Son's Past Could Come Back to Bite Huckabee - Newsweek
Deliverance, Huckabee-Style: Hanging Dog and Slitting its Throat-Then Covering it up
4 January 2008 at 10:04:36 AM
salon Who's Huckabee going to chose as his VP? Michael Vick? I originally read about Huckabee's son torturing and killing a stray dog while at... Boy Scout Camp... about a month ago. Yesterday, I saw the Newsweek article about it, that has a link to the letter that details exactly what Huck's son did. The letter is from an ASPCA attorney to the Boy Scout Headquarters in Irving, Texas, in 1998. LETTER LINK. What I didn't realize until I read the details is that Huckabee wasn't just some kid attending Boy Scout camp near Texarkana, he was a CAMP COUNSELOR. It has come to my attention that David Huckabee and Clayton Friday, two scout counselors, have admitted to the brutal killing of a stray dog at Camp Pioneer on July 11, 1998 and have been protected by the Caddo Area Council as well as Camp Pioneer authorities. The two boys allegedly hung a dog by his neck, throwing the body over a railing to a twenty foot drop. After realizing that this did not kill the dog, they slit his/her throat and stoned the dog to death. These disturbing events should have been reported immediately to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, where a complete investigation of this horrific crime should have taken place. It is my understanding that the boys lost their jobs, which is hardly acceptable punishment for committing a violent crime. And it is especially unbelievable that this could happen at a Boy Scout Camp, where young men are supposed to be taught respect and kindness towards the natural world and all its inhabitants. That dog suffered an enormous amount of pain and suffering and eventual death at the hands of these two youths. This unspeakable and illegal act cannot be dismissed with a "boys will be boys" adage or as anything less than the malicious crime that it so undeniably is.What's most disturbing was Huckabee's efforts to cover it up. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas's state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee's chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor's request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee's Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer's intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee's office and fired. "I've lost confidence in your ability to do your job," Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was "I couldn't get you to help me with my son when I had that problem," according to Bailey. "Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son," says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a "courageous" and "very solid" professional.Huckabee says that Bailey is, basically, a disgruntled employee. So I would guess Huckabee also disagrees with the FBI chief as well. None of this seems very Christian to me. |
