Lancaster High theft story: Is Aaron Kennedy protesting on his own, or being pressured?

Lancaster High’s Aaron Kennedy had a statement from his police report quoted in Lancaster Today’s second story about theft at Lancaster High.

Oct. 30, Aaron Kennedy reported a DVD card and a video card missing from a Dell Optiplex GX620 computer, and said “the parts are easy to remove due to the fact that all Dell Computers cases are snap on exteriors and require no tools to gain access to the interior of the computer.” He also said a complete computer central processing unit and monitor was missing from the same classroom, B211. The same day, he reported another DVD card and video card stolen from the same type Dell in another classroom, C153, a video card from a Dell in classroom C205, two RAM sticks from a Dell in room C210. Nov. 9, Kennedy reported the theft of RAM from two computers in room C247.

Well, whether on his own, or because of pressure from above, Kennedy apparently didn’t like his name being in the story, with quote. He sent me an angry e-mail indicating he doesn’t know much about journalism or quoting people.

My name is Aaron Kennedy, and yesterday December 14, 2006, I was quoted in an article written by Steve Snyder in the Lancaster Today paper. I have never met Mr. Snyder, nor have I ever had a conversation with him or any form of contact. I would like you to publish a correction in your next day’s print stating that this information was false. Furthermore, I would like you to understand how completely disgusted I am that your publication could allow a writer to completely falsify information in order to further his own personal career. In my personal opinion, he has single handedly given writers, and your publication specifically, a bad name. Please ensure that this situation is handled with immediate urgency.

I simply replied that I had quoted him from a police report obtained by an open records request and that therefore no retraction was needed nor would be forthcoming.

I followed that with an ellipsised partial sentence about how I knew the district was trying to control the flow of information.

If he writes back again, he’s going to get a more snarky response.

Idiot.