Shotgun Blues Update

I wrote about an incident at a Denver gun show where a Perazzi executive (allegedly the grandson of the founder) was arrested and later released because of a "terrorism" tip from a cab driver. Now there's more. Or less depending upon your perspective.

David Codrea also wrote about it, and his article has been updated. He mentions the NRA director confirmed some aspects of the story, as well as detailing his verification process prior to publishing his article. He doesn't name names other than the NRA director, but has asked his sources for permission to reveal them.

Perazzi issued a press release claiming that the incident never occurred (an English translation can be read over at Codrea's Examiner article). They mention Daniele Perazzi passed away last year and his son, Mauro, was not in the u.S. at the time. They made no mention of a grandson, but did mention they were looking into litigation to protect their reputation.

The source of this story is Fox31, a local news outlet here in Colorado. The original story is here.

9news, another local news station, went after Fox31 claiming the incident was a hoax.

The 9news story implies they spoke with a representative of Perazzi. The company rep said there is no grandson named Daniele and no Perazzi employees were in Denver that weekend.

9news says the Adams County sheriff's office has no record of an arrest, detainment or contact with anyone at the gun show that day.

9news says the fellow presiding over the gun show has no knowledge of this incident occurring.

9news talked with the head honcho of the TOP (Taxi's On Patrol) program, who said there was "no factual information out there" and asserts this incident has damaged his program's reputation.

Finally, 9news tracked down the attorney whom Fox31 relied upon as the source for the story:

"9NEWS has learned that source was 27-year-old Korrine Aguirre of Walsenburg, in southern Colorado.

Reached by phone Tuesday night, Aguirre confirmed that she was FOX31's 'attorney' source.

'Yeah,' Aguirre said. 'There was a comment that I had made the other day that I probably shouldn't have made.'

'Apparently that blew up a lot bigger than it was supposed to,' Aguirre said.

When Aguirre was asked if she actually is an attorney, the phone line went dead and she did not answer repeated return calls."

9news goes on to say the lady graduated from a local law school, but wasn't listed in a statewide database of attorneys.

I've rarely seen the msm make up a story out of whole cloth. Further I can't discern a motive for anyone to perpetrate such a hoax. But if, if 9news is accurate in its' reporting, then it may be that nothing happened at the gun show in Denver last Saturday.

There are still some gaps, such as the NRA director saying that something did occur. And the attorneys that David Codrea corresponded with seem to corroborate the initial reports.

When doubts came out my initial assumption was that a detail or two had been incorrectly reported (for example it could have been another relative of Perazzi's instead of the grandson, or an employee of the company, not an heir, or perhaps someone who had a Perazzi but was not otherwise connected to the company). that Adams County had no records of contact with anyone at the gun show could have pointed to the Denver PD being involved instead (although I was under the impression that Adams county's Sheriff's office had jurisdiction there, not the Denver PD - which that, too could have been explained by a dispatching error).

I will also point out that trusting one msm outlet when they say another msm outlet got something wrong is not logical; either could be incorrect on factual matters.

However unless there's more from a trusted source like David Codrea I'll have to conclude that for some unknown reason someone pulled the matrix of keratin fibers over the ocular interface of a local news station, and it was fuzzy enough to cover a lot of folks.

I still think, going by what was said, that something did happen, but at this point it could be as trivial as a security guard giving a grimace towards a guy with a H&R single barrel in a gunboot on the way in the door.

And by no means should the retraction of this account be taken as even remotely suggesting that Denver is a gun owner friendly place. It's not, and should be avoided as much as possible.

Posted by Publicola at May 22, 2013 10:12 AM | TrackBack