Michael kenneth McAlister

Michael Kenneth McAlister is well known due to the fact that he was sent to prison for 30 years when, actually the real criminal was still out there, free.


A young South Richmond woman was sexually abused and at the moment of the crime, she was able to pull up the plaid-shirted attacker’s stocking mask and get a look at his lower face and she was able to detect some facial characteristics of her rapist. She went to the police station and made complaint about it. The police officers made her identify the aggressor by the eyewitness method. She was not at all sure of which one was his aggressor, and she stayed 45 minutes in order to barely "recognize" him. After this period of time, she decided that McAlister´s face was the one which she saw. It must be clarified that McAlister was dressed in the picture as the way she described the aggressor, the same type of t-shirt. It could be inferred that this was one of the reasons of the wrongful eyewitness. And furthermore, the police officers told the abused girl that it was their main suspect, and this made her even more confident about her decision.




The McAlister family tried it's best to actually show that Michael was innocent, until 29 years
later, when his one-time lookalike, serial rapist Norman Bruce Derr confessed. 

Police photos of Michael Kenneth McAlister (left) and Norman Bruce Derr that were used in McAlister's 1986 trial.

In granting the pardon, McAuliffe, the governor, said, “My staff and I have carefully and thoroughly reviewed the documentation in this case and concluded that a pardon is appropriate in light of the overwhelming evidence, including a recent confession by another individual, pointing to Mr. McAlister’s actual innocence of the crime for which he was convicted."

Mitigación

Mitigación es el esfuerzo por reducir la pérdida de vida y propiedad reduciendo el impacto de los desastres. La mitigación se logra tomando acción  ahora – antes de que azote el próximo desastre – para así disminuir los daños por desastre, reconstrucción y daños repetidos. Para que los esfuerzos de mitigación sean exitosos, es importante que todos estemos informados sobre los riesgos que podrían afectar nuestra área y tomemos las medidas necesarias para protegernos.  

Algunas medidas podrían ser :

1 )Eliminación de una fuente contaminante :si se trata de residuos tóxicos se retirarán los mismos y si es un relleno contaminante se procederá a aislarlo.

2 )Limpieza del terreno contaminado para llevarlo a niveles no tóxicos

3)Tratamiento de aguas contaminadas : extrayendo contaminantes bacteriológicos , inorgánicos o de tipo hidrocarburíferos.

Todos podemos desde nuestro lugar fomentar hechos que promuevan la mitigación del daño ambiental en distintos aspectos ya sean hidrológicos(inundaciones ) , geológicos (sismos) o fortuitos como es el caso de los incendios.