Justin Cosby, a Cambridge resident and suspected pot dealer, was fatally wounded on May 18th during what police believe was a robbery gone awry. He was shot in the stomach in Kirkland House, a university dormitory, but he managed to run out into the street before collapsing. He died several hours later in the hospital.

Jordan Copney, a professional songwriter from New York, has been charged with his murder, the Times of London reports. It is believed that Copney targeted Cosby because he was carrying a large stash of marijuana and $1,000 in cash. Copney allegedly knew Cosby through two girls who attended Harvard: his girlfriend, and her close friend, Campbell. Police say that Cosby sold drugs to the Harvard students, including the two girls reportedly involved in the shooting.

Prosecutors believe that Cosby was "visiting friends on the campus" when he was confronted by Copney, who had traveled to campus with the express purpose of robbing Cosby. It is unknown how Copney gained access to the dormitory, but police believe that Campbell loaned him her security pass, an allegation that Campbell thoroughly denies. Once Copney was in the building, he approached Cosby, and "during the course of the confrontation, multiple shots were fired. One of those shots struck Cosby, resulting in his death."

The Boston Globe reports that although Campbell admits that she knew Copney through his girlfriend, she maintains that she was not involved in the murder in any way. Campbell claims she was taking a final when the alleged robbery occurred, and she never lent her security pass to Copney. She also makes the distinction that she lives in Kirkland annex, not Kirkland House, which is where the shooting took place. "I have no knowledge of anything that happened, none whatsoever," Campbell said. However, Harvard has taken action against Campbell, banning her from campus and barring her from participating in graduation.

Campbell has publicly stated that she believes she is the victim of racism:

Asked why she believes Harvard administrators took the actions they did, she said she was not making an "overall claim of racism," but "I do believe I am being singled out. . . . The honest answer to that is that I'm black and I'm poor and I'm from New York and I walk a certain way and I keep my clothes a certain way," she said. "It's something that labels me as different from everyone else."

Campbell's claims are not without precedent. Last month, Harvard held a panel to look into whether campus police unfairly stopped black students because of their race, reports the Associated Press - which also puts the percent of African-American, admitted students at 11%:

In 2004, police stopped and questioned a prominent black Harvard professor who matched a robbery suspect's description. Then, in 2007, police responding to noise complaints asked leaders of black student groups holding a field day on campus to show their Harvard IDs.

Last year, a black campus worker who lost his bicycle lock key said an officer drew a gun on him after he tried to cut the lock off.

The panel found that they needed to do more work in order to create a "welcoming environment at the school."

During a phone call monitored by her attorney, Campbell told the New York Post that she is "hurt and I'm confused, for me not to be graduating is frustrating." She also said that she had never seen Cosby before, and she doesn't know why she is the only one being asked to leave campus. "This is incredibly hurtful to know it's only me that has been kicked off campus," Campbell said. "I'm feeling I'm being scapegoated and I can't defend myself."

Campbell's lawyer, Jeffrey Karp, says that Harvard has not yet disclosed their reason for barring Campbell from graduating, but he hopes he will be able to work out a deal that will allow her to participate in the ceremony. "Harvard is being cold and callous," he said. "What they have done to Chanequa is equivalent to having your house foreclosed and losing your job on the same day."

Student Says Harvard Is Wrongly Linking Her To Campus Murder [Boston Globe]
Harvard Accused Of Racism After Expelling Student Over Campus Killing [Times]
Brooklyn Harvard Student Chenequa Campbell Barred From Campus During Murder Investigation [New York Post]
Black Harvard Student: Racism Part Of Campus Ban [AP]

For every classroom full of kids stunned by their first sounds of real gunfire — "It was like little explosions," one student said — there's a classroom way fuller of kids in a neighborhood that looks like something straight out of The Wire, and a support group full of soldiers' wives who can't get the Army to keep their husbands from beating them, folks for whom those "little explosions" are just like your buzzing refrigerator or whatever the soundtrack to everynight life. I know, I know, boring, but why oh why doesn't anyone ever bother the connection, even rhetorically? That when you can't make sense of an act of violence, let it remind you of those you can make sense of?

