Otterblog

We are in another battle over 911 calls with local law-enforcement officials. We had asked for tapes from calls made for help with a stabbing death and with a fire on Brownsboro Road. On Monday, we reached agreement to get transcripts from the stabbing, but a judge sealed several of the fire 911 calls.

What’s interesting about our story is that although we got the stabbing transcripts, we only mentioned them at the very end and didn’t make a big deal of them. The reason is simple: there wasn’t much on them.

Now, one argument would be Why are you wasting time and money for something that turns out not to have much news value? The reason is simple. We don’t know what’s on the tapes/transcripts until we see them, and we believe that the public ought to have the right to judge their value, rather than have the law-enforcement/legal community judge on their behalf.

We’re still evaluating our options on legal strategies. I’ll keep you informed.

Memory Lane: Mike Decker’s guilty plea brought back a lot of memories from the 3+ years I spent covering the General Assembly. Decker was a more interesting politician than a lot of people think. Socially awkward, uncomfortable with the back-slapping go-along-get-along world of the General Assembly. In a profile from 1991, I wrote: He has a phrase for life at the General Assembly: fun, food and frustration.

And what about IHOP, where the deal between Decker and House Speaker Jim Black was allegedly hatched. Love the place and their pumpkin pancakes. You wonder if there is an ad campaign in the whole thing: Pancakes and politics, They go together at IHOP.