We all share responsibility for failing the Dawson family

JUST PAY IT.

That's what Baltimore officials should do with the $14 million the surviving members of the Dawson family are demanding because, in essence, the city failed them. Just pay every penny of it and try not to fail anybody else as woefully as we failed Angela Dawson, her husband, Carnell Dawson, and their five children.

This week, surviving members of the Dawson family filed a lawsuit that named as defendants a host of people: Mayor Martin O'Malley; members of the City Council; the Police Department; former police Commissioner Edward T. Norris and acting Commissioner Leonard Hamm; State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy; one of her assistants; police officers yet to be named; and the governor, although it's unclear whether that means former Gov. Parris N. Glendening or current Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

Ehrlich was only running for the office on Oct. 16, 2002, the day Darrell Brooks set fire to the Dawsons' home and killed seven people. It was Glendening who was in the governor's mansion and who should be named as a defendant. But the folks named in the suit shouldn't take this weight alone. In a way, didn't we all fail the Dawsons?