Md. Episcopal Bishop Speaks Out About Fatal Hit-and-Run

CBS DC
January 14, 2015

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/01/14/md-episcopal-bishop-speaks-out-about-fatal-hit-and-run/

A memorial on Roland Ave. in Baltimore, Maryland, December 29, 2014, where a cyclist was struck and killed December 27th. The first female Episcopal bishop in Maryland has been put on leave after she was involved in the hit-and-run death of the cyclist, her diocese said Monday. Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook drove off after she struck 41-year-old Tom Palermo on a tree-lined residential street in Baltimore on December 27, then drove off. She returned to the scene about 20 minutes later “to take responsibility for her actions,” Diocesan Bishop Eugene Sutton said in a statement Monday. “Because the nature of the accident could result in criminal charges, I have placed Bishop Cook on administrative leave, effective immediately,” Sutton said.

BALTIMORE — The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland’s top bishop says the church is filled with anger, bitterness and pain after a fatal hit-and-run crash involving the diocese’s No. 2 leader.

In a letter posted online Tuesday, the Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton says “there are still too many questions for which there are no easy answers.”

Sutton says he and diocese leaders will explore what they could have done better and learn to accept what they couldn’t have done better. He says they’ll explore ways to address addiction in the church and how to support the cycling community.

Bishop Heather Cook was charged with manslaughter, DUI, texting and leaving an accident scene in a hit-and-run crash that killed 41-year-old bicyclist and father of two Tom Palermo in Baltimore on Dec. 27.