McDade Pressures Morrogh To Publically Acknowledge Prosecutors Are Reviewing The Cornejo Shooting
Under pressure from Patrick McDade, the Republican nominee for Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney, the Democratic nominee Ray Morrogh was finally forced to comment publicly on the status of the controversial 2005 shooting death of Falls Church City resident Steve Cornejo.
In the most heated exchange of an extensive debate that lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes, Morrogh at once shook his finger at and belittled McDade as a "rookie" for questioning the decision of the original grand jury to issue a no bill of indictment and then quickly contradicted his own criticism by acknowledging that he is, in fact, actively reviewing the grand jury charging decision in the Cornejo case
The debate was held in Reston and the video can be found at McDade - Morrogh Debate. The confrontation occurs in the tape beginning at 59:30. Previous posts and links to additional coverage of the Cornejo killing can be found here.
Morrogh has refused for nearly two years to provide any information to the the Cornejo family, the Falls Church City Attorney, the Falls Church Mayor, Fairfax Chairman Connolly, or to any citizen making inquiries about the shooting, subsequent investigation, and the fusillade of evidence and anecdotes which have emerged since former CA Bob Horan opted to "punt" on his normal practice of a CAO indictment in shooting deaths and instead allowed a investigator to present the case to a grand jury for indictment without any recommendation for indictment from the CAO. The CAO had maintained Cornejo was killed in a so-called "Good Samaritan" killing where a civilian brought a concealed weapon to intervene in a domestic dispute and ended up "accidentally" shooting the unarmed Cornejo in the back after Cornejo pleaded for the shooter to spare his life.
Red faced. Shaking his finger dismissively at a fellow prosecutor. Belittling Arlington prosecutor Patrick McDade as a "junior" and "rookie" who ran the "slide projector" for other prosecutors, Morrogh sneered in dismissing the "politicized" requests of Chairman Connolly and Mayor Gardner to review the circumstances of the Cornejo shooting and provide a status of the case. Morrogh paused just long enough in his condescending attack on public officials to remember to ask for your vote to make him the next publicly elected prosecutor in Fairfax County.
He must think we are all idiots.
The Commonwealth Attorney is a public official for a reason. The public officials, particularly the Democratic public officials, have gone out of their way to assist in dealing with the bungled Cornejo case quietly without politicizing the tragedy. Everyone involved has asked only for a complete investigation, a rational charging decision to be made, and some communication about the status to the community torn apart by the events of that night two years ago. No more, no less. There is no doubt that if it had not been for the persistence of the public questions surrounding the death of a popular Falls Church resident, the death of Steve Cornejo would have been long ago forgotten by the Fairfax CAO.
To the extent the Cornejo case has become a symbol of bigger mismanagement, or a dangerous insular arrogance, of the Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney's Office ... it's Morrogh's own fault.
