Whipped Cream Difficulties

I was busy much of the day yesterday (and chained to my desk doing schoolwork much of the day today) so this is the first chance I’ve had to blog the Statesman‘s followup to the Scott Henson story.

Basically, Chief Acevdeo showed a Statesman reporter video of the incident – video that hasn’t been released to the public – that he claims contradicts Henson’s story. As far as I can tell, the contradictions amount to:

• APD didn’t draw Tasers.
• APD disputes that Henson was “handcuffed roughly”.

I’m glad I waited, since Henson now has a response to Acevedo and the Statesman up at his own blog. In his response, Henson acknowledges the non-drawn Taser error, but disputes the handcuff issue.

Henson also makes another good point by way of an apology:

I was wrong to assume the deputy constable called in the cavalry. With 20/20 hindsight, having reviewed all the materials the chief showed me (which is more than the press has seen so far), she’s the one who did it right, investigating a serious allegation without needlessly scaring a child or applying more restrictive force than was necessary to contain the situation. She also told APD moments before they detained me that she’d spoken to the child, gave them her name, and said I was her Grandpa. My apologies for my original, false interpretation, both to the deputy and Constable Danny Brown’s shop.

To me, that’s sort of the key issue: why did nine APD officers stop, detain, and handcuff someone the deputy constable had already spoken to and cleared?