The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has posted a notice on its web site, which reads as follows:
“Until further notice, due to a controversy between the Sheriff’s Department and the County Attorney’s office, no further information reference the January 8, 2011 shooting will be released.”
I assume they mean “referencing” the shooting. Microsoft Word didn’t flag it for grammar when I just retyped it, so my guess is that somebody put this little note together in a big hurry.
What’s the “controversy” between the County Attorney’s office and Sheriff Buford T. Dupnik? There are no official details yet, but it’s not hard to imagine a roomful of prosecutors watching Dupnik shoot the breeze with media outlets he likes, about media outlets he hates, and screaming in frustration. Every defense attorney goes to sleep at night dreaming of a loudmouth official who uses global press coverage to float his pet theories about who might really be responsible for the crime. If Jared Loughner accepts a little coaching from his defense team, prosecutors will be thinking about tossing the ends of their neckties into the ceiling fans by the end of this trial.
In a development that absolutely infuriates the Left, targets of the Tucson blood libel have been responding to the scurrilous accusations against them. Dupnik made a point of selecting one Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, of West Palm Beach, Florida, as one of those targets. According to complaints Dupnik made to the Washington Post, a tidal wave of Limbaugh listeners have been calling him to suggest he give up his career in media criticism and get back to something resembling law enforcement. This might have contributed to the sense of frustration over at the County Attorney’s office.
It’s a shame the media blackout hit now, when the Sheriff’s Department has started talking about the actual events of the shooting, and the security camera videos which captured them. In fact, bureau chief Richard Kastigar was supposed to give CNN an interview on that topic this afternoon. I guess we’ll have to content ourselves with an interruption in the flow of knowledge, as long as it terminates the flow of speculation.
