Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
WLOSers had several follow-up stories on Monday, and it sure was interesting to see the subtle changes the news had undergone. To wit:
A different kind of court for WCU player
Kyle Greathouse, the Western Carolina University men’s basketball team point guard injured in a car wreck about a week ago pleaded no contest in court on Monday to DWI charges. WLOSer Terrie “Pasty-faced” Foster said Greathouse was given a four-month jail sentence that was suspended. He was also required to pay court costs, get an alcohol abuse assessment, do 48 hours of community service and was suspended from playing three games for the team.
Initial reports had Greathouse’s female passenger chaged with DWI. The early reports also indicated that Greathouse suffered severe injuries such that the trooper on the wreck scene thought Greathouse was gonna die, WCU officials told Foster.
Foster talked to Greathouse’s attorney, who said the no contest plea was the best for everyone involved. The attorney also said neither Greathouse nor his female passenger could remember who was driving.
Foster never questioned that bullshit comment. By looking at her report, it seems she never talked with investigating troopers, and never checked the trooper’s filed report. There must have been some evidence showing Greathouse was the driver, or the cops wouldn’t have changed their minds and charged him with DWI after initially charging the female passenger. C’mon, Terrie.
Two other notes – there was no video of Greathouse entering or leaving court, or standing in court. But every other redneck that gets charged around here gets the perp-walk treatment by WLOSers. Special treatment for an athlete? Smells like it.
On the other hand, WLOSers initially called Greathouse a WCU basketball “star.” That was when he was apparently the victim. No mention of the superlative in the story Monday. Hmmmm.
Foster padded her story with a couple of comments from WCU students – one who said Greathouse shouldn’t be allowed to play ball again, and another who said he’s paying for his mistake.
Mysterious death
Buncombe County deputies are investigating an unusual death in Swannanoa, WLOSers said. The man was identified and police weren’t saying how he was killed. Tape at 11.
Fatal wreck follow-up
WLOSers had a follow-up report about a wreck in Black Mountain over the weekend. WLOSers reported it then as a police chase that ended in a crash near the Hunters and Treasures pawn shop.
On Monday, there was no real mention of the police chase aspect of this story. It was all about how the female driver, Crystal Porter, died in the hospital Saturday and how her friends would miss her. The friends told WLOSers that Porter would never flee police. The friends also said that Porter had told them her doctor recently changed some medication she was on, and that could have explained her erratic behavior.
Again, how about some more reporting here to answer a million unanswered questions. How fast was the chase? What about Porter – what did she do for a living? ever been in trouble with the cops before?
In still other crime news…
You’d think the mountains were awash in crime by the WLOSer news on Monday: no charges were filed in a deadly shooting in Ashvegas last year. The SBI cleared Ashvegas cops who shot Lacy Pickens four times in the Cracker Barrell parking lot last summer. The cops said he was trying to run them down… Murder charges were dropped in a shooting death last May in Henderson County. The court ruled the shooter was acting in self-defense.
Cleaning up after a wreck
WLOSer Jeremy Butterfield had an interesting report on cleaning up after car wrecks.
Butterfield went to McDowell County and showed the aftermath of the scene of the fatal wreck involving an Old Fort police officer last week – broken glass, dirty rubber gloves and other medical waste. Who’s supposed to clean this stuff up, Butterfield asked.
Well, the emergency workers are supposed to clean up after themselves, and tow truck crews are supposed to clean up the broken car debris. But that didn’t happen. The emergency officials took the expected line – saving lives come first. O, and when wrecks happen at night, it’s hard to see to get everything cleaned up. If there’s some trash left around, call us and we’ll clean it up, the emergency workers said.
Water wars
Pat “Simple” Simon, wearing a horrible tie that looked like fish scales, told us that the city of Ashvegas lost its court case against the county over water rates. The city challenged the Sullivan Act, an old state law that requires county residents to be charged the same water rates as city residents. City officials think city residents should get a break.
Simon talked to a county resident, who said she didn’t think she should pay more for water. But city resdient Jane Mathews said the water system needs repair work and the city should be allowed to charge more for extending water lines out into the county.
