If you’ve been following along at home, you know that four men — including current and former cops — have sued D Magazine for libel. Well, yesterday six people filed suit against three of those very men (and the city of Dallas) for wrongful arrests. The suit reads like a fact-checking transcript of Trey’s story, the one we’ve been sued for. Some highlights:
For some time now, police officers employed by the city of Dallas have been engaged in a repeated and systematic practice of issuing false, fake, fabricated or otherwise irregular tickets … . [T]he victims of these violations are poor, homeless, uneducated, not well conversant in English and are unable to speak up for themselves or defend themselves. … [T]he female plantiffs herein were repeatedly subjected to lewd and oppressive conduct and were called explicit names, accused of being prostitutes — typically while being hauled off to jail.
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According to the DMN, “the three officers were the subject of a nearly year-long investigation by The Dallas Morning News.” Tim, are you trying to ride the DMN’s coattails again? (Yes, for those of you who are unsure, I am being sarcastic!)
Of course, if the DMN hadn’t fired almost all of their reporters, it wouldn’t have taken them a year to investigate this!
Of course, having been on the wrong end of a lawsuit before, you understand that a plaintiff’s petition can say anything it wants, that there’s no fact-checking department down at the courthouse’s filing desk, and that allegations do not equal facts.
Of course.
Craig, of course. In using the phrase “fact-checking,” I didn’t mean to imply that the filing established the facts. They are merely allegations at this point. But also keep in mind: Kunkle fired two of those cops for a reason.
And, Craig, these are dirty cops. D did a favor to the city by exposing them. How do I know? I asked. Cops. DPD. It will interesting to see how this plays out between the kings of sleeze, plantiffs and defense attorneys.