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Wednesday, December 31, 2003
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"BAD", "DANGEROUS" OR JUST REALLY, REALLY STUPID?
Michael Jackson has had a very good couple of weeks. The family of his accuser is looking increasingly consumed with avarice. The Santa Barbara District Attorney, Tom Sneddon appears corrupt, vindictive and atavistic. Nobody seemed to notice that ill-advised victory lap of a party at Neverland three days after being charged with 9 felonies. Even that Hindenburg-like interview with Ed Bradley netted him a million dollars.
The good times appear to have ended effective today. In the last 10 days Jackson's brother, Jermaine followed by his attorney, Mark Geragos have alleged what amounts to police brutality and criminal harassment relating to his November 11 arrest and booking. Jackson then repeated these allegations in the "60 Minutes" interview. There's a small problem with these accusations - notably, that they probably aren't true. Police departments in America generally and in California in particular, have grown very sensitive about brutality complaints. The Los Angeles Police Department settled a civil suit with Rodney King to the tune of over $8 million. The Ramparts scandal in the LAPD is expected to eventually cost the city of Los Angeles over two billion dollars in brutality civil settlements.
While cops are famously stupid, lawyers and politicians are not. After decades of massive litigation, settlement and jury award costs, they finally got the message. Several California jurisdictions now videotape every step of the booking process and police cruisers are equipped with video and audio recorders. Santa Barbara County is such a jurisdiction. And even if they weren't you can bet your ass that with someone as high profile (and famously nuts) as Jackson in custody, they'd dot their i's and cross their t's so as not to get bitten on the ass afterward. The fact that the arrest and booking were recorded was reported by both CNN and MSNBC as it was happening.
And today, the Sheriff's Department lowered the boom. Sheriff Jim Anderson held a particularly indignant press conference where these tapes were played. The police appeared to be nothing but courteous..solicitous even. Also, the bruises Michael dispayed on "60 Minutes" were too high on his arm to have been caused by double locking cuffs. And people with shoulder trauma are noted everywhere for not doing stuff like this......
Furthermore, Michael alleges that he was kept in a "doo-doo" smeared men's room for some 45 minutes. The booking and bond posting process took some 45 minutes. 45 minutes for processing plus 45 minutes of "doo-doo" equals 90 minutes. Here's the problem; He only spent 73 minutes in the jail.
So what the fuck, huh? I mean, what the fucking fuck? Has Michael lost his mind (and yes, this is a rhetorical question)? Why would you make a bullshit charge that can be demonstrably proven false? I think we can all agree that while Jackson is none to bright and none to sane, the people around him are. Christ, at this point, you'd think Mark Geragos invented television given the amount of time he spends on it. Team Jackson is not known for being an amateur hour.
There's only one answer. This is a legal strategy, not a public relations one. How do you think O.J got off? By changing the issue. California V. Simpson wasn't so much of a murder trial as it was a racist cops trial. By changing the issue from a dead, pretty white girl and some waiter to a put-upon black celebrity, persecuted by Mark Furhman, O.J spiked the murder weapon in the end-zone and screamed "I'm going to Disney World". Granted, he didn't actually go to Disney World until after he lost a $33.5 million judgment in his civil trial.
There's a small problem with M.J going this route: the jurisdiction. O.J was tried in downtown Los Angeles, with a sufficiently dusky jury pool, well-acquainted with rouge cops. Michael Jackson is being tried in Santa Barbara, where he is the ONLY black person. And calling Michael black is a stretch at best. Jackson hasn't been what any reasonable person would call "black" since early 1985. By 1987, even white supremecists learned to moonwalk.
This is a faulty P.R strategy and an insane legal one. Although, if its a strategy to piss off Sheriff Anderson...it worked. Anderson stated that if an investigation by the California Office of the Attorney General revealed that Michael's allegations are baseless, he will charged with filing a false report. This proves that Anderson is, in fact, as dumb as he looks (though still not as dumb as Sneddon.) While I'm not a member of the California Bar, I can fairly safely assume that this charge would require Jackson to file an actual report with the police. Unless someone deputized Ed Bradley in secret, this charge will never pass muster. And even if I'm wrong about the law, the false reporting charge is a misdemeanor. Would you give a shit about a misdemeanor if you had 9 felonies to worry about?
I didn't think so.
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