Day: April 15, 2008

When I first heard the news reports about six high-school cheerleaders in Polk County, Florida, whupping up on a girl who posted insults about them on MySpace, it didn’t really surprise me. When I learned that they had videotaped the whole beating to post on MySpace, that didn’t surprise me, either. And when I learned that the video was never posted by the girls even though it is all over the InterWeb, I was puzzled.

But when I learned that the only reason the video was all over the place was because Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd had released it to the media, I wasn’t surprised a bit. See, the high sheriff of Polk County is a blabbermouthed media whore who gladly sacrifices due process and individuals’ legal rights on the altar of his ego.

Judd wasted no time going on a media tour to express his outrage at the brutality of the attack and the girls’ lack of remorse after their arrest:

“It’s absolutely an animalistic attack,” Sheriff Grady Judd said Tuesday on NBC’s Today. “They lured her into the home for express purpose of filming the attack and posting it on the Internet.”

But then, a judge imposed a gag order on the high sheriff of Polk County:
Responding to an emergency request by an attorney for one of the eight people arrested in the case, Circuit Judge J. Michael McCarthy said there was concern that further public discussions about the case could affect the suspects’ right to a fair trial.

In his request for the gag order, attorney James “Rusty” Franklin wrote that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office had “released a barrage of inflammatory, prejudicial information about this case” to the media, and Sheriff Grady Judd had characterized the suspects as having ” ‘animalistic behavior,’ a ‘pack mentality,’ ‘disgusting.’ “

Well, predictably, that just pissed off Judd, who released the following statement:

I have the highest respect for the court and highest personal respect for Judge Michael McCarthy. He is my friend. I do, however, respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling to prohibit me, as an independent constitutional officer, to speak freely and inform the public regarding this case or any case.

This isn’t the first case where Judd’s media whoring has jeopardized a victim’s getting justice. In March 2007, Ryan Skipper was brutally murdered in Polk County by a couple of repeat offenders and likely meth addicts, and Sheriff Grady Judd was there as judge, jury and spokesman for justice as he tried Skipper in the court of public opinion. Trish broke the story on Pensito Review last March, and we covered it extensively.

In a nutshell, Sheriff Grady Judd alleged that 24-year-old Ryan Skipper was out cruising for gay sex when he hooked up with the two thugs who were so repelled by Skipper’s gay advances that they stabbed him more than 20 times, slit his throat, left his body on the side of the road and stole his car.

Now to me that sounds about as brutal and animalistic as it gets — much more so than a couple of teenage girls having a dust-up over some insults on MySpace. But there is a similarity between the two cases. Judd saw an opportunity to mouth off to the media about aspects of the cases before either investigation was completed. In one case he released evidence — videotape — to the media that should have been preserved for the trials. In the other, Judd assassinated the character of a young gay college student based on what his killers said.

But Sheriff Judd’s brand of law in Polk County can itself be brutal. When the sheriff’s SWAT team caught up with a man suspected of killing a policeman and his dog the day before, they fired 110 rounds of ammunition, hitting the suspect 68 times. Judd’s comment at the time:

“I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that’s all the ammunition they had,” Judd said.

Nice sound bite, Sheriff Grady!