2008 Woodie Awards
Severe Misquotes
Jeremy Jensen
Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: Letters to the Editor
- Page 1 of 1
I have written this letter to clear up some things. First of all, Lumberhack reporter Milo Shumpert'Appel (article: Staying in the tree) severely misquoted me and in fact attributed a statement to me that never came out of my mouth. In fact, he assured me on Tuesday the 25th that he would go back and change at least one quote and then called me the next day and said sorry but it's too late to change.
I never said anything close to "I never questioned that what I was doing was right, only that it was effective."
I corrected Milo when he was reading this supposed quote to me on the phone on the 25th and he said he would change it.
He sounded disappointed and said, and I quote, "they were going to take it and run with it." He said that nevertheless he would correct it. The next day, he called back and informed me that there was a policy change and it was too late to edit the story.
I never said that "tree-sitters are rarely prosecuted, and the cops haven't used pepper spray on them since a lawsuit in 1999."
What I said was that in Humboldt, no one has been pepper sprayed while they were locked to something in protest as the Sheriffs did in Senator Frank Riggs office and elsewhere in the late 1990's. Tree-sitters are always prosecuted if they have been arrested.
Multiple non-violent activists have been pepper sprayed since 1999. One notable event was when forest defenders were occupying the main road in Freshwater in 2003, during tree-sitter extractions done by Pacific Lumber contractors. At least one Sheriff began discharging pepper spray on the crowd indiscriminately, even spraying curious residents who had stopped on the road and approached the front of the crowd to see what why traffic was held up. There have been other incidents in the Mattole watershed and Nanning creek.
Your newspaper has lost my trust and confidence. I see why Pacific Lumber turned down your request for an interview.
I never said anything close to "I never questioned that what I was doing was right, only that it was effective."
I corrected Milo when he was reading this supposed quote to me on the phone on the 25th and he said he would change it.
He sounded disappointed and said, and I quote, "they were going to take it and run with it." He said that nevertheless he would correct it. The next day, he called back and informed me that there was a policy change and it was too late to edit the story.
I never said that "tree-sitters are rarely prosecuted, and the cops haven't used pepper spray on them since a lawsuit in 1999."
What I said was that in Humboldt, no one has been pepper sprayed while they were locked to something in protest as the Sheriffs did in Senator Frank Riggs office and elsewhere in the late 1990's. Tree-sitters are always prosecuted if they have been arrested.
Multiple non-violent activists have been pepper sprayed since 1999. One notable event was when forest defenders were occupying the main road in Freshwater in 2003, during tree-sitter extractions done by Pacific Lumber contractors. At least one Sheriff began discharging pepper spray on the crowd indiscriminately, even spraying curious residents who had stopped on the road and approached the front of the crowd to see what why traffic was held up. There have been other incidents in the Mattole watershed and Nanning creek.
Your newspaper has lost my trust and confidence. I see why Pacific Lumber turned down your request for an interview.
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