More Questions about my Motivation

October 18, 2004

I was a guest on KHOP 95.1 Modesto/Stockton today, and several questions dealt with my motivation -- was my involvement in this case motivated by desire for financial gain or some infatuation with Scott Peterson?

I'm sure those people aren't going to be convinced by my answer, but here is the real reason I am involved.

My involvement in this case came as the result of a series of attitude-changing events. I was raised to trust the government and law enforcement, and I generally believed that anyone who was arrested was guilty, else why would they have been arrested. I suppose that stemmed from the fact that every incident I was personally aware of, the person was actually guilty. I thought Adam 12 and Dragnet reflected the attitude of every police officer and every police department. These attitude changing events were not a sudden awakening, but a gradual awareness of reality that both law enforcement and the media can either be our best friend or our worst enemy.

1st attitude changing event

During the Goldwater/Johnson election year, I had a high school history teacher that insisted we be involved in the election process. We had to cover a given number of speeches, read/listen to a given number of media accounts of the speech, and then report on the biases we noted. That was a real eye-opener. There is no such thing as objective media reporting. It's all biased; every human being is biased. I also noted the quite disturbing reality that a single commercial, which significantly destroyed Goldwater's idealism, threw the election results into a landslide. LESSON LEARNED: Base your judgments on information you get straight from the source, not on media reports.

2nd attitude changing event

Shows like Kojak that became ever so popular, showing a cop-superiority that gave them the right to treat anyone anyway the liked as long as it got the low-life's off the street. LESSON LEARNED: Never rely on the judgment of a cop that believes anything he does is alright as long as it gets the person he thinks is guilty.

3rd attitude changing event

My studies in English literature and early American Literature that made me aware of the real meaning of presumption of innocence, trial by peers, and other fundamental protections built into our Constitution by some very wise men. LESSON LEARNED: if you don't protect these Constitutional rights for others, who will be there to protect them for you?

4th attitude changing event

The media lynching of Richard Jewell, and how easily the American public bought into the senseless accusation. LESSON LEARNED: Never make judgments about a person's guilt on media reports.

5th attitude changing event

The LAPD and LADA using the media to publicly convict OJ Simpson by leaking erroneous reports of evidence to the media, how gullible the media was to be used that way, and how the American Public so carelessly believed everything they read. LESSON REINFORCED: Never make judgments of guilt on media reports.

6th attitude changing event

How the Ramseys were relentlessly pursued as suspects because two cops could tell when they first saw them that they were guilty, and how they used deceit to trick each of them into a confession. And how the media again was used to fill the public mind with misinformation and outright lies. LESSON REINFORCED: Never trust an investigation based on a cop's instinctive ability to tell at the first look that someone is guilty. Cops that believe they have that ability are very dangerous animals.

7th attitude changing event

Watching Nancy Grace and other media vilify Richard Ricci, and watching the SLCPD close its mind to any other possibility. NG and others making such a big deal about the 1000 miles on Ricci's car -- absolutely absurd! LESSON LEARNED: Don't bother watching talk shows during an investigation, because your mind will just be filled with senseless dribble that has nothing to do with the crime or the perpetrator.

So, when Laci disappeared, and it was Christmastime, and the media picked up the story and ran with it, and as time went on I saw history repeating itself, I decided to try and be a voice of reason. I joined a couple discussion boards, but got tired of being ridiculed and bashed. So, last fall I started LPMM, with the intent to find 15-20 intelligent people to discuss the evidence and whether it pointed to guilt or innocence, and to discuss possible scenarios of both guilt and innocence. In late December, I decided to put up SII as an effort to reach the public who might not have their minds so radically made up and who might be open to the possibility that Scott Peterson is factually innocent.