HWY169 Road Rage – Facts Are Stubborn Things
I hope no one in the Legislature tried to add this lady to the victim’s compensation fund.
A Prior Lake woman who said an enraged driver threw her onto Hwy. 169 near Shakopee last week has changed her story after police confronted her with conflicting statements from other witnesses.
Now Jennifer Boulden, 34, admits she wasn’t thrown by the man, nor did he smash her cell phone, which she was using before the incident, said Capt. Greg Muelken of the Scott County sheriff’s office. He said he’s not sure the woman intentionally meant to mislead police and reporters in her initial statements, citing that she was shook up by the incident and on heavy pain medication when deputies first talked to her. But when she was reinterviewed this week, she gave a notably different account:
Of course the local media rushed to judgement in that a man in the Twin Cities would actiualy throw someone into traffic and drive away. We all had our heart strings tugged at the inhumanity. It turns out that the media and all their editors and fact checkers are as guilty of emotional fraud as this lady is.
As an astute RF reader puts it:
How on earth did her version of events get printed without checking the facts first? Seems like someone over there rushed to press with a juicy story without doing the proper homework. Is the paper going to issue an apology to their readership?
The Strib sure did ham it up for the original version of the facts (printable). I think maybe they do owe the readers an apology. Just imagine if someone had figured out who this guy was, and armed with the “Strib facts” they turned into an angry mob and engaged in street justice with the guy. (story with photo)
And here’s the link to the video of the lady describing the original version of the facts.
Gatekeepers? They don’t need no stinking fact checkers? If it bleeds it leads.
Wow. When I read this story, I was amazed that it could happen with people around but nobody to get the plate number. After all the guy’s vehicle was supposedly parked at the time he threw her in the road.
Nick Coleman is a lucky guy this got found out. You want to bet this story was in his queue? It was so right up his alley.
To be fair to our friends on Portland Ave….this is the story that ran in all of the Scott County papers as well. I too thought it was odd that no one got the license plate number of the truck and knew that there was “more to the story” but you also have to realize that is the story that the Scott County police ran with. They ran with it because they were looking for what they thought was a road rage driver. If the circumstances had not been what they were told they were, it would have never made ANY media source….
LL