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That the arrestee was belligerent and verbally abusive would suffice. Only if his speech cons utes a threat is it relevant.
No it's not stop playing stupid. If a black cop pulled him over and Mel had shouted you f*cking n...." should that be in the police report? Or should the officer write that he was insulted?
That the arrestee was belligerent and verbally abusive would suffice. Only if his speech cons utes a threat is it relevant.
What Would Jesus DUI?
You don't think the bold text in the original do ent is a textbook example of a cover-up? Hmm.
Is this a Hate Crime?
What do the changes to the report have to do with the crime of DUI?
August 1, 2006
Mel Gibson: The Speed of Scandal
By ALLISON HOPE WEINER
LOS ANGELES, July 31 — Almost as stunning as Mel Gibson’s anti-Jewish tirade when arrested on su ion of drunk driving in the early hours of last Friday was the speed at which the scandal unfolded, doing serious damage to one of Hollywood’s most valuable careers along the way.
In a little over 24 hours, Mr. Gibson’s arrest and subsequent behavior in Malibu had already prompted talk of a claimed cover-up, an exposé, worldwide news coverage, an apology and then a full-blown push for alcohol rehabilitation, even as his representatives and executives at the Walt Disney Company rushed to catch up with the event’s effect on the filmmaker’s movie and television projects with the company.
On Monday, Hope Hartman, a spokeswoman for Disney’s ABC television network, said the company was dropping its plans to produce a Holocaust-themed miniseries in collaboration with Mr. Gibson.
“Given that it’s been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon,” Ms. Hartman said, referring to Mr. Gibson’s production company.
She did not connect the project’s termination to Mr. Gibson’s remarks. But his statements had already attracted sharp criticism from some who argued that he should be disqualified from moving ahead with the series, despite having apologized for several anti-Jewish statements.
“I don’t think he should be doing a film on the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who had previously criticized what he saw as anti-Semitic overtones in Mr. Gibson’s hit, “The Passion of the Christ.” “It would be like asking someone associated with the K.K.K. to do a movie on the African-American experience.”
Heidi Trotta, a spokeswoman for Disney’s studio unit, said the company still expected to release Mr. Gibson’s feature film “Apocalypto” on schedule in early December. Mr. Gibson’s publicist, Alan Nierob, said he believed the movie would be released on time and by Disney, though he acknowledged that postproduction work would be interrupted by Mr. Gibson’s planned program of rehabilitation for substance abuse.
Meanwhile, those who make a business of managing crisis were already gleaning lessons from the breakneck pace at which the incident had gone from unfortunate encounter to career threat.
“The pervasiveness of the Internet has caused a dramatic increase in the dissemination of news,” said Michael S. Sitrick, chairman of Sitrick & Company, who specializes in crisis communications. The message was that there is no such thing as a minor incident among those for whom celebrity is an asset. “I would have reacted very quickly — even if had just been reported in The Malibu Times,” he said.
( this chairman is deeply brilliant, in his own crisis sort of way. )
In Mr. Gibson’s case, it was not The Malibu Times, but a Time Warner-owned celebrity news Web site, TMZ.com, that set off the media storm. On Friday evening, TMZ posted four pages of a sheriff’s report describing what the arresting officer said was Mr. Gibson’s belligerent behavior and a series of noxious remarks, including several deeply offensive comments about Jews.
In an accompanying article, the site said the officer had been told by superiors to withhold the pages containing the anti-Semitic and other inflammatory remarks from the report that would eventually be made public, reserving them for a separate portion that might escape widespread notice.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department disputed the notion of a cover-up. “The district attorney has the entire case now,” said Steve Whitmore, the spokesman. “We gave them everything we have.”
By late Saturday, however, Mr. Gibson had issued a statement apologizing for his remarks. And the next morning, The Los Angeles Times — in a report that carried no fewer than 11 bylines — reported that a civilian oversight office had already decided to investigate whether Mr. Gibson had been given favorable treatment because of his celebrity status or long-time friendship with the county sheriff, Lee Baca.
“Mel Gibson is an important person in Hollywood, a key player in one of Southern California’s most important industries,” the Los Angeles Times’s editor, Dean Baquet, said in a statement explaining the paper’s mass deployment over the weekend. “Gibson also happens to be someone whose religious views have been the subject of debate since he produced a movie on the subject that is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. But mainly, it’s a good story.”
A winner in all this was clearly TMZ, a celebrity news site that began operations just last November. “This was huge for us,” said Harvey Levin,
( said the Jew!)
the site’s managing editor and something of an expert in celebrity scandal, having created the now-defunct television show “ Celebrity Justice.”
For Mr. Gibson, things began their disastrous turn Thursday night, when he spent time drinking and posing for pictures at Moonshadows, an oceanside restaurant and watering hole in Malibu, where he has been a familiar fixture in recent weeks.
When an obviously inebriated Mr. Gibson announced his intention to leave, employees offered to call him a cab or drive him home, according to a person who was involved with events that evening but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
Mr. Gibson declined the assistance and instead jumped into his Lexus, and was quickly pulled over for speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway and then arrested on su ion of driving under the influence.
According to the report by the arresting officer, James Mee, Mr. Gibson demanded to know whether the deputy was a Jew, and said he would “get even with me.” In an obscenity-laced tirade, which included “a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks,” Mr. Gibson boasted that he “owns Malibu.” At one point, according to the report, the filmmaker tried to break free and had to be handcuffed.
