Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

Patten blasts back
Venice Florida! dot com's John Patten fires back at Venice cop Mike Treanor, accusing Treanor of twisting the facts to win points in a personal feud with Chief Hanks
-- from a posting on the Venice Florida! dot com message board
-- John Patten, 03/11/04
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Related:
VPD detective cleared in taking loot
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 03/10/04
Venice police chief under pressure
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 03/09/04
Correction to above Herald-Trib story, second item on page
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 03/10/04

Sigh.
I get a lot of tips, some pan out, some don't. An example -- way back when, I got an anonymous tip that utility worker John Brennan had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the EPA case. Couldn't get verification to save my life. I talked to Pat Horwell at the Gondo, told her about the tip and that it was unverified. She worked it and got confirmation.

On another occasion, about four months ago I received a bizarre tip about a public official's private life crossing over into possible highly illegal behavior. If even a hint about it got out to the public, it would have ruined his public service career. If it was true, the public deserved to know; if it was false not a hint of it could go out. I checked the tip out, it turned out to be false, end of story. Coincidentally, Tommy McIntyre of the Gondo also was working the same tip and he came to the same conclusions I did. You the reader will never know the nature of the allegations, hopefully. Well, think about it -- what if such a thing were to happen to you, how would you feel?

With this situation with VPD detective Mike Treanor, I got a strange call and I didn't know what to make of it. I certainly was not going to go public with it. After thinking about it for some time (almost a month, so it was not like I took this lightly or flippantly), I recounted the tip to VPD chief Jim Hanks, putting it in full context of an anonymous tip. I never said Treanor did anything, I said I got a strange call and this is what I was told. Treanor can bellow all he wants about how I accused him, but it's a lie -- I accused Treanor of nothing and he damned well knows it. As soon as I picked up the phone and listened to what was being told to me, I was in an ethical dilemma: no matter whether I said nothing or made as discrete an inquiry as possible, either choice seemed wrong.

Only one of two things was certain: either someone out there with a serious axe to grind wanted to do Treanor dirty or there was some merit to the info. I assure you -- if I received the tip, others must have also, it would be highly unlikely that I would have this plopped on my lap for a month and nobody else had heard about it.

So it got checked out and there's nothing to it. Great. Wonderful. I'm relieved to know that it was a bum steer that someone tried to give me. But I would never have gone public about it out of respect for the badge -- there's no reason to air untrue dirty laundry. Moreover, I tried to be as discrete as possible about the allegation that had been given to me.

Treanor states that Hanks lied about not knowing who made the allegation. Treanor is knowingly twisting facts here, a game of semantics. Hanks knows who mentioned it to him (me), but he does not know who made the allegation -- Hanks is being absolutely truthful. Remember, I didn't make an allegation, I merely recounted a phone conversation with the caveat that I had no idea if the information was true or not. I was being truthful -- I did receive such a call and I never at any time stated that Treanor had done anything wrong, only that the caller had made the allegation.

Treanor can beat his breast all he wants, but the plain fact is that if he's as good of a detective as he claims, he's solved crimes based on far less substantive tips. In both the news and the cop biz, we sometimes deal with shadowy rumors. That's not good, but that's the way it is. It is sometimes a tenuous tightrope walk to try to sift through the bullshit to get to the truth. In this case, the allegations turned out to be bullshit. End of story for me, sorry Treanor's panties got into a wad about it, but if I hadn't have asked, he'd have never known that such a rumor was going around.

Whether Treanor cares to admit it or not, the air was cleared of a serious cloud, and that's not a bad thing.

With Treanor, I did what I thought was the right thing to do at the time and I tried to do it in a way that would minimize any damage should the allegation turn out to be false. Remember, it was Treanor who went public with this mess, not City Manager Marty Black, not Hanks and not I. This is Treanor's trumpeting and thundering noise, presumably done for no other reason than to fuel the longstanding feud between himself and Hanks. If Treanor presently feels the public is looking at him funnily, he only has himself to blame.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.