People have asked me for a while now what I think about the Wray/GPD story.
My answer has been: I don't have enough facts to make a determination.
This morning, over at the Style & Cut Shop on Georgia Street, the question had a new dimension: What do you think about it in light of the Bledsoe series in the Rhino?
My answer is the same. I still don't have enough facts. The series has been fascinating, but has yet to offer any direct insight about the events that got Wray locked out, and squeezed out, of his job.
One presumes this stuff is coming, and that the version of events will be highly sympathetic to Wray, who has been cast thus far as a paragon of virtue in a dirty world. And one supposes, given the emphasis to date on race, and the title "Cops in Black and White," that Wray will be shown as the victim of racial politics.
Perhaps he was. We'll see what we see, from Bledsoe, and from the City and various investigations.
So far, the series has lined up with the broad public perception that Wray was not a racist, and that he was a decent hard-working local boy made good. It has provided detail into some of the problems -- many of them already well-known -- at GPD under former Chief White. It has shown a lurid side of police culture that probably exists in pockets of every department at some time, but is no more acceptable for that, and in doing so has gotten the word "dildo" into the Rhino Times. It has outlined some bigtime drug-running in our town, and limned a demimonde that may be news to some readers. And it has shown that James Hinson may well have merited the surveillance that cracked this story open.
It has also traced some of the history between Wray and other City officials, not always in ways that make Wray look good. Certainly Wray's decision to move Project Homestead documents to the FBI would have pissed off a lot of bosses. There have been passing mentions of discontent among black officers dating back to the days of Chief Daughtry, but no evidence or judgment on the validity of any such concerns.
Some questions about Bledsoe's methodology are also beginning to emerge. The City, for example, says there are dangers in naming some of the names in the series.
Meanwhile, an alert EdCone.com reader says the public pushback against one anecdote in the series includes an "incredible admission" in Bledsoe's response to the threatened libel suit from Morton's attorney.
In that article, Bledsoe says, "I relied on the memories of David Wray, one other officer and a news story about Stacy Morton's arrest for much of my account about the incident involving Morton. David Wray says that the version of the story he told came from the officers who investigated the case and he stands by it.
"I talked with a source at the district attorney's office at the time of the trial who told me that the case had been dismissed after the victim testified in a bizarre and confusing manner. That person was in a position to know, and I had no reason to doubt what was told to me. That memory obviously was faulty. I should have checked the court records. That was my oversight and I apologize for it."
Says my reader: "He based this incident, which took up most of a week's story, on the second-hand memory of the key character in this drama -- some might say the hero -- and another anonymous officer, whose authority, involvement or point of view are not described. He didn't check the public record [or ackowledge different versions of the story]...To me, that's stunning. I think this peek under the tent of his methods is telling and shines a great deal of light on this series."
Maybe. I hope not. Jerry is very, very good at reporting and writing complex and controversial stories, we would all be best off if his work is otherwise bulletproof.
And the real controversy, the stuff we haven't gotten from the City or anyone else yet, is still to come.
"And the real controversy, the stuff we haven't gotten from the City or anyone else yet, is still to come."
Which is why we can't assume Bledsoe's work IS bulletproof. But it seems that a lot of folks are assuming it is, or even that it's gospel.
Posted by: jw | Oct 07, 2006 at 05:57 PM
The City has allowed this info-vacuum to persist. Perhaps they have no choice, but my column calling for more facts is already more than eight months old.
When a reporter of Bledsoe's stature steps into the void, and when emotions run as high as they do on this subject, people are bound to respond.
Posted by: Ed Cone | Oct 07, 2006 at 06:14 PM