The deputy asked that he be met at the station with a video camera, according to the report. Mr. Whitmore, the sheriff’s spokesman, said over the weekend that full details of the incident would ultimately be disclosed.
Mr. Nierob strongly challenged the notion of a cover-up. “This report was leaked within minutes of its happening, and it’s anything but a cover-up, and certainly anything but preferential treatment,” Mr. Nierob said Monday of his client. “He’s been held to a much higher situation. You show me the cover-up.”
Mr. Gibson spent much of the last year shooting “Apocalypto,” an idiosyncratic film shot in Mexico that used local actors to tell an epic story of warfare among the ancient Mayans. The film was originally set for release in August, but was delayed when heavy rains complicated the shoot.
Disney is distributing the movie in the United States, but did not directly finance it. Rather, Mr. Gibson’s company, Icon Productions, engineered the financial backing, much as it did for “The Passion of the Christ.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
What does the crime of DUI have to do with a cover up? Someone was told to re-write the report without the inflamatory comments while the original would be locked up. That's a cover up, dude.
Then it happens all the time. I've seen Sergeants grade Troopers' reports like a high school English teacher. Redacting extraneous and inflammatory content.
If it has nothing to do with the crime it doesn't belong in the report. You don't want the defense to be able to claim the arrest was based on anything other than the evidence; like an emotional response or bias.
Last edited by Yonivore; 08-01-2006 at 09:23 AM.
I'm sure Mel has said 10 Our Fathers and Hail Mary's and done his penance.
I pray for him during his relapse. God Bless.
Good point. I don't know standard police procedure. However I'd wager that if it was Leon Montoya from Inglewood that they'd gotten saying that it would have ended up in the report.
at the law and order types defending the cover up.
Any truth to the rumor that Mel had an open bottle of Manischewitz in his car?
If convicted he could face up to 30 days in the "Thunderdome”...
Mel Gibson Admits to Making Anti-Semitic Remarks, Asks for Help
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson has admitted to making anti-Semitic remarks during his drunken driving arrest and has asked members of the Jewish community to help him recover from his alcohol addiction.
"I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge," the actor-director says in a statement issued Tuesday through his publicist.
Gibson, 50, also says: "Please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith."
Gibson says he is "in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display" and hopes members of the Jewish community, "whom I have personally offended," will help him in his recovery efforts.
"I'm not just asking for forgiveness," Gibson says. "I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing."
He adds, "There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark."
Gibson acknowledges, "there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed."
He says he must take responsibility for making anti-Semitic remarks because as a public person, "when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena."
The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that it has accepted Gibson's second apology, saying it "sounds sincere."
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said this is the apology the group had hoped for the first time. He added that once Gibson finishes "his rehabilitation for alcohol abuse," the ADL will "help him with his second rehabilitation to combat this disease of prejudice."
Rabbi Mark S. Diamond of the 280-member Board of Rabbis of Southern California was only partially swayed by Gibson's latest statement.
"I welcome his words. And I hope and pray that they are sincere and heartfelt," but Gibson needs to show "tangible actions" of repentance, he said.
"I don't want to minimize for a moment the hurt and anger, the anguish, his words have created in our community," he added.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206560,00.html
I heard a really good quote somewhere about this:
"A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts."
Gibson's anti-semetic feelings were rather obvious in the furor after the "Passion" movie, and that alone was enough to convince me he is an ass. This rather ugly incident cements that belief.
I would not spend another cent on one of his movies, despite my nerdy fondness for the Mad Max movies.
Mel Gibson's father thinks the holocaust is a hoax and that September 11 was engineered by the Jews to make the muslims look bad. The apple don't fall far from the dumbass.
Sounds like there's an inner struggle with Mel regarding his feelings about Jews. He was raised by an anti-semitic father which had to impact him, yet he knows his faith says it's wrong.
He stated, drunk or not, how part of him feels yet apologized and asked the very people he offended to help him. Not much more you can do than that.
If he adheres to the constructive path he claims he wants to, then he'll be a much better man for it.
He can't take back the embarrasment and shame this brought him. I wish him and anyone else that sincerely wants to overcome bigotry nothing but the best.
(shrugs)
If I had some evidence of true penitence and not empty words, I would be the first to forgive him for his ugliness.
They say a drunken man's mouth is a sober man's heart.
and I know Dan is not IRISH, but being part Irish I know about drunks
and I heard this saying as an "Irish Saying"
Well, it's official...
He's plastered! (or just mucken weird)
Mel Gibson charged with DUI
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
MALIBU, California (CNN)CNN-- Actor-director Mel Gibson was charged Wednesday with driving last week under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said.
Gibson, 50, was charged with one count each of driving under the influence and driving while having a 0.08 percent or higher blood alcohol content, said Deputy District Attorney Ralph Shapiro, the deputy in charge of the Malibu office.
In addition, Gibson was charged with driving with an open container of alcohol, a vehicle code infraction.
Gibson was stopped about 2:09 a.m. Friday on Pacific Coast Highway after a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy allegedly observed him driving his 2006 Lexus at more than 85 mph....
***
His arraignment was set for September 28 in Malibu Superior Court. If convicted, Gibson faces up to six months in jail....
Here are some photos that are floating around the net of Mel parting hard with some hotties before he got busted...
Argh. He drives a Lexus. That figures.
While not all Lexus owners I have met have been complete asses, a sizeable number of them have been. Something about the brand attracts arrogance.
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