Marvin Harrison Shooting: PFT is full of crap

by BigBlueShoe on May 5, 2008 11:01 AM EDT in Bad Journalism Comment 12 comments

Mike Florio of PFT loves to report rumors as facts. It's about as professional as a doctor performing surgery on a patient without anesthetic. With the the recent shooting investigation outside a bar owned by Marvin Harrison, I knew it was only a matter of time before Florio brought up two other incidents that (just like the "Bill Polian beats up Jets employees" rumor) were complete and utter falsities. However, typical Florio, he paints them as events that did happen, despite no actual proof that they did.

If Mike Florio ever becomes a judge folks, run for the hills.

Florio reports on two incidents, none of which resulted in charges, suspension, fines, or even proof they even happened, aside from "unnamed sources," which essentially means nothing:

Granted, the five-year-old incident involving Harrison is a far cry from a shooting. But it’s further evidence that maybe Marvin isn’t the great guy that we’ve been led to believe he is.

In 2003, Harrison allegedly knocked a Jets’ ball boy to the ground because Jets punter Matt Turk was kicking balls in the direction of Harrison and quarterback Peyton Manning prior to a game.

And another:

Three years ago, Harrison was sued for "violently and physically attack[ing]" three boys who were seeking his autograph a day before the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

Harrison allegedly put one of the boys in a choke hold.

There were never any further reports about the lawsuit, which suggests to us that it was quietly settled for a confidential payment.

Let's be clear on something here: A man is innocent until guilt is proven. If guilt is not proven, the man didn't do it, especially if the event involved an attack. It is that simple. Ironic that Florio, a LAWYER by trade, has a hard time grasping this very simple, very universal fact of our society. From what I remember (and there are no links to support this) but the autograph, choke-hold, whatever lawsuit was dismissed for lack of evidence, not settled quietly out of court. And since when do the Jets count as a reliable source? They were the ones who said Bill Polian attacked a Jets employee back in 2006, and that turned out to not be true.

So, because of these other incidents Florio has referenced (none of which proven true with actual evidence), I've decided to make a resolution: If nothing results from this Marvin Harrison investigate, I will no longer read PFT.

The one thing I cannot stand is when rumor mongering condemns someone in the eyes of the public before that person has been condemned in a court of law. This is what PFT has lived on for years, and he is using this police investigation to pad his hit count, nothing more. Yes, he is within his rights to do this. However, I am within my rights to call him a skeezy, sleazeoid lawyer looking for a quick buck.

So, until Marvin Harrison is charged, this is a dead story. Until he is proven guilty in court, this is a dead story. If Marvin had been Pacman Jones or Tank Johnson, I could somewhat understand the witch hunt. Those guys have a long history of repeated events that call into question their character. Tank Johnson did actual jail time. Harrison doesn't have these kinds of repeated events listed, no matter how hard Mike Florio tries to paint it as such.

If there is one thing positive to take from Buzz Bissinger's angry rant about blogs, it's that when it comes to fact and rumor, we bloggers should not confuse the two. Yes, we can report rumors and even make fun of them, especially when they involve Matt Leinart in a pool sharing beer with underage drinkers. But in this case, using rumor to assassinate someone's character is just plain wrong. It's as wrong a pushing a ball boy, pushing a kid for an autograph, or "making it rain."

The irony is Florio is seemingly just as dirty and sleaze ridden as the rotten players he seems to take joy in exposing. Typical in Florio's lawyer profession, it looks like Mike is chasing an ambulance here. If nothing results from this Harrison investigation, I would like to see that ambulance run Florio over a few times.

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A bit of a spin

When he said “allegedly” he’s asserting that it is NOT a fact.

And the other example, “Harrison was sued”, that is true as well.

When someone like Marvin Harrison is unexpectedly tagged with something like this people are naturally going to read into his past to determine if there were any signs or past discretions.

I don’t think Florio has done any wrong here.

by Joel Thorman on May 5, 2008 2:19 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Reading into his past is fine

However, since there is no proof either event happened, why read into it? Why give it more credence than the unsubstantiated rumor that it is?

Please make an account and post a diary, add some comments, and make some noise. Accounts are free, and only require an email address.

by BigBlueShoe on May 5, 2008 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Florio not out of line

So I see a link to a NY Times article talking about him having an incident with a ball boy. And I see a link to an ESPN article talking about a lawsuit that Harrison was involved in with 3 autograph seekers. These are not some simple blogs that are reporting this, these are reputed media sources.

