Walt Disneying the facts. Where there's smoke, there isn't a fire, THERE'S AN INFERFNO!

Huh? Walt Disney the facts? Anyone know what I'm talking about? Remember the cop that rear ended the girl in Hollywood earlier this year? Alexandra Torrensvilas was driving along when Officer Joel Francisco of the Hollywood PD slams into the back of her car. Fellow officer Dewey Pressley shows up and decides he's going to "Walt Disney" the facts and cover for his fellow officer since he was indeed at fault for the accident. Officer Pressley was caught on video stating the following:

"We're gonna bend this a little bit, a little Walt Disney to protect a cop...I don't want to make things up ever, because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I'm gonna."

No kidding? That little "Walt Disneying" of the facts had disastrous effects for the cops, in fact by lying about the facts of the accident, fabricating false affidavits in an attempt to frame the woman that the cop rear ended, the officers put their jobs at risk and opened up their police department to a civil liability. Even worse, now that Officer Dewey Pressley is busted on camera talking to other cops about "Walt Disneying" the facts, one can conclude that all his other work as a cop, affidavits, testimony, etc is suspect. In fact, Officer Pressley's testimony about "shot's being fired" in another case lead to the brutal beating of Jerome McClellion by Miami Dade police officers. Officer Pressley is surprisingly enough being accused by the defense attorneys in that criminal case of "lying to protect fellow police officers." Surprised? To me it looks like lying and misstating facts to suit his needs falls into a pattern of behavior for Officer Pressley. With these incidents fresh in our minds, does anything Officer Pressley says seem believable? Would you trust anything he says or claims to have seen? I wouldn't!

Does the story of Officer Pressley ring any bells? Does any of this sound familiar to our readers? Lying, misstating facts, creating false affidavits, suborning perjury, does this sound like anyone we're familiar with? Bear with me (no Jorge, I don't want you to sit naked with me), follow this little hypothetical story here keeping in mind what we just read about Officer Pressley's "Walt Disneying" of the facts.

Imagine for a moment that there's a disoriented man waving a knife around his house scaring the crap out of his family. Startled and scared for their lives, the family calls the cops, two uniformed cops show up, go into the house, confront the knife wielding man with their guns drawn in a hallway and tell him to put the knife down. Next thing you know a shot goes off and the knife wielding man is laying dead on the floor. The cop who pulled the trigger claims that the man refused to drop the knife and started walking towards them, the cop goes on to state that when they couldn't get away, they were left with no choice but to shoot. The other cop present corroborates the story and the case is closed.

Pretty interesting hypothetical situation isn't it? In this case there are only three people that know what really happened in that hallway, the two cops and the dead man. Since the dead man surely isn't too talkative, we'll never know his side of the story therefore we're left with the word of the cop that pulled the trigger and his partner. Now imagine if the two cops that showed up were the Hollywood cops that we mentioned before, Francisco and Pressley. What if Officer Francisco freaked out when he saw the guy with the knife and shot him for no reason? Based on what we know about Officer Pressley, is it safe to conclude that if his partner freaked out and shot the knife wielding man for no reason that he would:

"...bend this a little bit, a little Walt Disney to protect a cop..."

I think that's a safe conclusion, isn't it?

So who do we know that bends the truths a little now and then to suit his needs? Who do we know that creates false police reports and suborns perjury? Detective Jorge Baluja of course! Now, let's take a look at this little newspaper article from back in 2003...

WHOOPSIE! So much for my "hypothetical" story right? Like I said earlier, only three people know what really happened in that hallway that morning, the dead man, Officer Alvarez and Officer Baluja. There's no denying that Officer Alvarez shot the knife wielding man, after all, how could you deny the fact that a bullet left her gun and went into the dead man? But what about the facts leading up to the killing? Perhaps the story went down exactly as it's written in the paper (we can only hope), or maybe things went down differently? Considering what we know about Officer Jorge Baluja, at the very least, don't we know enough to doubt EVERYTHING that comes out of his mouth? Could anyone depend on any kind of testimony from Officer Baluja? Not in my opinion.

One can only wish that the facts of that shooting were exactly the same as what was written in the article, if nothing else though the mere mention of Baluja's name in any kind of investigation has created a specter of doubt, with his history of lying, misstating facts, fabricating evidence and perjuring himself under oath, how can his testimony mean anything? Could anyone build a case from facts assembled by Jorge Baluja? Now imagine if his investigation into the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud case was riddled with lies, misstatement of facts, perjury under oath and subornation of perjury, wouldn't that be horrific? Based what we've seen, is there any doubt that indeed that is the case? Remember folks, we've established a conclusive pattern of behavior for Mr. Baluja and I promise you, he's not going to let us down any time soon...