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| Post dated 08 January 2012 |
While Mark Ruddock (no longer a Hadley officer; his choice or Mason's?) was probably less familiar with talking to journalists than John Scarinza, it would seem that basically the same thing is going on in both interviews: both are using Renner to slip out their own message about the Corolla crash.
Assuming Renner's account is true, it appears that Ruddock is conveying, the best way he can, under the circumstances, that Maura Murray was drunk at the Corolla crash - not by actually saying it, but by deliberately not saying it, by hanging up, knowing exactly how that would be read and reported. In other words, Ruddock, for some reason, it would appear, could not just come right out and answer Renner's question by saying Maura was drunk, but...
It's difficult to interpret Ruddock's hanging up as anything except a kind of unspoken claim that Maura was in fact drunk. After all, if Maura was sober, Ruddock could simply have said so. Why the mystery?
The timing of Renner's interview may be worth noting. The late Chief Dennis J. Hukowicz was ill with end-stage lung cancer and no longer able to perform his police duties. Then-Sgt. Damion Shanley was named acting chief until Mike Mason, the only other sergeant at Hadley, was named permanent chief some months after Hukowicz passed away. (Shanley was not a contender for the job.)
Some questions...
Who initiated this contact between Ruddock and Renner?
Was this conversation approved ahead of time by Shanley, Mason, or anyone else?
Did Renner just pick up the phone and get Ruddock right away?
At work?
Did Ruddock have any advance notice of Renner's call?
Did Ruddock have time to run possible answers past someone else? Plan what to say?
Or did Ruddock talk with Renner without even thinking about it?
Is there a recording of the call?
Or did Ruddock call Renner?
But...
Why would Scarinza and Ruddock not just lay it straight out? Why beat around the bush?
Only one reason I can see: the usual one of using a public forum to send a message to a very tiny part of the general audience.
The exact way a comment is worded, the way it’s slid into an interview, can mean one thing to the general public, but quite another to the less obvious, even hidden, stakeholders in the event discussed.
This kind of message-within-an-interview implies at least two opposing sides, of which the general public is unaware. It may not be open warfare between, say, Scarinza/NHSP and some MA cop(s), especially after thirteen years, but dollars to doughnuts there is some residual friction, some problem somewhere; a simmering fire that could flare up if poked enough.
Scarinza and Ruddock seem to have been saying something specific, saying it ostensibly to the general public, but the key component here is what they said, or didn't say, about the Corolla crash.
They seem to be using the interviews to say to someone else in LE that they are not afraid to use public record, such as interviews with a journalist (in this case, Renner), to register their dissatisfaction with the conduct of those to whom their comments are actually directed.
Scarinza would never question the conduct of another officer, another department, without good reason. As I’ve said before, Scarinza’s no dummy. He knows all about talking to the press. He knew, in my opinion, exactly what he was saying to Renner and exactly how it would be read by police in Massachusetts: as criticism, as saying he knows darn well, as any cop would, that Ruddock did not decide on his own to let Maura leave the scene of the Corolla crash un-arrested. And, it would seem, Ruddock is, in his own way, corroborating what Scarinza is saying.
If Scarinza and Ruddock both referenced the same event in a kind of "subtextual" way, then there's something important about it, something that can only involve other cops; otherwise, they’d skip it. Not to mention the backyard vandalism by someone immediately after my having posted, on Topix, BSG's knowledge of what happened; an act of vandalism that only further confirms the importance of events related to the Corolla crash.
Gotta wonder... Was the timing of the call between Renner and Ruddock merely coincidental or was it made because Hukowicz was then no longer involved in the day-to-day activity of the Hadley department?
Who, exactly, was at the scene of the Corolla crash?
And why did someone apparently want to keep Maura Murray from getting arrested?
Or as Billy Jensen said on Episode 54 of the Missing Maura Murray podcast (You Tube, 54:37), if Maura had been arrested at the Corolla crash, "then there's a whole support system around her and she doesn't go missing."
