By: Daiyu Tang
Over the few years that I have been studying here as I look to graduate with a degree in journalism, there has been a constant thrum in the background of this city. The noise beating through our pulses is that of anger. A deep current of resentment for the many documented crimes caused by the Hathian Police Department (‘HPD’). The Observer has been part of this narrative, reporting on crimes, carrying out interviews and trying to find the truth. We’ve investigated corrupt cops. Seen brutality in jail cells and impunity. Sometimes we’ve seen the brutality against the officers themselves; the Ouroboros in Hathian that pushes down the good and surfaces the bad in order to survive. We’ve done our journalism and in small measure, perhaps some good has occurred.
Citizens are used to the annual ‘HPD Protest’ (which invariably descends into a riot) and they are also used to various promises being made by protest leaders that to a greater or lesser extent lead to nothing. Sometimes the leaders even leave their ‘troops’ in the lurch (and usually the range of the tear gas).
So if this story is a ‘tale as old as time’, then why is the Observer leading with it? Well, the article isn’t to reprosecute the HPD’s apparent crimes, although of course the Observer will still carry such stories if they are evidenced based. It is however to highlight how through a tight-knit little community in another large Hathian Organisation crimes are permitted, facilitated and perhaps even benefited from.
Imaging all the Corpses
Imagine that for years that your organisation has benefited from funding (private and public), large amounts of sympathy (for crimes done unto your people and property) and is trusted, mostly, to get close and intimate with your nearest and dearest. Imagine as a leader, you had been rehabilitated in public through generous public relations and a willingness to forgive and support after trauma and that even when things go wrong, usually people accepted it as a one-off.
Yes, clearly I write about the Hathian General Hospital (‘HGH’) although unlike perhaps the HPD, these pen-strokes do not tarnish the majority of staff there from orderlies through nurses and doctors. Mayhap there are some bad apples, surely we’ve carried a few such stories and perhaps there are even little plots and illicit activities that have been whispered to us… But it is not those that cross the line, nor is it Maja and her junk articles.
Put simply the ultimate leader of the HGH, Dr. Simon le Marchand and his crony supporters in certain parts of the loud (but irrelevant) social media space are convinced that nothing can be done (despite it being within his gift) to prevent abuses inflicted on the wider Hathian Community by one of his staff.
Imagine dear reader… Imagine this headline “HPD Officer Brutally Murders Student” and then imagine that the same officer had had headline after headline about their murderous ways, month after month. Would you trust them as your employee? Would you, if you were their boss, defend them? Perhaps if you were the HPD… but isn’t HGH meant to ‘be different’? Isn’t the HGH a place where criminals aren’t harboured openly in the ranks?
“But they’ve served their time!”
“But being employed is a way to keep them out of trouble”
“But I’ve seen them do better”!
“But everyone criticising them is biased”
“But.. But… But….”
But What?
I didn’t know that in Hathian that murdering a student meant that a few short weeks later you had ‘done your time’ and were ready to be readmitted as a rehabilitated member of society. I didn’t know that being caught drunk and on drugs in public meant you were a ‘safe pair of hands’. I didn’t know that multiple article after article (with evidence and photographs) meant that you had ‘learned your lesson’. I didn’t know that you can hide behind governance about this and that but ultimately, morally, be the same as Captain Heckler – defending the indefensible.
The only lesson one learns surely (and I’ve personally tried to help the individual with my own time and money to get better) is that such an arrangement; a murderous and unstable ‘medical examiner’ is of some benefit to the HGH, via Simon, and perhaps a few others.
But what deals will we find between HGH and the Backwaters Clinic – where need we remind our readers abused corpses floated out in the last storm, or where the individual rented out their basement for torture.
But what agreements will we find between Dr. Le Marchand and his Chief Medical Examiner with regards to bodies and body parts?
But what horrors will we find on the Dark Web where Hathian is known to have an organ trade and worse.
But who will we find behind all of this?
Dear reader, ask yourself. The tool is damaged and dangerous, it hurts you when it is meant to help you. You’d throw it out right? But what if that tool was damaged and dangerous but instead of hurting you, it is useful and able to be used to hurt others or enable your base instincts? Perhaps, if you were that kind of leader, in this kind of city, you’d keep it in the toolbox and do everything to deflect, deny, discourage and defend?
The Observer will be reaching out to certain groups, including those who provide repeated charity funding to the HGH to ask them – aren’t there more worthy causes to fund than one where from the very top, no serious effort to redeem or remove a threat is made? I believe I am personally justified in saying that it appears I made more of an effort than I’ve seen from the HGH and that effort blew up in my face, but at least I tried – going out of my way, using what I had (and more) to try and help. Did Simon offer his Medical Examiner an apartment to get things back together and support to get clean personally? No, he offered her a morgue and mortuary and drugs, keeping her dependent on his largesse. He was too busy to be at the street level to try and help.
This editor’s advice? Go Private (and by that in this crazy health system we have, it means, use a doctor you trust in a place of safety).
The Observer’s Evidence (selection)
- November 2024 – Murdering a Student
- July 2024 – Attempted murder
- April 2024 – Let’s Open a TCM Shop... AND THEN MURDERING PEOPLE IN IT…
- November 2023 – How many bodies can be kept under the floor?
- September 2023 – Let the bodies flow (out of the door)
“A difference of opinion about Dr. Alice Crow and her continuing role at HGH. She wished me to fire her. I preferred to show Alice compassion. Mental illness is a disease to be treated, not a shameful secret to be stigmatized. I still stand by my decision to this day, to keep Dr Crow on staff and more than that. To promote her to Chief Medical Examiner for Hathian and now, for the entire region. I understand that Alice tended to act out and… attack HPD officers. Now that she has returned to the Laveau Clinic as its Director, perhaps having her out of their jurisdiction will help keep them apart. If they end up under her knife again? That’s on them.” – Source