Now granted, his assertion of the “quiet … confidential payment” doesn’t seem to have much to back it up, but that is the only thing.

I heard a guy interviewed on Friday when this story broke, and he cited these incidents. And he wasn’t doing it to assassinate the character of Harrison (trust me, MH is doing well enough with this incident), he was simply pointing out a key truth about this whole thing:

“We don’t know these guys. Period.”

Until Friday, I was of the belief that Harrison was one of the good guys in the NFL. That he did things right, etc. And what did I base this on? The fact that he acts like a character guy on the field. No taunting, no celebrating, etc.

But what does that really get us? What does that show us about anyone? Let’s take a look at this list of athletes:
Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson, Keyshawn Johnson, Marvin Harrison, Kirby Puckett

Taking a look at just their playing days, you would group Owens, C Johnson and K Johnson together, and Harrison and Puckett together.

However consider the following:
TO and Chad Johnson have never been arrested, Keyshawn, since he entered college, the same (he had a troubled youth, but corrected that).
Harrison currently faces this case, along with 2 other incidents that were mostly brushed over by the media (can you imagine if TO did the same things? They would be the lead story on ESPN). Puckett we have learned since his career ended was anything but the fine upstanding man he projected to everyone (womanizer, violent temper, arrested, lewd, etc).

There is your public image, and what you really are. Some guys like being flamboyant and out there, and let their public image take a beating. While others have worked hard to craft a public image that makes them out to be guys that are clean, but in fact they may be anything but. The point is we don’t know. And before we jump on some guy reporting events on a “nice guy”, let’s stop and think “Do we really know this guy?”

(PS – I was going to throw OJ on that list of good/bad guys, but I thought it would be over the top. But if you think about it, before June 1994, Simpson was a beloved athlete, had been in movies, was viewed as a really great guy, was the anchor of NFL on NBC. Only once he faced the murder charges did he become the vilified persona he is today)

by Longhorn Ron on May 5, 2008 2:54 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Reply

TO and Chad Johnson are not in the same category as Pacman Jones or Tank Johnson. They are not criminals, just really shitty teammates who are selfish. They also have a tendency to attack teammates and coaches PHYSICALLY. Using them for comparison sake here is idiotic.

Please make an account and post a diary, add some comments, and make some noise. Accounts are free, and only require an email address.

by BigBlueShoe on May 5, 2008 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ummm

Actually what is idiotic is you saying people did not do a crime unless they are proven guilty. I mean seriously…how dumb can a person be to actually think that? MILLIONS of people over time have committed crimes and not been found guilty. Are you that friggin stupid to believe you didn’t do anything if you’re never caught/found guilty? What about people who are found guilty yet DID NOT COMMIT THE CRIME? What is your opinion then?

I also love your attitude here about Marivn and the “innocent until proven guilty” crap and telling people to not jump to conclusions yet if it was ANY of the many players you dislike you’d be all over trashing them like a fat kid on a smartie. I’d LOVE to see someone like chad johnson be in this same situation to see what you’d write.

You are the biggest jackass I have come across online (including pats fans) and that says something since I have come into contact with A LOT of morons over the years. Not that you care, but the reason you are such a jackass is because you are such a blind homer that it is revolting and then you have the nerve to trash other homers of different teams when they do the same shit you do.

As for Marvin…clearly he isn’t the wholesome boy you try and imply he is since he apparently admitted to getting into a fight earlier in the day (good going marvin…get into a fist fight when your job relies a lot on your hands…smart) and he has a somewhat large gun collection (show me a fuggin clean person who owns a bundle of guns like that) and the fact that he is even mentioned in this incident at all. Good ol wholesome boys don’t put themselves into this position.

I would LOVE to see what you’d say if marvin was on any other team.

Oh and the guy using chad and T.O is perfectly fine here but your pea-sized brain just can’t comprehend his point…not hard to see why.

Please go be the driver of the ambulance that runs over this florio guy…then not be found guilty so using your insane “logic” you would be innocent of it…then after that how about you run yourself over. I don’t want you to die, I just want you to go away.

by WHY BBS WHY on May 5, 2008 3:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

TO/Ocho/etc

Full Disclosure – I am a Cowboys fan, I make no bones about it. I will say that the team makes some bad roster decisions. I certainly don’t agree with the Pacman move, but we will see how things turn out. The team does have a program setup to try to help people straighten out their lives.