"No Red Flags" Before Campus Shooting [Washington Post]
Steve Kazmierczak Profile
When Strains On Military Families Turn Deadly [NY Times]

MOE: Ah, there you are! Keeping yourself "busy" hee hee?
MEGAN: Yeah, just reading this story about puppies and love and how kind of fucked up our government is.
MOE: ooooooooh Iraq puppies!!! Dammit I totally referenced another Iraq dogs story yesterday written by my ex housemate Yochi Dreazen, but now I can't find it!
Ok, question: how come I keep seeing polling data from Pennsylvania saying Clinton's winning HUGE there but I keep not, seeing polling data from Texas, which happens like a whole six weeks before? And why is she so popular in Ohio?
MEGAN: Wow, I even went to this site that links to every damn poll and there really isn't any data on Texas. That's too weird. Do people in Texas just refuse to talk to pollsters or something?
MOE: Uhhhhhh, that would. be like some weird Texas motto. No vibes is good vibes etc. etc.
I still can't believe they outlawed sex toys.
MEGAN: I dunno, sometimes men get jealous of sex toys? I have a friend who felt really awkward when his girlfriend brought one home, maybe the Texas legislature is just filled with really insecure men?
MOE: I mean, Virginia has a law banning "obscene items." It would be one thing to just go banning, like, those weird sucky things shaped exactly like vaginas, or vibrators shaped like massive schlongs, and other things that scare me. But for them to ban ALL SEX TOYS OUTRIGHT FOR EVER AND EVER...that has to violate some amendment with a number smaller than 14!
MEGAN: I think it's definitely violative of my religious freedoms. But, I do agree that male masturbatory aids are a little disturbing, like, is it really sexy to stick one's dick in a molded plastic vadge that one is holding?
MOE: You know what I never got for the longest time were the limp dicks. And then I realized they were for "packing." That has got to be a pretty niche industry. But let us go back to electoral politics since it's been like a whole day and
I love it when conservatives unleash their closet atheists on charismatic liberals. Also am I the only person who did not know Chuck Krauthammer was Canadian?
9:21 AM MEGAN: Krauthammer is Canadian?
9:22 AM MOE: Somehow? I would Nexis every column he's ever written on health care, but not bothering.
I'm going to put it out there that I had a few epiphanies last night!
9:23 AM One is that if Obama wins the nomination it means no boomers on the ballot.
9:24 AM MEGAN: Whoa.
If I had any last night, I forgot them when I sobered up.
But that's kind of mind-blowing.
MOE: No Boomers, who came into their political perspectives in an era so politically charged that it's almost possible to separate them from their visceral reactions to the sixties. Boomers, with the chief tension within all of their lives being the struggle between the weird youthful combination of idealism and hedonism and the cynical, realpolitik selloutathon that followed. None of their sixties hangups or seventies post traumatic crises. And like, that is a big relief. Because I actually think the opposition to Hillary had less to do with her being a woman than her being a Boomer, and the manifestation of all of the compromising under the guise of having it all or whatever. Actually I'm really hung over, but this idea made a lot of sense last night.
MEGAN: I'm pretty hung over, too, actually.
MOE: The thing was that Hillary came of age in an era that made her a Democrat. In any other era, it is very easy to see her rising to the Senate as a moderate Republican. But her peers shaped her political beliefs. And her peers did their part to shape the political beliefs of pretty much every other motherfucking member of that generation with the possible exception of clueless drunktards like the current occupant of the White House.
With Obama and McCain, on the other hand, their political coming of age was more their own. Independent, with their views shaped largely by their own, you know, "journeys."
Or whatever, by their fathers.
Their daddy issues.
MEGAN: When I'm drunk, my thoughts are things like "I'm hungry" and "He's cute." Maybe I need to start drinking different things to achieve your level of thought.
