Slime brothers

Westword's Michael Roberts lets Ben Whitmer and Ward Churchill spew filth on Boulder Daily Camera reporter Heath Urie and city editor Matt Sebastian over the dropping of assault charges Urie had filed against Ward's aging bullyboy, Josh "Killer" Dillabaugh (background hier und hier.)

I like this from Benjie:

My understanding is the charges were dropped because the case couldn't be proved - i.e., Mr. Dillabaugh's lawyer talked to the DA, told them the Camera had a longstanding animosity towards Mr. Churchill and that if the case went to court, he'd run roughshod over Urie. Granted, that came to me secondhand, but that's the way I heard it.

Of course, one look at the police report of the incident, in which Urie initially couldn't even identify who had assaulted him, and you knew the charge would never fly. Roberts, by the way, apparently hasn't seen the report, which also noted Urie's charge that Dillabaugh had later stood in front of him while he was trying to interview Churchill, repeatedly blowing cigarette smoke in his face. (You'd think that in itself would constitute assault in Boulder.)

Roberts talked briefly to Wart, too, who naturally said it was Urie who should have been charged with assault (as well as menacing, trespassing, and harassment). Roberts asked Churchill:

Were you interviewed by representatives of the Boulder Police Department in relation to the charges?

WC: Nope. Nor by the campus cops, although I was standing within a few feet of the investigating officers" at a couple of points while they were on the "scene." That in itself would have made for some interesting testimony when I took the stand at trial, doncha think?

So why didn't Ward buttonhole one of them himself? If Urie had truly acted the way these two astounding liars say he did, Churchill would have been in the cops' faces, not standing shyly to one side, hoping against hope that one of them might notice him.

Interestingly, by the way, neither in this nor in Roberts' "The Message" column (p. 2), which it updates, is Dillabaugh himself quoted. Nor does Roberts mention Dillabaugh's threat to kill your darling D-blog, which seems, to me at least, relevant.

Pirate Ballerina has more on the "Genocide of Benjie's Hand."