Texas Sheriff Threatens Reporter With Charges Of Journalism
Sheriff Santiago Barrera Jr. of Duval County, Texas would like you reporters to shut the fuck up, or else he will throw you in jail. It's really just that simple. After the Alice Echo-News Journal ("A Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper serving Jim Wells County and the area for over 100 years") wrote a front page story about the sheriff's son getting arrested for public intoxication, Barrera told a reporter, "If you guys keep interfering with my business, I'm going to have you arrested." Old school! Unfortunately, what with all the electronic communications and so forth these days, word spread quickly around the nation, and now the sheriff just looks like a crooked old bastard, which he surely is. But it does make you pine for the days when the lawmen were dirty, the reporters were in cahoots, and small towns were dusty fiefdoms ruled by power-mad, ignorant scumbags. Not really. [AP]