MOE: Oh haha these are thoughts I had before I got drunk.
Actually they are thoughts I had when I called my mom.
MEGAN: Phew, I feel totally better now. Well, except for the fact that I didn't call my mothers.
MOE: the story about the Kuciniches reminded me grossly enough of my parents.
MEGAN: I have no response to that.
MOE: And so I called them, and my mom informed me happily that she saw sooooo many black people at our polling place ("I've never seen a black person at that polling place!") that she felt like Obama was safe and that she could vote for McCain and keep Huckabee at bay.
It was also a decision, she confided, that had been informed by some recent PBS special on Karl Rove.
"Such a sinister figure."
But anyway both she and my dad for the first time, were like, soooo excited in a happy way to talk about politics. so excited about the possibilities!
And it was just like, wow, you know what? We finally have the distinct possibility of an election in which the MOTHERFUCKING SIXTIES IS NOT ON TRIAL.
THANK YOU ALLAH.
MEGAN: Or, maybe, one in which voter turnout is higher than 40 percent? Because that would be equally cool.
MOE: What is more, one in which both Rush Limbaugh and Al Sharpton have been rendered irrelevantish!
MEGAN: That, too, would be cause for celebration. Al should've endorsed sooner.
MOE: No shit! PUSSY.
Oh wait, so amidst all the hopes and dreams and shit.
Yesterday's campus shooter was a sociology major. With "very good marks." WTF.
MEGAN: I was a Sociology major and got really good grades. I agree that those are irrelevant facts to the question of why he walked into a geology lecture and shot the place up.
But, apparently, the school won't confirm his name to the hordes of press that have descended, so they have to write something.
MOE: You know who else was a sociology major was that weird feminist turned misogynist law student. But blah blah digress. Anyway, I think we can all agree that school shootings are terrible and confusing and you never seem to find out enough about them until another one happens and you google "what the hell ever happened with so-and-so school shooting", only hopefully with better search terms, and then you either learn some heartbreaking twisted story of some kid who was just depressed and lost and made insane by his surroundings, or a total psychopath. Oh FUCK the hangover is setitng in. Um...
I think I should probably bring up Daniel Ortega's endorsement of Barry Obama
Yesterday Hunter Walker and I were IM-ing (sober) about the impact of Obama vs. McCain on foreign policy etc.
Both spent some formative years in Southeast Asia!
HW thinks McCain is completely a creature of PTSD, which is totes true!
But whatever, ORTEGA. Makes me want to listen to the Clash.
MEGAN: I saw the Ortega thing, which I'm sure will sit TOTALLY well with conservative voters. He's like, Messican or something, right?

MOE: Oh! Go to mccainblogette.com and react to the hot or notness of Megan mccain's brother would you dear?
MEGAN: At first I looked and went, eh, a little fratty and blonde for my taste and then I read this: "I speak broken Farsi, Japanese, Spanish and some Afrikaans" and swooned.
Also, he loves cooking and is a published poet. I'm guessing that he's single, and hoping cute girls read his sister's blog.
MOE: He's totes not my type but he also seems sweet and harmless and openminded and uh also in the naval academy!
Do you think John McCain would be a democrat if not for his PTSD?
I guess only GOD can know for sure!!
But we have to read those two fathers books. Yesterday I totally tried to order the McCain one when I was drunk. I hope I failed.
MEGAN: I think he'd probably be more Republican-y if not for the PTSD and opposition to torture and stuff.
MOE" Oh see, that's where Hunter Walker's theory is interesting.
Hunter (in his infinite 22 year old wisdom) thinks that McCain's PTSD is the reason he is such a hawk.
MEGAN" See, if he'd switched from being a Dem or something, I might buy that. But, since his hawkishness survived a POW camp, I'm sticking with his maverickishness comes from the PTSD.