On Wednesday, July 9, around 11 AM a Coeur d’Alene police officer shot and killed a dog inside a lawfully parked van in a coffee shop parking lot in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  A few hours after the incident, police SGT Jeff Walther issued a press release which according to the Coeur d’Alene Press read:

Coeur D’Alene Police Officers responded to reports of a suspicious van possibly watching young children in the Downtown Area parked in the parking lot behind 821 Sherman Avenue. Upon investigating the van, as the Officer approached along the driver’s side, a vicious Pit Bull dog lunged out the open driver’s side window toward the Officer’s face. The Officer fired one round from his service weapon as the dog lunged, striking the dog in the chest, dispatching it. The Officer was uninjured by the attack. The van was otherwise unoccupied. Officers are currently working to locate the owner of the van.

The Coeur d’Alene Press and the Spokesman-Review skewspapers, considered by many in the area to be little more than dead-tree mouthpieces for whatever fiction the elements of the City of Coeur d’Alene’s Ministry of Disinformation chooses to issue, dutifully printed all or part of the press release apparently before doing any follow-up or fact checking.

But then KREM-TV in Spokane did the unthinkable in the eyes of the CdA Ministry of Disinformation:  KREM went beyond the City’s press release and sought more information for its news story which aired at 5 and 6 PM.  And when it did, the CdA Ministry of Disinformation’s story began to come apart faster than a playful puppy’s chew toy. (more…)