MARYLAND
The Baltimore Brew
“She said she thought she had hit a bicyclist and was in shock,” priest says of Bishop Cook’s reaction to fatal crash
Fern Shen and Mark Reutter January 6, 2015
BUCKEYSTOWN, MD. – At a closed-door meeting today at a retreat center, officials of the Maryland Episcopal Diocese gave rank-and-file clergy an account of some of the events that followed Suffragan Bishop Heather Cook’s fatal car crash with bicyclist Tom Palermo.
According to a statement released after the meeting, Cook, the diocese’s No. 2 official, remains on administrative leave, “receiving pay and benefits in accordance with standard denominational practice.”
The release did not disclose any of her statements to police following the December 27 crash, or whether there was any evidence of intoxication or other impairment by the bishop, or whether she underwent a breathalyzer test, or why she left the scene of the accident for 20 minutes or longer and then returned.
(Cook was arrested in 2010 on DUI and drug possession charges while serving in the Diocese of Easton on the Eastern Shore.)
Compassion and Disappointment
Diocesan Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton opened the meeting with a prayer from First Corinthians and then turned the 2½-hour session over to a facilitator from Loyola University.
The overwhelming sentiment of the meeting was compassion for the Palermo family, which includes a wife and two young children, a church spokesman said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.