BTW what was last years libel suit? The Buckingham Garrett thing??

Yup—that’s the one.

If I knew anything that was a “fact” I would most likely send an email direct to you. Or if I was incensed enough to say it was fact on a number of threads. And I think if I knew and said it was fact on the hook thread I would’ve been deleted by Moderator.

But I don’t know that the commentors on the Hook site didn’t do similar things (meaning using words like rumor or alleged- or saying I work for the PD and this is what happened).

As I read through the Hook comments… and almost everything that referenced sexual misconduct was deleted. Only a hand full of comments (both on the Hook site and the NBC29 comment site-also heavily edited/deleted) provided enough information to string the info together to provide the narrative as I did in my first post.

BTW what was last years libel suit? The Buckingham Garrett thing??

Luckily, the conversation here has been informative without edging into anything close to libel, at least to my eye. Well, it’s not fair to say “luckily”—y’all aren’t lucky, you’re smart. :)

No doubt C-Ville and The Hook are willing to take this on, but nobody else is going to touch it.

I seriously doubt it- at least with regards to “The Hook”. The thread on this topic on the Hook’s website contains an unusually high number of “Deleted By Moderator” in the comments section. They also appended this notice at the bottom of the story:

Note: commentors are advised to avoid voicing potentially libelous statements.

And I’ve never ever seen that at the bottom of any of their other story/posts. They’re just as squeamish as the others.

They did, after all, file a FOIA request of the ACPD to get the names of the officers involved. I doubt highly that they did not know that this officer was involved before they filed the request, but that doubt is based on pure conjecture and supposition.

The shame of this is that local media outlets are in the best position to research this kind of thing, and establish what’s rumor and what’s fact…but we can see some potential reasons why they won’t touch it. No doubt C-Ville and The Hook are willing to take this on, but nobody else is going to touch it.

It seems like it’s an awkward rumor not only for the Police Dept to be dealing with, but also for the news media.

One of the officers disciplined, sergeant (now corporal) Scott Cox is married to newsplex (and former NBC29) anchor Beth Duffy, so no wonder mainstream media got squeamish all of a sudden. I figure they knew they had to report the story, so they got it out there early when there wasn’t a lot of information available and then let it drop, hoping it would go away.