Albemarle Police have investigated and punished four officers for misconduct, but that’s about all they’re saying. #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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The rumor that’s been deleted from the comment threads on all the other news sites- suggests that the female officer (married to another male officer) was allegedly having extra marital sex with the other male officers and was allegedly doing so- while both on and off duty. And that one of the alleged popular locations for officer coitus was 29S down near the Anchorage farm area.
Personally I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to wait on reporting about this until the news outlets could say more firmly what it was the officers were being disciplined for. It’s like- they decided to report on the disciplinary actions- and then when they found out it was all interpersonal/non-criminal/sexual in nature then they all got squeamish about the story.
Well, thanks for passing that along (and particularly for classifying it as a mere rumor). True or not, that’s got to be an awfully awkward rumor for the police department to be dealing with.
It seems like it’s an awkward rumor not only for the Police Dept to be dealing with, but also for the news media.
The alleged rumor has been common knowledge is some circles for quite some time. In fact, I am amazed that it has taken this long for this to become public.
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.
Wow. If that’s true (and I have no way of knowing), then that goes a long way towards explaining the awkwardness here.
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.
My understanding is that NBC29 broke the story. My supposition was that they may have broken the story knowing exactly who was involved and who they were married to. Indeed, I had thought that bad blood between NBC29 and their former anchor may have been the reason why this story came out in the news media in first place.
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.
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:
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.
I think The Hook’s position here is wholly understandable. Reporting verified facts is very different than allowing people to engage in (potential) libel on The Hook’s website. I wouldn’t confuse a rigorous interest in the facts (and a desire to avoid a repeat of last year’s libel suit) with an avoidance of them.
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. :)
I’ve been careful to use words like “rumor” and/or “alleged”…
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??
Yup—that’s the one.