Simon also talked to city Councilman Brownie Newman and county Commissioner David Young, who shared their differing views. In the end, Simon told us what we all knew – there will be more meetings to hash this out. And the city has yet to decide whether or not to appeal the court decision.
In other news…
Hendersonville library officials will ask county officials to let them kick people out or temporarily ban people who vandalize the library or damage property in the library… Long Shoals Road widening work is ahead of schedule, according to Cherub Charu, who talked to businesses new and old… It’s really cold outside... WLOSer Julie Blunder says winter is “back with a vengeance” (that’s the second or third time winter has been back with a vengeance), but you can’t find gloves or heaters in stores. That’s because stores are already stocking spring stuff… And sixth-graders in McDowell County were cramming in advance of going to the NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. Some 60 students leave Wednesday for the three-day camp.
They both had a blood alcohol of about twice the legal limit, but surely one of them knows who was driving. The witness told WLOS they were both in the passenger’s side of the car (inside), not outside the car.
OK nobody is making sense on the Greathouse topic…..supposedly they were both next to the car when troopers arrived??? If he was so bad off that the trooper thought he was going to die…I’m no doctor but chances are he WASNT standing beside the car…and from what I heard all around The Whee…he wasnt the one driving…I heard about it right after it happened and up until a moment ago reading this article…I never heard a word about Kyle being the one in the drivers seat….I’ve heard nothing but it was the other way around…I even heard from an employee at the bar they had left that an event at the bar had to be canceled because some girl left the bar wrecked and almost killed her boyfriend…supposedly her BAC was twice the legal limit..and this is all getting pinned on Kyle…I call BS….Kyle’s a good guy and from the sounds of things he’s taking the fall….
THIS IS JACKSON COUNTY WE ARE TALKING ABOUT! EVERY CORNER IS CROOKED IN THAT PLACE! WHEN WLOS STARTS ASKING REAL QUESTIONS, THEY RUN TO THEIR MOMMIES! TRUST ME, I HAVE SEEN IT HAPPEN!
Foster questioned the trooper on the air last week about how they determined who was driving. He told her they reconstructed the scene but wouldn’t tell her anything else. She said in her standup at Greathouse’s apartment that she knocked on his door trying to get some answers, but he refused to come out. She interviewed a witness who was there that night. He said both Greathouse and the girl were on the passenger’s side of the car when he arrived. She talked to the girl and her family who claim she doesn’t remember anything. The girl told troopers she was driving that night. Special treatment by the media? I don’t think so.
Wonder how the cops figured out he was driving? I have it on excellent authority some of his "very bloody" wounds were, how shall we say this… genital in nature. This kid must have a PR flak to keep this out of the news.
Furthermore, was the woman who died was the subject of the police chase, or a bystander?
Many many more bystanders are killed than subjects of chases.
re: no perp walk of Greathouse
Slam Terrie on the reporting, if you wish. I didn’t see the report, so I can’t really respond to that. But I _can_ say with relative certainty that Greathouse being an athlete had nothing to do with there not being a walk shot, at least not from the WLOS end. Maybe the cops brought him in a back way into the courtroom; maybe there are a couple of entrances he could have come in and WLOS staked out the wrong one; maybe the camera battery died or the tape jammed at a most inopportune time; maybe the ‘LOS crew just didn’t get there in time to get the walk shot. Any number of possibilities, but not special treatment that they would give an athlete. Heck, there’s not much better in teevee news than getting a walk shot of someone who might be generally thought to be part of some privileged category of folk.
The water rate is the least of it – Howzabout the billing fee, repair fee and recycling fee? They compose the majority of my bill.
Special treatment for a WCU division 2 basketball role player….Hmmm…
…but its wlos! They’re all vampires and members of the Illuminati! Its must be true! Its all part of their conspiracy to take over asheville with a legion of greatful division 2 basketball bench warmers!
…or maybe the crew sent to get video of Gatehouse was called away to shoot that dead body…