Stop the presses!
I have it on good authority that Santa has done an update to his Naughty List for Livingston County.
Sheriff Mike Murphy has vaulted to the top of the list.
He outdid himself with his attempted political prosecution of local Democrat Kasey Helton for alleged cyber stalking of two nurses who have been spreading misinformation about COVID in public forums.
Local Republicans, who complain about “cancel culture,” have been trying to cancel Kasey for years. They spent money to mail out a hit piece on her when she ran against former county sheriff Bob Bezotte for county commissioner in 2018, even though she was bravely running in a highly Republican district.
So I have no doubt that current Sheriff Mike Murphy, former chair of the Livingston County Republican Party and a Trump supporter, took little to no persuading when someone filed a complaint about her factual tweets regarding the nurses.
His rationale: The unnamed somebody “legitimately felt harassed, threatened, and intimidated.”
I’ve got news for Murphy. Several dozen Democrats “legitimately felt harassed, threatened, and intimidated” when Biden-haters surrounded us on the day the president came to Howell. We were called “pedophiles” and “baby killers.”
One man walked by repeatedly revving up a chain saw.
Is that threatening?
They grabbed our flags and broke them, wrote obscenities on our signs, screamed in our faces, held a bullhorn playing a siren within inches of our ears. Is any of that intimidating? They surrounded elderly women with walkers and harassed them.
They did this not on Twitter, not in cyber space. They did it in our faces.
When we met with Murphy afterward to discuss the minimal law enforcement response to our 911 calls, he fell back on “free speech.”
Guess what? Republicans aren’t the only ones in this county with free speech. Democrats have it, too. Why wasn’t Murphy willing to test the limits of the prosecutor’s “appetite” for prosecuting free speech in this county for us?
You know why. Because I believe his decisions are based on politics, not the law or the desire to protect and serve EVERYBODY.
That’s why Santa revised his Naughty List and put Murphy at the top.
I’m not sure how Santa heard about Murphy’s decision to persecute a local Democrat. Maybe he read about it on:
• mlive.com;
• Michigan Radio;
• The Detroit News;
• The Detroit Metro Times;
• The Michigan Advance;
• East Bay Times (California)
• newsweek.com;
• yahoo.news;
• Jonathan Turley’s legal blog;
• or the American Samoa News.
Clearly, the world is watching.
It will see Santa dump a big lump of coal in Murphy’s stocking Christmas Eve.
Bravo, Judy. On point and the truth. Mike Murphy is an embarrassment, and more disturbing, not someone I would trust in law enforcement. How troubling is that as a Livingston County resident.
I get along with and love all my neighbors in Brighton. Tax dollars shouldn’t be supporting law enforcement that only protect half of the population because they agree or disagree politically
The Livingston County Sheriff Department needs new leadership. Someone who will follow the law and be Apolitical as the job requires.
Kathy Haddad