An interesting example of distorting story...

[Slargos]

I don't need to be intimately aware of his actions to consider the spin on the reporting of the events described in this thread an abomination.

Whether he's an asshole or not, deliberate lies in newsreporting is on my short-list of crimes deserving of capital punishment.

I already stated that I think the reporter is a jackass.  I don't think being maligned by journalists makes you a better person.

In my experience, it increases the odds of the maligned being a good person. 

[grumbler]

So in the Sheriff Arpaio thread, someone asked for an example of his assholeness. I was reading the wiki article on the guy, looking for a particularly tasty example, and found this... 

An excellent example of why I consider any citation from Wikipedia to be an nattempt to disguise the fact that there are not real sources for the info.

But the gist of this is that the actual story is that some sheriffs officers went to the clerk, obtained some records, and were copying them when the reporter showed up and began demanding that he be given the documents so he could see what they were doing. The deputies pretty much told him that if he wanted the documents, he would need to obtain them from the city clerk, not from them, and if he attempted to take them from them, he would be arrested. Entire thing turns into a huge mess, of course.

But look how it was reported, at least in wiki. The wiki article makes it seems like the opposite occurred - that the reporter wanted to get documents from the clerk, and the deputies threatened to arrest him if he did - which is clearly (even giving some skepticism towards the police officials story being incomplete as well) complete bullshit. In fact, the deputies, as they finished their work, handed the documents to the clerk who then turned around and handed them to the reporter - which of course he wasn't actually interested in.

The article is not technically an outright lie. They did in fact threaten to arrest him if he touched the documents that he technically had a right to see - just didn't have a right to take them from the people who were looking at them at that particular moment.

The IA captain who wrote this report strikes me as being unprofessional to the point of incompetence himself.  Stuff like "I warned Stern that there was only way to find out for sure if we would arrest him" is assholish and provocative.  Further, he himself admits that he was out of control; he describes himself as "completely incensed," "appalled," infuriated," and goes on to speculate about conspiracies involving the city attorney and the Phoenix police.

I don't see any evidence that Stern was a bad actor in this, but see plenty that the Sheriff's Department needs a new Director of Internal Affairs.

[garbon]

In my experience, it increases the odds of the maligned being a good person. 

[Berkut]

I think there is plenty of evidence that they were both assholes, myself.

And a little further digging makes it pretty clear there is something of a pissing match going on between them. Certainly no question that the Maricopa County Sheriffs department is a bloody mess though. And that coems stright from the top. I bet Sheriff Joe thinks this guy is a chip off the old block, just the kind of guy he needs working for him.

[grumbler]

I think there is plenty of evidence that they were both assholes, myself.

As a matter of curiosity, what evidence do you have that Sterns is an asshole?  That he wouldn't pay the 50 cents per page copy fee that the law firm argued (falsely) was the only way he could legally obtain copies of the documents?

It is interesting that it was the County Sheriffs, and not the city police, that served him with a citation for misconduct, even though they (of course) were not present when the crime allegedly occurred.  I would have thought the crime to come within the jurisdiction of the city police.

Now, i am not saying that Sterns is NOT an asshole.  I am simply arguing that the old "pox on both your houses" argument, while trendy, seems supported in this case only by the fact that one side is pretty clearly full of assholes.  Stern should not be condemned only out of a desire for symmetry.

[grumbler]

I don't need to be intimately aware of his actions to consider the spin on the reporting of the events described in this thread an abomination.

Whether he's an asshole or not, deliberate lies in newsreporting is on my short-list of crimes deserving of capital punishment.

Dude, Wikipedia article writing is not news reporting!  I think the common lumping of members of the news media with wiki article authors is falsely smearing the reputations of both groups.  Wikipedia is much more like blogs than like news media.

[Berkut]

Pfft, you know me - I have no desire for symmetry - in fact, I started this off with the presumption that the sheriffs were the assholes, and Sterns was the victim.

But the memo from the sheriff is pretty compelling, even assuming it is one-sided. It does sound liek Sterns pretty much was looking to pick a fight with them. Perhaps that is not the case, but I haven't really seen anything to disabuse me of that notion.

Certainly the BS about the law offices was pretty bogus as well - although again, are we seeing the entire story? I don't know.

[Slargos]

I don't need to be intimately aware of his actions to consider the spin on the reporting of the events described in this thread an abomination.

Whether he's an asshole or not, deliberate lies in newsreporting is on my short-list of crimes deserving of capital punishment.

Dude, Wikipedia article writing is not news reporting!  I think the common lumping of members of the news media with wiki article authors is falsely smearing the reputations of both groups.  Wikipedia is much more like blogs than like news media.

I understood this to be a case of news reporting in a newspaper. If it wasn't, I was mistaken. 

[grumbler]

But the memo from the sheriff is pretty compelling, even assuming it is one-sided. It does sound liek Sterns pretty much was looking to pick a fight with them. Perhaps that is not the case, but I haven't really seen anything to disabuse me of that notion.

I found it the opposite of compelling.  The statement that Captain Miller said was "belligerent and combative" was, by Miller's own testimony, "get me a chair, because I am not going anywhere."  In fact, search through the memo, and you will see that every direct quote or citation of fact that could be observed by others is, in fact, pretty innocuous.  All of the nefarious assholiness Miller cites is purely in his own mind and perception.  While he clearly wants to leave the image of Sterns as an asshole, he is too smart a cop to perjure himself in the memo, so he restricts all of the bile to his own perceptions of what is happening and what he claims Stern intended. 

He also leaves out the names of every individual involved, except the Sheriff's Deputies and Stern.  That tells me right there that he is bullshitting his ass off.  What kind of police report leaves out those kinds of details?  One intended only for public consumption, where the names would be redacted anyway.  Why leave the name of Sterns in there but not name his fellow-conspirators?  Because those "fellow conspirators" would have sued Miller's ass off for false allegations, that's why! 

As it stands, there is nothing in that memo that could be disproven by direct testimony by anyone except Miller, but there also is nothing in there at all that actually documents assholish behavior on Stern's part.

Certainly the BS about the law offices was pretty bogus as well - although again, are we seeing the entire story? I don't know.

Dunno, but the story that convinced garbon he was an asshole looked to me to be showing the reverse.  It is fascinating to me that the firm the county chose to unveil the public documents was the very firm that had been fired for (essentially) malfeasance after being hired to investigate the New Times the previous year!

So, again, Stern might be an asshole, but I don't see that there is compelling evidence of it.

[grumbler]

I understood this to be a case of news reporting in a newspaper. If it wasn't, I was mistaken.

Nope.  It is a wiki article which supposedly relates the story told in a newspaper, combined with the story told in the Capt Miller memo.

The actual newspaper story is no longer available, as far as I can tell.

[Berkut]

Fair enough, although the document in question, IIRC, was an internal memo, not a police report.

On second thought, assuming that the assholosity is almost entirely on the part of the Maricopa County Sheriffs office, until proven otherwise by some other source, is probably the statistically safer bet.

[grumbler]

Fair enough, although the document in question, IIRC, was an internal memo, not a police report.

Understood, but if I were the boss and I got a memo this vague, I'd wonder what the sender was hiding.  Unless, of course, I had asked him to send it to me without any names but those of the SO personnel and Stern, because I was going to publish it.

If you look at it, the main theme is supposed to be that the Phoenix police stabbed the Sheriff's Office in the back over this one, and yet not one of the stabbers is named.  Et tu, Commander Brutus?  Why mention Stern by name at all if what you are trying to do is warn your boss that the Sheriff's Office is gonna have to avoid counting on the PPD for anything?