Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

Time	Event
6:27a	Faux Transparency In watching the fallout from the latest MPD SWAT comedy of errors, what's particularly revealing, I think, is how generally well the MPD handled the largely tame press.  Lieutenant Amelia Huffman, head of the Homicide Division, and Sergeant Jesse Garcia III took center stage, and managed to avoid most of the hard questions, while carefully keeping the two most significant indicia of gross incompetence palmed:  The MPD SWAT team, with a warrant for a house supposedly occupied by a black gang, kicked in the door to a house registered to an occupied by a Hmong family; The MPD SWAT team fired somewhere around two dozen rounds into the house, missing any putative target. All of this was known to MPD by, at the latest, around 2AM Sunday; none of it was published by a largely lazy local press until, at the earliest, late Monday, after the first flurry of bad publicity had passed by. Well done, folks. Meanwhile, in further local Bad Cop news, Landen Beard, the Robbinsdale PD road rager, goes to court in Anoka county tomorrow.  Be interesting to see if that's covered.  (1 Comment | Comment on this)
10:04p	Treptow/Beard Case Update Well, the book has been thrown at Martin S. Treptow.  He's been charged in Anoka County, with: 1.  Drive by shooting.  MS 609.66 subd 1e(b)  -- felony, up to ten years. 2.  Reckless discharge in municipality  sub 1a(3) -- ditto, up to two years. 3.  Terrorist threats.  609.713 sub (1)  -- ditto. We'll see what the next step in the railroading of Treptow and the whitewashing of Beard is tomorrow, when Landen Beard appears in Anoka County Court to have his wrist slapped.  More later. UPDATE: Scan of the indictment right here. UPDATE 2:  Where to send money to help with Treptow's defense Martin and Rebecca Treptow Anoka Hennepin Credit Union, 3505 Northdale Blvd. N.W., Coon Rapids, MN 55448. UPDATE 3: Meanwhile Fox 9's coverage continues to be . . . interesting.  Initially, they published Martin Treptow's address on their website, but took it down after they got called on it.   Why did they put up his address. and "freeze-frame" it?  I guess you'd have to ask them.  Watch their careful editing; when they report -- accurately -- that Martin Treptow didn't know that his attacker was a police officer (Beard wasn't wearing a uniform, and was driving an unmarked, sporty little red car with regular plates) they flashed a POLICE license plate, which Beard's car didn't have.   Hmmm . . . why would they do that?  Couldn't they just have shown the license plate of the sporty little red car that Beard was actually driving?  It's okay; it was a phony plate; Beard was apparently in Coon Rapids -- he works for the Robbinsdale PD -- driving the car he had been issued for his undercover work.  (In Coon Rapids?  Are these folks so dumb that they'll have an undercover officer working in his home town?  No fear of when he meets somebody that he's investigating in some public place in his hometown, an acquaintance might say, "Hey, Landen, how you doin'?  Arrest anybody interestin' lately?" Maybe; Robbinsdale PD claims that Beard was on duty and undercover at the time.  Doing what?  Fox 9 doesn't appear to be interested.) They also say that Treptow's wife and child were in the car.  Well, yes, but that's not quite all of it -- in fact, Martin S. Treptow's pregnant wife, and two children, were in the car, stopped at a red light in the right lane, when Landen Beard pulled up to their right. They didn't mention, either, that the first 911 call on the road rage incident was from the Treptows, moments after they fled in terror from the man who had pulled a gun on them and threatened them.  Hmmm . . . why did they leave that out?  They forgot, perhaps, to mention that Beard's 911 call made no mention of the two little children -- one a few years old; the other only a few months old -- in the car.  They do, "in the interest of full disclosure," mention at the end of their report that Beard is "related" to a Fox 9 employee.   Well, not quite full disclosure -- they didn't mention Landen Beard's name, and didn't mention that he's married to a Fox 9 employee; it's not like the Fox 9 employee is Landen Beard's third cousin's auht's sister or something. Somehow or other, if they cover Beard's appearance in court tomorrow, I doubt that they're going to print his address.  Call it a wild guess. UPDATE 4: Much better, and more balanced reporting on KSTP. They name Beard -- and, show both his picture and Treptow's -- and don't seem to be trying to judge the case. Better quote from Treptow's attorney, Kurt Glaser, who comes off defending his client, rather than the Grand Jury. More tomorrow night.  Some interesting stuff, I think.  Watch this space. Current Mood: annoyed (16 Comments | Comment on this)

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