Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Lawsuit filed vs. police, Enquirer
Here is the Enquirer's version of the story on the lawsuit filed against them. This paints a significantly bigger picture of the lawsuit. The passages they quoted have Ken Lawson written all over it. I think the conspiracy has fewer legs on it than Mr. Lawson is stating. 5 police officers have been named as John Doe defendants, meaning they are believed to be real people, but their identity is unknown to the plaintiff. The claims against the Enquirer are outlandish. They are overstated and what could be considered bigoted. I think that if Mr. Williams III wanted to get Lt. Col. Twitty's job, I don't think he is going to do himself any favors by suing the organization he apparently has interest in joining.

I see this as a case of bad reporting. Ms. Prendergast had reported on Deangelo Williams in a story from last year, where Deangelo Williams got into a heavy shootout with police. A year later this guy is on the street getting arrested again, a whole different issue. Ms. Prendergast also could have been confused with the fact that there are 2 other Clarence Williams listed with drug offenses on the courtclerk.org website, both of whom are college age (20 and 21).

It will be interesting how this lawsuit progresses. I am more inclined to have the Enquirer fight it. At this point there are no documents listed on the court clerk's website giving any more details than in the papers. If I were the Enquirer, Ken Lawson would be in my editorial sites. There may be something to individuals in the police department knowingly giving the Enquirer bad information, but the Enquirer would not print what it new to be false, no matter what its detractors might think. They may have just been lazy, and need to fire either the reporter for not researching or a staffer for not doing the research.

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