The "Buck" Never Stops at Boss Godfrey's Desk

Write it down so you don't forget it

Now that Boss Godfrey has become a dedicated election season crime-fighter, it must have been a mite disturbing for the poor little guy to have known that his Emerald City voter constituency was reading all about the latest gang murder under yesterday morning's blaring Standard-Examiner headline, "Gang death in Ogden - Teen, 15, suspected of killing man who was holding bat".

Our readers will all recall that it's been a short two months since Boss Godfrey held that press conference announcing his "War on Gangs;" and although we Emerald City citizens were tentatively reassured in the knowledge that our can-do Mayor was looking out for us on the simmering gangland front, headlines like the one above really aren't the kind of thing a politically weakened mayor likes to see splashed all over the front page of the home town newspaper, six weeks before a crucial general election.

Godfrey's a resourceful guy, however, and he apparently didn't let any grass grow under his feet in putting a Godfreyesque spin on this politically damaging story. And although this is just speculation on our part, we suspect that what Godfrey immediately did was call his friends at the Standard-Examiner, to engineer a front-page Std-Ex story which would result in at least some political damage control.

And thus we highlight this morning's Sam Cooper cover story, in which the Ogden Police Department's Lt. Tony Fox (Chief Greiner is out of town) lays the entire blame for this politically inconvenient homicide on -- get this -- the owner of the parking lot where Jesus Aparicio was shot dead on Friday night by a rival gang member.

The spin is Godfreyesque, as we already mentioned. When something goes wrong in MattGodfeyWorld, it's always somebody else's fault.

And don't get us wrong on this; we don't think this "cover story" was Lt. Fox's own idea at all. Suffice it to say that when you're a guy like Tony Fox, who depends for his paycheck on a petulant Boss like the Boss of Us All, you don't ask questions or raise objections -- you simply start spinning the story just like you're told. That's our "take," and we're sticking to it -- until further notice at least.

And at risk of intruding into the policy territory of our Crime-fighter Mayor, wasn't it reported that our city council passed a broad new "anti-gang" ordinance just last month, prohibiting loitering in circumstances such as those at 30th & Washington on Friday night last? Why, we ask, is Boss Godfrey still relying on a trespass ordinance to control a 100-member mob-gathering on an Emerald City Friday night, when the council has now provided a law-enforcement blunderbuss, specifically intended to prevent loitering and the thwarting of gang turf-battles?

We confess we don't know the answer to that. Maybe one our gentle OPD readers can enlighten us on this.

On an entirely different topic tangent we'll also highlight this morning's most excellent Standard-Examiner editorial, in which Don Porter (or somebody on the Std-Ex editorial board) once again chides Boss Godfrey for his continuing pattern of government uber-secrecy:

"For the zillionth time, people: Operate in the open to begin with and these sorts of blunders can be avoided. And when someone asks for information, just give it to them. It really is that simple," Don Porter says.

And to Don Porter we say, "That's good advice, but we think you're wasting your breath. Nobody -- but NOBODY -- tells Boss Godfrey what to do -- not even those 'friends' who do him special favors."

It's all yours from here, gentle readers.