Maybe the problem is less with LE in NH and more with their counterparts in western Massachusetts. Maybe MA originally hoped to saddle NH with just another random missing person's case - when it started out as anything but.
Assuming Renner's account is true, it appears that Ruddock is conveying, the best way he can, under the circumstances, that Maura Murray was drunk at the Corolla crash - not by actually saying it, but by deliberately not saying it, by hanging up, knowing exactly how that would be read and reported. In other words, Ruddock, for some reason, it would appear, could not just come right out and answer Renner's question by saying Maura was drunk, but...
It's difficult to interpret Ruddock's hanging up as anything except a kind of unspoken claim that Maura was in fact drunk. After all, if Maura was sober, Ruddock could simply have said so. Why the mystery?
The timing of Renner's interview may be worth noting. The late Chief Dennis J. Hukowicz was ill with end-stage lung cancer and no longer able to perform his police duties. Then-Sgt. Damion Shanley was named acting chief until Mike Mason, the only other sergeant at Hadley, was named permanent chief some months after Hukowicz passed away. (Shanley was not a contender for the job.)
Some questions...
Who initiated this contact between Ruddock and Renner?
Was this conversation approved ahead of time by Shanley, Mason, or anyone else?
Did Renner just pick up the phone and get Ruddock right away?
At work?
Did Ruddock have any advance notice of Renner's call?
Did Ruddock have time to run possible answers past someone else? Plan what to say?
Or did Ruddock talk with Renner without even thinking about it?
Is there a recording of the call?
Or did Ruddock call Renner?
But...
Why would Scarinza and Ruddock not just lay it straight out? Why beat around the bush?
Only one reason I can see: the usual one of using a public forum to send a message to a very tiny part of the general audience.
The exact way a comment is worded, the way it’s slid into an interview, can mean one thing to the general public, but quite another to the less obvious, even hidden, stakeholders in the event discussed.
This kind of message-within-an-interview implies at least two opposing sides, of which the general public is unaware. It may not be open warfare between, say, Scarinza/NHSP and some MA cop(s), especially after thirteen years, but dollars to doughnuts there is some residual friction, some problem somewhere; a simmering fire that could flare up if poked enough.
Scarinza and Ruddock seem to have been saying something specific, saying it ostensibly to the general public, but the key component here is what they said, or didn't say, about the Corolla crash.
They seem to be using the interviews to say to someone else in LE that they are not afraid to use public record, such as interviews with a journalist (in this case, Renner), to register their dissatisfaction with the conduct of those to whom their comments are actually directed.
Scarinza would never question the conduct of another officer, another department, without good reason. As I’ve said before, Scarinza’s no dummy. He knows all about talking to the press. He knew, in my opinion, exactly what he was saying to Renner and exactly how it would be read by police in Massachusetts: as criticism, as saying he knows darn well, as any cop would, that Ruddock did not decide on his own to let Maura leave the scene of the Corolla crash un-arrested. And, it would seem, Ruddock is, in his own way, corroborating what Scarinza is saying.
If Scarinza and Ruddock both referenced the same event in a kind of "subtextual" way, then there's something important about it, something that can only involve other cops; otherwise, they’d skip it. Not to mention the backyard vandalism by someone immediately after my having posted, on Topix, BSG's knowledge of what happened; an act of vandalism that only further confirms the importance of events related to the Corolla crash.
Gotta wonder... Was the timing of the call between Renner and Ruddock merely coincidental or was it made because Hukowicz was then no longer involved in the day-to-day activity of the Hadley department?
Who, exactly, was at the scene of the Corolla crash?
And why did someone apparently want to keep Maura Murray from getting arrested?
Or as Billy Jensen said on Episode 54 of the Missing Maura Murray podcast (You Tube, 54:37), if Maura had been arrested at the Corolla crash, "then there's a whole support system around her and she doesn't go missing."
Maybe the problem is less with LE in NH and more with their counterparts in western Massachusetts. Maybe MA originally hoped to saddle NH with just another random missing person's case - when it started out as anything but.
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