#126 "The Black Panther Betrayal" Online Book cont.

We continue with "The Black Panther Betrayal: Government At Work": "Sure," he said, "We'll give it a try. I've got $1,000 worth of tracking gear ( radio-collars for the dogs and receivers for the humans so the dogs can be found after they run the panther, deer, hog, or whatever gets them going). Ray said he is used to his dogs running hogs for eight to twelve hours. You don't think of hogs having that kind of stamina. Panthers pursued by dogs usually tree fairly quickly as cats are sprinters not marathon runners. The former prison guard said, "Years ago, I was driving over to High Springs and saw a black "boar" where I had never seen pigs. That bothered me so I drove a mile or so, not wanting to disturb him and then turned around and eased back. It saw me coming and moved like a flash. It had brilliant black hair and was too long for a pig."
Inspired by the ex-guard's story of seeing a black panther, I drove to the Lake Butler Game Management Area to look around. I got there just after the sun set and slowly drove around for about an hour. No panthers.I will try to get there earlier next time so it will be light enough to look down the road and look down the numerous trails.
I talked over the phone with a Sergeant Weaver at the Lakeland Regional Game Commission. He was very friendly and told me about one of his investigations of black panther sightings: "This gentleman called me from his car. He said he was looking at a black panther. It was going into and coming out of a ditch. He was positive it was a black panther. I got directions, and he was only a quarter of a mile away. He stayed on the phone as I drove over. As I was on the way, he eased his car closer to the "panther" and realized that it was an otter. He told me he had been absolutely sure it was a black panther."
I would say first that the gentleman should have been suspicious about a panther repeatedly going into and out of a ditch. Otters, not panthers. love to slide, and that sounds like what the animal was doing. I would also say that the gentleman corrected his own mistake. He realized it was an otter, not a black panther. The cell phone made it a little too easy to jump the gun. To Be Continued.
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I would now like to give a probable excerpt from my upcoming online book, "Tyranny By Police: How Cops Ganged Up On One Honest, Brave Man" : " I was driving when I heard on the radio that a Gainesville Police Department employee had been awarded $75,000 for a sexual harassment suit against Captain Ray Weaver of the Gainesville Police Department. Ray Weaver had been allowed to retire before the suit became public. Weaver is the cop from Internal Affairs who interviewd me when I complained to the Chief of the Gainesville Police Department of some of the actions of Corporal Dan Stout and Captain Whitney Stout. I had initially agreed with Sergeant Weaver to be interviewed at my home, but on the day of the appointment, I got worried about being near a cop alone and in an isolated area. When I called Gainesville Police Department to cancel the appointment, the receptionist said he had already left, and there was no way to call him back. That made absolutely no sense to me, and I called John Cooper in St. Augustine. John owned the "Florida Outdoors" magazine for which I wrote a monthly column about black panthers. John heard my story and asked, "The police station has no way to get in touch with an officer in the field? That makes no sense. No sense at all. Something's wrong here."
Interestingly enough, Sergeant Weaver did not come to my house, so Gainesville Police Department obviously did get in touch with him. So why did the receptionist lie to me? What did they have planned that they didn't want cancelled? I did eventually meet with Sergeant Weaver, but it was at a crowded McDonald's in Gainesville. I had lots of witnesses plus the entire staff was black, and I didn't think cops would want to get cute around blacks. Whites they can push around, but not blacks. When we did meet, Weaver was much more interested in talking about his hunting trips out West than he was in hearing my complaints about the Stouts. It was obviously just a pro forma interview. As I have said, at that time he was only Sergeant Weaver, but at my trial several months later, he was Captain Weaver. Advancement must be very fast at Gainesville Police Department! Actually, I think Gainesville Police Department wanted to impress Judge Glant with a captain, not a mere sergeant. The department tried to use what I had said to Internal Affairs about the two officers in a complaint the two officers had made against me. I think that was illegal, and a subsequent lawyer, Lloyd Vipperman, agreed with me. Stout's lawyer triumphantly played a portion of the tape, acting as if it showed something damning about me. All the tape contained was my telling Sergeant Weaver that while
my son and I hanged a punching bag, I laughed and said that when Whitney Stout saw me working out and compared me to her shrimp of a husband, she would fall in love
with me.
This taped portion was to support Corporal Stout's pitiful assertion that I put up the punching bag to intimidate him. I say that if a man is intimidated by his neighbor's punching bag, he shouldn't be a cop, much less a SWAT member. He needs to become a hairdresser or fashion designer." Peter "Two-Guns" Nickerson, MS, MSW at peternickerson12@yahoo.com or better, 352-359-0849. Watch your back!