By Joe Rogalsky,
Delaware State News
DOVER - Late in last year's gubernatorial campaign, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner ran a radio commercial asserting she made the call to shoot an inmate who had taken a prisoner counselor hostage at the Delaware Correctional Center.
Two reports of the incident indicate the governor had no say in the decision, however.
Convicted rapist Scott A. Miller took counselor Cassandra Arnold hostage inside the prison near Smyrna for nearly seven hours on July 12.
Miller raped her before a correctional officer shot and killed him.
Gov. Minner's response turned into a major campaign issue after she defended the Department of Correction in a July 17 Delaware State News article by saying "in prisons, you almost expect this to happen."
The campaign ad, which began airing Oct. 21, said "as governor, Ruth Ann Minner had to make the difficult decision of how to disarm the hostage taker."
Gov. Minner, a Democrat, appointed a task force in October to investigate the incident and make recommendations.
The panel, in its report dated Feb. 14, said Gov. Minner and her staff were kept informed of the situation, but she was not part of the decision making.
"The Task Force found no evidence that the governor or anyone from her office ordered the use of deadly force or otherwise interfered with the decisions being made by the Command Center," the report said.
The federal National Institute of Corrections, in its findings dated Feb. 7, reached a similar conclusion.
"There is no indication there was any interference or attempts to control or influence from other state agencies or from elected or appointed officials," the NIC report said.
Gov. Minner had no comment on the discrepancies between the reports and her campaign ad, said her spokesman Gregory B. Patterson, who served as the governor's campaign manager.
The governor discussed the issue during the campaign and answered questions then, Mr. Patterson said Friday.
Mr. Patterson added that the information in the ad was based on the fact that the Department of Correction's command center had been in contact with the governor, her legal counsel Joseph C. Schoell and himself throughout the incident.
Mr. Patterson was serving as the governor's communications director at the time of the incident. He had not yet taken leave to run the re-election campaign.
The 30-second spot marked the first time Gov. Minner publicly discussed her role in the incident.
When interviewed in October by the Delaware State News about the ad, Gov. Minner did not directly answer whether the decision of how to disarm Miller was a judgment she made and then passed on to a command center established in the Department of Correction warden's office during the July 12 incident.
When asked by the State News if she had made the decision, Gov. Minner repeated several times that she "approved'" decisions made by Commissioner of Correction Stanley W. Taylor that day.
"As I have stated in the past, I had ongoing communications with the commissioner and approved his decisions that day," she said in an Oct. 22 article.
"I knew that (Mr. Taylor) was following procedures and I approved his decisions that day."
David Crossan, executive director of the Delaware Republican Party, chastised Gov. Minner for the apparent inconsistencies.
"With Ruth Ann Minner, you have to expect this to happen," he said.
"This is not the first issue where she has flip-flopped and talked out of both sides of her mouth."
Also during the campaign, Gov. Minner consistently put off calls to eliminate the three-tiered high school diploma system until a panel of non-Delaware experts finished reviewing the state's education system.
The panel's report, which came out last month, contained no findings about the diploma system's merits.
Elected officials and other policymakers should decide the diploma issue, the report said.
Staff writer Joe Rogalsky can be reached at 741-8226 or jrogalsky@newszap.com.
Reprinted with permission from newszap.com www.newszap.com
