Turns out former Ramsey County (that’s mostly Saint Paul, Minnesota) Sheriff Bob Fletcher failed to respond to multiple Minnesota Data Practices Act requests for information mostly because he was flat making shit up. The 78 Terrorism Information Briefs he claimed to write and disseminate since 2005 “never existed” Randy Gustafson, the public information officer for Matt Bostrom, the county’s new sheriff told Karen Hollish, writing for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. “It is a very big lie,” Gustafson concluded.
Hollish reports that Gustafson also discovered that Fletcher’s claims of threats from 22 domestic and 11 international terrorist organizations had been made up from whole cloth.
What’s especially interesting about Hollish’s takedown of Fletcher is that the piece wasn’t funded by the Daily Planet. Fifty-seven donors contributed a total of US$575 through Spot.us to support the crowdfunded journalism. David Brauer, writing for MinnPost.com, has the story behind the story. Hollish’s initial Spot.us pitch is still available online.
Brauer notes that Spot.us pays only for completed work and Hollish told him, “The downside with this story is if I hadn’t gotten the info (from Fletcher’s successor Matt Bostrom) I never would have gotten paid.”
Update: Monday, 24 January 2011 8:39PM CST: Former Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher tells Jessica Lussenhop, writing for City Pages, that the dog ate his homework. “He says the person who would know most about the briefs, Deputy Gary Olding, was fired on Jan. 2 and may have taken the documentation with him,” writes Lussenhop who goes on to quote Fletcher: “The new Sheriff Bostorm fired Mr. Olding on Jan. 2,” he says. “I can understand why it’s difficult for him to get specific information.”
Oh, but it gets better. “Deputies did do much of their initial research simply by surfing the web and watching the news, Fletcher admits, but that was not the extent of it,” Lussenhop writes. “How they spent their time on those higher level investigations was none of Hollish’s business, says Fletcher.”
Who’s up for t-shirts: “Only in Saint Paul.”
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