~ For Ernie, John & Janet! ~

Here’s some advice for a wanted person: Peacefully give up before Lancaster police bring their search dog Cico to look for you.

And other tip: Don’t grab the dog’s mouth.

Two alleged trespassers and a man wanted for parole violation ended up at the hospital after they were bitten by Cico in the past two nights. None of their wounds was serious.

John M. Hoober, III in the Lancaster New Era on November 2, 2004 in a story titled, “Police dog bites 3 in city arrests,” (click here).

Several years after I moved to Philadelphia in the early 1980’s, the Sunday Inquirer ran a multi-part investigative series on men and women who were bitten by Philadelphia Police K-9 dogs. I believe the two reporters won a hugely deserved Pulitzer Prize..

It literally had the whole town talking. It made you cringe. Week after week there was page after page with pictures of the victims and the details of their being bitten and pictures of their wounds and scars. Most of the victims were minorities. In some of the cases, the victims were never arrested and had committed no crime. The bottom line to the story: The officers purposely, and for no justifiable reason, ordered their dogs to bite.

Numerous police officers were fired and the whole K-9 unit was reorganized as a result. Numerous lawsuits were filed and won.

It is some of the best reporting I have ever read, and it always reminds me of the necessity and power and importance of the press and their mission in a free society.

Which brings me to John M. Hoober III, a long time police reporter for the Lancaster New Era, and his opening sentences above to a story he wrote in November of 2004 I happened across in the newspaper archives.

I honestly don’t know how a reporter could write those sentences. I don’t know how an editor could approve those sentences. It disgusts me to my core every time I read them. Hoober has proved over and over again he should not be a reporter.

KELLEY

And then we have Janet Kelley: A reporter for the New Era for over 25 years. She is either the stupidest woman on the planet or she is in collusion with the police and has been for years.

I signed up for the Lancaster Online Talkback forum under the name “astonished” in August of 2004 in response to a Janet Kelley New Era article on August 16, 2004, titled, “Still no trace of missing mother from Columbia.” I posted the following on August 17:

“Police are stumped.”  Astonishing. Nothing going on in that household. The police were called the week before. The boyfriend was jealous and on the day she disappeared, she had taken her newborn child for a paternity test. The boyfriend doesn’t tell anyone she’s missing until two days later when her father stops by. The boyfriend misspeaks and says, “things she was planning to discard anyway.” Shouldn’t he have said “things she DID discard.” No wonder the police are stumped! This is a hard one. No motives, no clues, no opportunity and no suspects.

You can read all my posts under that article about Cortney Fry on this archived page on the old Lipnews website.

In her recent, unconscionable article, “Case closed? Not for this guy,” about Lancaster County Detective Joseph Geesey, she says this:

Ten years after robbers let Horace and Mary Amanda Swarr starve to death in their city home in 1979, Geesey helped earn the conviction of four Maryland men for the crime.

That’s not exactly what happened, Janet, you should know better. I’ve always thought there was something very, very fishy about this case. In fact, I still have clippings from it.

You know what I suggest, Janet, why don’t you check whether Detectives Geesey, Henry, Goeke, McComsey and Walsh were living above their means in the 1980’s. Why don’t you check that out, Janet?

Please see the Lancaster Lynching story below on this site and check back tomorrow as I continue to help Ernie Schreiber clean his filthy, racist house before the convention center opens and this week’s Lancaster Post (where is it, Harper?) and much more.

Kelley’s article on Geesey is here.