I've told Keith there had to be a tape listing the second Animal Control officer as having received a call from dispatch. No call was found for her with that information, but there was a call to Keith that lists the dogs at Bellefontaine. Keith points out that Bellefontaine wasn't in his area to cover, and says that dispatch doesn't assign calls. They couldn't have, because it wasn't his area. He's correct, but in the absence of audio evidence that specifically contradicts the termination letter, the story goes nowhere.
It's rather pointless to chase after the scanner information and the verbal warnings without the proof of the audiotapes. While this doesn't mean that what happened to Keith was fair, it does mean that it's not responsible to accuse Keith's supervisor and Dolores Gunn of firing him in retaliation for speaking out without direct proof. The tapes were the key, and they don't have a smoking fun to push the story further.
I'm of two minds about what happened. On the one, the evidence strongly pointed to strange timing and a political motive. The employment documents in Keith's file gave a lot of clues to follow, but there's no way to continue following up on the case without hiring a plaintiff's lawyer, and Keith lacks the resources to do so. The case also involved murky issues of employment law and the fact that entry level hires go through a probationary period which really prevents a case brought for damages.
On the other hand, you can't just go about accusing government employees of perfidy with no evidence to back it up, and in this case, the tape records don't show that, and it's only fair to admit it.
The complexity of the case ties back into the Kenneth Gladney and Kelly Owens cases, which slowly move ahead despite the long wait to bring minor charges. The common thread, outside of the Gladney's being brothers, is Pat Redington's office. She was cc'ed on the termination letter, and her office initially held up our records request. It was only after multiple formal requests that we were able to secure the evidence. I've been accused of libeling Pat Redington, which is untrue, but the only way to prove it is to publish information from the case file, which I'm not doing. If Redington feels she's been in any way unfairly smeared, she's welcome to call or make it an issue. I have more evidence than she does, and a public complaint would allow me to share it. Keep that in mind when some leftist trash crows about the failure to validate Keith's story.
I'm not a reporter with resources or a paycheck to follow a story, but I do think it's important to establish credibility with your honest readers, and in this case, the story didn't lead to proof of wrongdoing. Keith still maintains he was wrongfully terminated. When I played him the tapes, he stands by his version and says he wasn't responsible for the dogs. Without that clear distinction, the story hits a dead end.
The good news is that Keith and Kenneth are both moving on. Kenneth has secured employment, and the money that was donated to his fund helped keep him afloat long enough to get that job. Keith is on the verge of an offer, and through the month of January, he worked odd jobs and scraped money together to pay his rent. That kind of hard work makes a difference, and I'm confident the two of them and the rest of their family can work on putting their lives together after a truly awful 2009.
I was asked at one point why I put so much into this story. It's a fair question because I've put a lot of personal time (and yes, my own money) into helping this family. Maybe it's because I'm not yet jaded. When you're working with someone on a story, it's natural to become attached, especially when you see someone hurt unfairly. These two guys aren't political. They didn't ask for this. They just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and have been struggling to get out of it ever since. But the justice system, though it grinds exceedingly slow, also grinds exceedingly fine. Despite early setbacks, I believe that the county court system will eventually bring Kenneth his justice, and I believe Keith will come out of this better than when he entered.
I think we often have a tendency to expect the worst in political life. While there is certainly a lot of graft, greed, and corruption, the system ultimately has to be trusted, even when we want quick and fast answers. It's not perfect, but there are plenty of people I've come into contact with from both parties and in the county government who do what is right. Our job as bloggers and watchdogs is to ask those questions, keep them honest, and work within the system to make it fair.
You want change? Be the change. That's what I've learned.
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