, and that stemmed from letters to the FEC sent to Jordan’s campaign in March, 2021 that were questioning receipt differences between original and unpaid filings that were [00:22:00] as high as 558,000 in disbursement rate differences that were as high as $911,000.
And the campaign. That their new treasurer spotted errors that the former treasurer had made that they corrected them and they reported them to the FEC. Those errors included donations that were reported on the deposit date instead of the process date, which they say was the root of many of these discrepancies.
And they say that they’re all squared away now. And at no point was any money ever missing from the campaign. So, you know, of course the campaign said part of the problem is that Jim Jordan is so popular that they just had a really hard time keeping up with processing all the campaign contributions that were just pouring in.
So, you know, that’s another facet of this story, but, uh, yeah, that’s 60 grand that’s, that’s what they had to had to. Annie up.
Chris: And of course, very few people were paying attention to this last week because Jim Jordan was getting all the attention for calling the rape of a 10 year old girl who a big [00:23:00] lie.
And that has continued to be out there. You know, I asked this morning of the editors, whether the story of the 10 year old rape victim is the rare one that stays in the American consciousness for the long term, lots of stupid things. Politicians do. Our news for a day or two and fade into memory, but both Dave Yost and Jim Jordan, what they did with that 10 year old rape case, it might have staying power that might be in people’s minds when they go to the ballot box, because it was such a reprehensible political shenanigan, trying to get political capital out of negating her experience.
So I don’t think many people are gonna pay attention to $60,000.
Leila: But don’t do you think that there are, I mean, look at how, I mean, there are people who I think will continue to believe that that story is false. You know, I mean, just the way that there are still people who believe that Sandy hook was a bunch of crisis actors, you know, it’s, it’s [00:24:00] all in how these stories are spun on places like, you know, on far right media.
So,
Chris: yeah, you’re, you’re never gonna that, that segment of the population, you’re never gonna get them to accept truth, but I think the mainstream part of America saw how that played out. Mm. And come on a 10 year old, when you think of a 10 year old and instead of waiting for the facts, these guys rush out.
To get da, I mean, we’d mentioned last week, Dave Yos got diagnosed with COVID on, on the Friday, but, but felt to, he could get so much political capital outta cheering. This thing that he went on TV while he was sick, which you’re not supposed to do, you’re supposed to rest. But anyway, interesting stuff it’s today in Ohio.
One does not think of greater Cleveland as a statewide leader in wage growth. So a new report is an encouraging surprise. Lisa, this one really surprised me. I would never have predicted this.
Lisa: Yeah, me as well. This is a report from the ADP research Institute. They looked at the wages of 26 [00:25:00] million salaried workers in large us.
Metros. So Cleveland Eria, which is Cuyahoga lake GGA and Medina counties had the highest wage growth among high Ohio metros up 7.9% from 2019 to 2021. So the median pay in this area is $6,061 a month. Which equals $72,700 a year. It’s the only Ohio city above the national average of 6.8%. Cincinnati came in at 5%.
Uh, Columbus came in at 4.8%, although their medians. Salaries in these two cities were slightly higher than Cleveland, but on the low end in salary growth, which is the lowest 5% of wage earners, national average being 10.4%, which is about $1,600 a month. Cleveland came in at 11%, $1,850 a month. Um, although that’s the lowest growth in Ohio because Columbus had 13.1% [00:26:00] and Cincinnati had 16.7%.
So yeah, interesting that we. I don’t even know how to explain that. Yeah. Maybe the salaries were solo or I
Chris: don’t know. yeah, maybe it’s just, it was the recovery because of, uh, how things are going, but it’s a, it’s a good sign. Of course inflation’s now is eating up all that wage growth, but, uh, at least it was heartening to see that we were doing quite well compare.
You just don’t expect us to, to be a leader in the state because we’ve been kind of more abundant. But we are it’s today in Ohio for weeks, we’ve been told Jalen Walker was shot. As many as 60 times, we finally have specificity from the autopsy and Courtney, it’s still a big number.
Courtney: Yeah. The summit county medicals examiner’s office found that Jalen Walker suffered.
45 gunshot entrance wounds. So just bullets entering the body. He also had five grays wounds. Can’t say exactly how many times [00:27:00] he was shot, because one bullet can cause multiple like entrance wounds, grays wounds, you imagine something going in your arm and then going through and going into your side. It doesn’t give you a one for one count, but they ultimately found 20.
Bullets in Walker’s body and 15 that had traveled completely in. And then now.
Chris: Yeah. And, and you, you’re hoping that the investigation shows how many times he might have been shot after he was down, because that that’s become a big question is once he’s down, why did they keep firing? It’s still an extraordinary number of times to be shot, uh, which is why this has been one of the more sensitive issues of Northeast Ohio this year.
Uh, the autopsy provided some, some basic answers. We’re gonna have to look to the investigation for. The full details. Yeah.
Courtney: You know, we did learn from the autopsy that Jaylen Walker died from blood loss. The, the doctors couldn’t determine whether one bullet [00:28:00] versus another was, you know, the fatal shot. Uh, they did find that several of his vital organs were hit.
They also found, you know, this is part of the regular autopsy practice. Um, no drugs or alcohol was in Walker system at the time of his death. You know, I thought it was very interesting in the story here. Though that, that the, the medical examiner’s office down there did not conduct a gunshot residue test to try and verify that account from police.
Police say that he fired a gun at them while he was driving away from them as part of that car chase. But the medical examiner’s office, apparently doesn’t conduct gunshot residue tests. It stopped doing so in 2016, because the accuracy of those tests came into question. So. It seems like we may not get an answer from this office about.
whether they found evidence on his hands, whether he shot a gun at police or not.
Chris: But if you’re shot 40 times, there’s probably a good chance you have gunshot residue all over your [00:29:00] body. And so I I’d never heard that those tests were unreliable. I, I miss that, that, that, that had become a trend. I thought they still did them.
Yeah. But if, if they are questionable, then. Then it’s probably a good idea not to look, they’ll be able to see whether the gun was fired. They’ll be able to see if there was a round missing. There’s some other things they can do, but I, I like you was surprised by that. I had not realized that was no longer a valid test.
Oh, you’re listening to today at Ohio and Layla. We’re not gonna get to the draft question, which is probably good, cuz it rained a lot. No, and it’s
Lisa: still raining.
Chris: It’s raining. So there you go. That’s it for today. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you Courtney. Thank you Layla. Thanks to everybody. Listen to this podcast.