Matt Lojko Explains Wray/Sanders Neighbor Incident

Matt Lojko had sent me an e-mail with a request that I post the below information on his behalf.  It is in response to our previous thread from yesterday on Lorraine Ahearn's column in the News and Record.  He was part of David Wray's command staff:

As Chief Wray’s Executive Officer in late 2003 or early 2004, I had an interaction with the lady in question.  She came in without an appointment to discuss a matter with the Chief.  As was customary in such situations, I intervened on his behalf to see if I could assist her.

She was well dressed and neatly groomed.  As we talked, I initially
found her to be friendly, intelligent and articulate.  However, only
minutes into the conversation, her thinking became completely
irrational and her demeanor became extremely argumentative and
confrontational.  She began making farfetched and wild accusations that
I knew from my training and experience indicated probable symptoms of a
mental disorder.   After nearly an hour of speaking with her, I was
unable to make any headway.  Her disturbing behavior continued to
escalate to the point I asked her to leave my office.  When she refused
to leave after numerous requests, I had to personally escort her from
the building under threat of arrest for trespassing.  After she left, I
never heard from her again.

In my career as a police administrator, I have dealt with numerous
individuals like this.  Because of their incessant phone calls, visits
and wild accusations, they can be extremely disruptive to the
day-to-day operations of the Chief’s Office.  Regrettably, little can
be done with them from a law enforcement perspective unless they
constitute a threat to themselves or others.

In the past I have attempted personally and through staff to determine
if they have family or caretakers that can assist in getting assistance
for these individuals.  However, in most of these situations, family
and friends have limited if any ties with these individuals out of
utter frustration.  Because of HIPAA legislation, medical information
surrounding these individuals is confidential and unavailable to law
enforcement.  This severely limits law enforcement’s abilities to
intervene in such matters.

It is sad that these individuals seem to fall through the cracks. 
Regrettably, the bottom line is they are too ill to function well in
society but they are too well for existing laws to apply to allow law
enforcement to intervene to get them medical help without their
approval.  In cases like this, law enforcement is left with little
option other than to treat them no differently than someone without
suspected mental problems.

With that said, I don’t know what Detective Sanders said or did in
relation to the matter in question.  I can only speculate that he
simply told the owner of the condo what she was doing and saying about
the chief and the owner took action as he would with any other tenant
that exhibited such behavior.  The decision to ask her to leave the
condo didn’t rest with Detective Sanders.  The owner made that
decision.

Update; Sam Hieb has more.

Comments

[Don Moore]

Funny, how that description might also be applied to several reporters.

[Tony Wilkins]

Don, funny, I thought Matt was talking about LA. I stopped halfway through, went back and read the headline.

[Stormy]

Tony,

Nah, you should have known better early-on, when Matt said:

"She was well dressed and neatly groomed. As we talked, I initially
found her to be friendly, intelligent and articulate."

That does not describe LA at all.

[Roch101]

I've seen many of you commenters in person. Do we really want to make personal appearance a valid point of discussion? Do we, you Wal-Mart sneaker sporting, polyester high water wearing, onion stinking, Polident-needing, spare-tire bellied, Flowbee styled, four-eyes? Do we?

[jaycee]

I resent your comments, Roch. My sneakers are from Payless!! Just can't beat those Velcro closures, I don't have to bend over my pot-belly to tie them.

[Stormy]

Jaycee, how would Roch describe himself? Would Brad Pitt-like do him justice?

But, he is right, let's just stick to talking about her loony left-wing activist ideas.

[Beau D. Jackson]

I've seen many of you commenters in person. Do we really want to make personal appearance a valid point of discussion? Do we, you Wal-Mart sneaker sporting, polyester high water wearing, onion stinking, Polident-needing, spare-tire bellied, Flowbee styled, four-eyes? Do we?

I take exception to the "High-Waters" remark, my butt is just to low for my inseam! I bet Roch wears a pocket protector! Beau

[Roch101]

"But, he is right, let's just stick to talking about her loony left-wing activist ideas."

And if you'd grow up and out of trying to fight yesterday's battles, you'd go one step further and say, let's focus on her actions as a reporter.

Beau, I don't have a pocket protector. I'd like one. Get me one for Christmas and I'll get you a basket of quotation marks.

[jaycee]

Roch said:
"And if you'd grow up and out of trying to fight yesterday's battles, you'd go one step further and say, let's focus on her actions as a reporter."

I think we are, but it goes deeper than that. Ahearn's motivations are germane to the topic, and are reflected in her writing on many issues.
Hey, I'll fight Muslims because they want to kill me, but it's also important I understand WHY they want to kill me.

[Brenda Bowers]

That's it! You people are forcing me to go the the N&R site and read that D column.

We recycle newspapers so I went so far as to check thru yesterdays paper for LA's piece. Found it finally in Felix the Rabbit's litter box and decided that was the perfect place for it so I didn't have to read it after all.

Now today here you go again getting me all upset because I am being left out. No fun people!

Oh and Roch Honey, can I have some of Beau's exclamation points? Huh? Please? BB.

[Brenda Bowers]

Just couldn't resist the above. sorry.

Now I sincerely want to thank Mr. Lojko for clarifying the story for us once again. If there is any justice at all these men who have been slandered and had their careers destroyed will one day be vindicated. BB

[Stormy]

I'm too old to grow up, Roch, but the truth is we ARE fighting today's battles, when we fight loony left-wing liberal ideas. In case no one has noticed, our country is quickly being nationalized and our 401k's have tanked. It won't be long before we are all dependent upon the government for everything, as our wealth (as modest as it was) is quickly being spread. So, yes, fighting loony left-wing liberal ideas is timely and necessary.

[Roch101]

"Hey, I'll fight Muslims because they want to kill me, but it's also important I understand WHY they want to kill me." -- Jaycee

What a perfect illustration -- of the problem I'm trying to get you to see. Want to get people to help you fight terrorism? Appeal to their sens of right and wrong; of civility; of the rule of law and you will find many Muslims agreeing with you (as we did). Make the fight with "Muslims" and you marginalize yourself.

It's the same thing with this issue. Appeal to people's sense of decency and stick to the facts and you'll have people of all political stripes agreeing with you. Make it a fight with "liberals" and you marginalize yourself.

If your goal is to stomp your feet and point to one more example of what's wrong with liberals with no resulting change, you are on the right track. If it is to affect some specific incremental but meaningful change, you will take a more pragmatic approach.

[Roch101]

"when we fight loony left-wing liberal ideas."

Yeah, okay. Good luck with that. Presented with a challenge to press for realistic change at the local level, you imagine it some grandiose opportunity to affect some cultural change. The result? You'll contribute to neither: Perpetual loser status.

[Stormy]

So, we should take a more pragmatic approach and be less partisan like the Fearless Leader? But, then he won didn't he, as he reminds everyone.

[Stormy]

By the way, if we are perpetual losers, who are the winners?

[Stormy]

Roch,

"Appeal to people's sense of decency and stick to the facts and you'll have people of all political stripes agreeing with you."

So, you mean appeal to a sense of decency like this?

Roch101 said
February 23, 2009 at 10:44 am

Read for comprehension, moron.

Or, like this?

Roch101 said
February 23, 2009 at 2:41 pm

For the love of all that is holy, you guys are thick! There are people who care about journalistic fairness, truth and justice who don’t give a rats ass about being associated with a gang of childish, spiteful dinosaurs. Which is more important to you, making each other feel good with your little self-affirming circle jerk or keeping your eye on the prize and stepping up in a way that might actually have some positive effects on our community?

Jumping on developments with partisan finger pointing is boorish. Putting aside your egos and thinking about how to actually effectively influence public opinion and the course of events takes a little maturity you guys seem unable to even comprehend.

You know, Roch, if you weren't so insulting to other people and "appealed to their sense of decency" a little more, you might actually be able to have a productive conversation with them sometimes.

[Joe Guarino]

For whatever it is worth, here is what I think.

I think Lorraine Ahearn made some serious mistakes, as Roch indicates. But hers was an unusual situation. She is a liberal columnist placed in the news section of a daily paper. I think that is journalistically inappropriate, but I guess I am a traditionalist.

In any event, you have a liberal columnist in the news section of a daily paper who is given the assignment of a reporter. And yes, she made mistakes. But I think it is very legitimate to ask whether her overt liberal bias and orientation made her more susceptible to the mistakes she committed. And I wonder if that bias or orientation made her vulnerable to stereotyping white police as racist, or vilifying "tough" white police in general. Why? Because black people are the victims of tough white police in various ways, according to certain mindsets.

These are important questions to ask, because journalism somehow needs to figure out how to avoid repeating these mistakes. Perhaps it would be a good idea to start by refraining from putting liberal columnists in the news pages, and assigning them stories to report.

[Bubba]

"You know, Roch, if you weren't so insulting to other people and 'appealed to their sense of decency' a little more, you might actually be able to have a productive conversation with them sometimes."

He learned his techniques from the Like-Minded Blowhard Gang-Up Gang that frequents Cone's blog.

I'm not sure why he does it on this blog though. There's no fraudulent academic and intellectual support network for him here.

[YB Normall]

BTW any ackknowledgement or comment on the latest Loraine Ahearn screed from the unctuous Mr. Robinson?

[Roch101]

"So, you mean appeal to a sense of decency like this?" -- Stormy

No, I did not mean "decent" as in not being a potty mouth, but a "sense of decency" (as I wrote), as in a sense of fairness. Read for comprehension.

[Roch101]

Joe,

The question about putting an opinion columnist on a news story is a valid one.

[Stormy]

As I said, Roch, stop insulting people and appeal to their sense of decency a little more and you can have some productive conversations. Read for comprehension.

Hint to Roch: Be a little nicer to people and don't call them names, and they just might return in kind.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

@Roch:"The question about putting an opinion columnist on a news story is a valid one."

Early on I expressed concern to JR about this very issue and he stated that she could do "straight reporting." I felt that many readers would be unable to get beyond her label as a columnist and see her as a "reporter" especially after the opening salvo "Black Ops on Black Cop."

I tuned out of this discussion a long time ago, but I was fairly taken back when I saw Ahearn's column on Sunday. I couldn't believe after reading Sam and Roch's coverage of the verdict that she wrote a column from that angle.

It did seem much like sour grapes and grasping at any straw she could to maintain a grasp on credibility in this saga.

But beyond that, in reality, I would like to know who among us really believes that a person can irritate the be-jesus out of a police chief in any city in America and not be dealt with? I mean one of two calls is fine and I'm sure were tolerated by the staff, but once you reach a certain point of harassment ... well.

Maybe it's my own unique perspective from three sides of the criminal justice system, but you just don't monkey with the police chief, or any officer for that matter, and not expect to get the hammer.

[Joe Guarino]

Jeff, I think that is an eminently reasonable, legitimate point.

Of course, if certain parties are out to vilify and/or crucify the police chief and his men, then reason if of no value.

[Bubba]

"Of course, if certain parties are out to vilify and/or crucify the police chief and his men, then reason if of no value."

Not only is it of no value in the persecution of all things Wray-related, reason is counter-productive to the scripted outcome.