along comes Whittington who sees them. Shocked, he starts to exit the tawdry scene. Cheney, full of himself, drunk with power and beer, points his rifle and fires on Whittington before he can turn and leave . . .
Did it happen? Who knows? The 'investigation' into the shooting of Whittington, Cheney's friend (acquaintance), is compromised by contradictions, conflicts of interest, and likely coercion. For all we know, the shooting was deliberate.
The
police report is dated 2/15/2006 ... Four days after the incident. They took until Tuesday to visit the site. It wasn't until Wednesday that they got statements and affidavits from the Armstrongs and Pamela Willeford.
According to the police report, Cheney "followed the bird by line of sight in a counterclockwise direction", to the left. On camera, former paid lobbyist to the WH, Katherine Armstrong motioned to the left when she described Cheney's swing and shot. Yet, the wounds to Whittington's face are on the right hand side. they're listed in the Park and Wildlife
report as on the right side, yet their diagram shows wounds on the left side of the figure.
Armstrong was recorded one day saying she was the one who decided to tell the local paper about the shooting. In the next account she's claiming that she and Cheney decided together that she should release the story. Whatever the truth is, the story was dribbled out, giving all of the hunting party time to be coerced or influenced into coordinating their accounts.
We know from pg. 4 of the '
report' that Constable Medellin, the man Captain Kirk told the sheriff to call, is the former sheriff of Kenedy County. Cheney's hunting companions, Jerry and Oscar Medellin who are related to Constable Medellin who was cited in the report as having spoken to 'witnesses' and concluded the shooting was accidental. Why did Kirk tell the sheriff call the Constable? Why is so much weight given in the report to the assurance from the Constable that "this in fact was an accident", especially in the face of the obvious conflict of interest with his relatives being part of the hunting party?
We know from the first page of the police '
report' that Cheney and Willeford were cited as walking together just before Cheney came upon Whittington. With all of the contradictions, I can just as reasonably assert that my version of events is fact since none of the other 'witness' statements are consistent, were taken well after the incident, were controlled by lack of access to the main actors, and are compromised by the witnesses relationships with each other. This was a slipshod investigation of events that forces us to either trust the word of Cheney and his cohorts, or satisfy ourselves with the victim's reluctance to blame the shooter.
I've got my own version of events that day, and I'm sticking to it :) , at least until I'm satisfied that the contradictions and conflicts of interest are reconciled. If not, there will be no limit to speculation about whatever happened that day. I think that's the way this thing is going to lie, in the history books and beyond, with rampant speculation that ranges from criminality to absolving Cheney completely. Don't expect me to take the word of a proved liar for fact.
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