Now, as far as all of your points:
Ok, let’s talk about TO and Ocho – show me a report substantiating physical assult on teammates. And I want charges, clearly a Times and ESPN article are not good enough for your standards, so let’s see proof.

Second – why does Harrison get any sort of benfit of doubt that TO/Ocho don’t? Like I pointed out, they have never had legal issues (I looked). So why does their on the field behavior take away from their credibility?

Third – what do you really know about Harrison? Do you know him personally? So far what we have are facts of the case, such as his gun being used in the shooting. The casings fired, belonging to Harrison. The fact that he said his gun was never out of his house, yet it is found in a bucket at another business he runs. It isn’t looking good for him.

And Finally – Your quote: “A man is innocent until guilt is proven. If guilt is not proven, the man didn’t do it, especially if the event involved an attack. It is that simple.”
OJ Simpson?

by Longhorn Ron on May 5, 2008 9:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think

the salient point here is that it is never wise (or fair for that matter) to judge anybody until the facts come out and are confirmed. If you look at the post a few entries up from this one on the mainpage titled “Marvin Harrison Shooting: Details conflict with 610 WIP Radio report from Friday,” you see that some of the “facts” first reported about the incident, which have been used all over the Internet to villify and condemn Harrison, may be entirely false. But as usually happens in this country, if people get ahold of a particularly juicy story they run with it, facts be damned. People are tried and convicted in the court of public opinion before anybody even knows what actually happened. And sometimes misconceptions based on untruths last forever (hey, did you know that Richard Gere once went to the hospital to have gerbils removed from his ass?)

Personally, I don’t think people should be judged until the facts are known. It’s too bad that TO or CJ or Pacman or anybody else is pre-judged, but that doesn’t make it OK to pre-judge Marvin. Two wrongs don’t make a right and all that. I’ll wait until we hear what really happened to form my own opinions. Until then, this argument is largely a trashy, soap opera-esque waste of time.

by ctnyc on May 6, 2008 11:09 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Wow

Lot of piss and vigor here from both sides. Look, I still hold out hope that Marvin wasn’t involved in the actual shooting, but let’s face it, him owning 25 guns – especially one intended to pierce body armor – and getting into fist fights in bars is enough for me to no longer see him in the same light as I once did. But really, what did I know about him as a person? What do I know about any of these guys as people? I like to think Peyton Manning is a great guy, and from what we’ve seen of his off-field exploits and what people who have encountered him have relayed to us, he is indeed a great guy.

But I don’t KNOW that for sure. I don’t KNOW any of these guys. The Colts don’t draft people they deem to be “bad character” guys, but that doesn’t mean they don’t end up with guys who do shitty things. At the end of the day, the Colts are no different than most NFL teams. Sometimes, they pick some bad apples by mistake. Except for maybe the Cowboys, because they’ve knowingly acquired guys like Tank Johnson and Pacman Jones when most other teams have shied away, but most teams think – and expect – their players to tow the line. Obviously, Marvin has some questionable hobbies and at best has made a poor decision by getting into multiple altercations at his establishment.

We won’t know for sure how bad this is until all the facts come out, but if Harrison is only guilty of owning the guns and getting into a fist fight I’d be fine with keeping him on the team. I’d think less of him, but I don’t think it’s a cuttable offense. After all, it’s possible the guy who was shot started both altercations. As a rich and famous athlete, Marvin is a visible target, especially in his old neighborhood.

Now, if he fired the gun or authorized the firing of the gun, I’d hope the commissioner would suspend him for numerous years, tacked onto the end of his likely prison sentence, effectively ending his career. I certainly hope that’s not the case and Marvin is cleared of most of the wrongdoing.

by BSanders37 on May 5, 2008 3:56 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

KSK on Marvin

Not as bad as I thought it would be.

my blog http://shakennbaken.blogspot.com

by shake n bake on May 5, 2008 5:37 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

BigBlueShoe writes: “Let’s be clear on something here: A man is innocent until guilt is proven. If guilt is not proven, the man didn’t do it, especially if the event involved an attack. It is that simple. “

Um, are you kidding me? I have always liked Harrison, so i certainly have no axe to grind with him. But an argument that says a person didn’t commit a crime if he is not found guilty is just plain stupid. By that logic, if person A shoots person B in the head as a lark, person A did not really do it if he is not found guilty. That is completely asinine logic.

by rkmanning on May 5, 2008 8:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs