After reading Roy Exum's opinion about the Stone versus Stone matter, it occurred to me that not one of his sources had the courage to provide their name. In Mr. Exum's eyes, his sources are "impeccable", "solid", "irrefutable", and "respected" but not one of them would stand next to their statements without the veil of anonymity. That is cowardly, plain and simple.
These "neighbors", "eye-witnesses", "confidants", "knowledgable people", and "close sources" have no credibility unless they identify themselves. If these folks feel that a miscarriage of justice took place, than they owe it to this community to come forward publicly. Otherwise, anyone can say anything about another person, truthful or not, without consequence.
Online, we call these people trolls. But Mr. Exum calls them sources, even while readily admitting that much of this is "according to his (Mr. Stone's) friends". Were Mr. Stone's friends there that night? Did they see things with their own eyes? If not, then they are just getting one side of the story and that is all.
I give zero credibility to Mr. Exum and his "sources" on this matter, especially as so many of the actual facts in his opinion are flat wrong. The incident in question has been widely reported to have occurred on the evening of May 20 yet Mr. Exum says it happened a full week later, on May 27. That is an easy fact to check but it seems he was too busy having conversations with his "irrefutable" sources to care about the real facts. Thank goodness this is an opinion piece and not a real piece of journalism.
Mr. Exum says he takes "no pleasure" in revealing this story. I call bunk on that. He writes it with the zeal of a person with a vendetta. If I were Mrs. Stone, I would be filing a libel lawsuit faster than you can say to Exum "that dog won't hunt"!
Becky Glenn
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Yea Roy, that special app you've got on your computer to immediately delete everything so us "peasants" can't find it through FOIA (like the good mayor and his minions) ain't gonna get you out of this.
Sue White