Well, if settlement in this case represented anything good for the city, would it not have been writ large on the front page of the Whitewater Register?
Settlement was a disgrace for the city, as I once wrote when it seemed possible:
Larry Meyer’s career has been bad for the city, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Larry back together again. For every empty but strident defense from Chief Jim Coan, to all the support in the world from his friends in Elkhorn, one truth remains: Meyer is offering settlement on a federal lawsuit about a citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights. That’s no simple mistake — he’s settling on a constitutional claim. He will contend that he’s admitted no wrong-doing, but that’s whistling past the graveyard. Meyer would not likely have settled — not Meyer, nor any other excuse-making, self-justifying member of the Whitewater Police Department — if he’d been more confident of his conduct.
Wait — I thought that this was a completely, entirely, wholly, unquestionably professional force, etc., etc? That’s only a smattering of what Coan likely tells his officers — and insists to the world — about his department. He speaks about them the way a righteous man speaks about a saint. We’re a city of ordinary men and women, doing the best that we can in challenging times. Citizens are neither saints nor prophets; nor do I expect that ordinary people will turn water into wine. It’s shameful, risible, galling, and impious how Coan elevates his staff. Small wonder that they perform poorly: they’re unaccountable.
The former editor of the Regsiter once contended that she would cover a story when charges were file in Elkhorn, to which I replied about the constitutional lawsuit against Meyer and the Whitewater Police Department:
…if litigation were the standard, then the Register should be covering in great detail the federal constitutional suit against former Whitewater police investigator Larry Meyer. I’ve not noticed that coverage; no one else has either.
A few scraps in out-of-town papers; nothing valuable locally. If you’re Whitewater’s hometown paper, then you should cover the case in detail, and its implications for the city; a real news site would investigate.
We have no real press within the city; we are so far from one, one wonders what would happen if we did.
No matter. I will ask those questions in my next post.
Next: Pending Questions.