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Mike Riggs on How Facebook Helped a Small Town Fight Back Against a Crooked Cop

Reason Staff | 6.27.2012 1:30 PM

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Fifty-four-year-old Patricia Cook was shot to death on February 9 just outside a church parking lot in Culpeper, Virginia. The first two rounds, fired at point-blank range, tore into Cook's face and arm. Another round, fired as Cook was driving away from the shooter, entered her brain. A fourth round severed her spine and veered into her heart, killing her. The man who shot her was a police officer, yet for three months, no one in the town of Culpeper knew why he did it, or what steps the city was taking to find out. One Culpeper resident used Facebook to start a media firestorm around the case, writes Mike Riggs. It just may reform Culpeper government. 

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