Editorial cartoon

To protect and to swerve

December 12, 2022 12:02 am

Virginia State Police are refusing to release 247 pages of personnel records on the 15 months former trooper Austin Lee Edwards spent with the agency. According to authorities, Edwards “catfished” a 15-year-old California girl online before traveling to the state, where he killed three people and died by suicide in a shootout with police. (Political cartoon by John Cole)

From The Virginia Mercury: “Virginia State Police acknowledged “human error” caused them to miss a violent incident in the past of a former state trooper who killed three people in California last month, but the agency is refusing to release 247 pages of personnel records that could shed more light on his time as a state employee.”

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John Cole

John Cole's political cartoons on Virginia government and politics appear on the Virginia Mercury on Fridays. He is currently the staff cartoonist for the editorial pages of The Times-Tribune in Scranton, PA. Prior to this, he enjoyed a nearly 20-year run with The Herald-Sun in Durham, NC, where he developed an affection for the state, its people and its politics. His award-winning work is internationally syndicated by Cagle Cartoons.