{"id":83,"date":"2005-10-25T12:02:06","date_gmt":"2005-10-25T18:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=83"},"modified":"2005-10-24T22:03:30","modified_gmt":"2005-10-25T04:03:30","slug":"spy-cops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/loco\/spy-cops\/","title":{"rendered":"Spy Cops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people will read the following and dismiss it as small town politics. I see it as a tale of <\/p>\n

using police to intimidate citizens. Note the mayor took this police tape and gave a transcript to the paper’s major advertizer — he <\/p>\n

could only have wanted them to stop advertizing, in hopes of damaging the paper financially. So much for a free press.<\/p>\n

Sure, this <\/p>\n

mayor is a pissant and the cop a willing stooge, but this is a story being played out all across the New and Improved AmeriCo, where the <\/p>\n

police are merely the security guards for those with power. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ABQjournal: Publisher: Taping, Report Payback<\/a>
By Martin Salazar<\/font><\/a> <\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/font>Journal Northern Bureau<\/font><\/p>\n

Wood was never brought in for questioning over the comments that she says <\/p>\n

were made in jest. And the Colfax County District Attorney’s Office in Raton declined to pursue any charges against Wood after reviewing <\/p>\n

the information, said Bill Kitts, chief of the Angel Fire Police Department. <\/p>\n

"I think they were taping me to harass <\/p>\n

me," Wood said in an interview Thursday. <\/p>\n

Kitts denies the taping was politically motivated. <\/p>\n

This <\/p>\n

isn’t the first time the village government has been accused of retaliation.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the village severed <\/p>\n

ties with the local Chamber of Commerce in part because the chamber refused to sign a contract that would have banned it and <\/p>\n

anyone associated with it from criticizing the village or its officials<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

The latest incident occurred Sept. 22. <\/p>\n

Marcia Wood had gone to Village Hall that afternoon in hopes of getting information for a story the paper was working on. Wood claims <\/p>\n

Village Administrator John Pape told her he would never talk to her. Wood then went to see Mayor A.L. "Bubba" Clanton. She said <\/p>\n

she complained that the village had been stonewalling the paper for months, and at some point told the mayor, "Bull(expletive), <\/p>\n

Bubba." The mayor called for an officer<\/strong>, and officer Christina Roth showed up. The Sept. 23 report, which describes <\/p>\n

the office visit and the recording later that night, says Wood called the mayor a liar and was escorted out. …<\/p>\n

<\/font>The report does not say why the conversation was being recorded. … Kitts said the two weren’t told they <\/p>\n

were being recorded, and under state law, there was no obligation to do so<\/strong>. …<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Wood said a few <\/p>\n

days later she got a call from a friend telling her about rumors <\/strong>concerning the conversation. She said she later learned <\/p>\n

that the mayor had given the report to an Angel Fire Resort employee and had instructed the employee to give it to the company’s <\/p>\n

chief executive officer. The resort is the paper’s major advertiser<\/strong>, she added.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Wood said she <\/p>\n

got a copy of the report from the resort CEO.<\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people will read the following and dismiss it as small town politics. I see it as a tale of using police to intimidate citizens. Note the mayor took this police tape and gave a transcript to the paper’s major advertizer — he could only have wanted them to stop advertizing, in hopes of damaging … Continue reading Spy Cops<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-loco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}