Say Anything Blog

If you haven’t heard about this yet, a Fargo Sheriff named Paul D. Laney hosted a fake pre-Ozzy Osbourne concert party in which 40 people were arrested because of outstanding warrants. The Rolling Stone did a nice run-down of this story:

     

“Invitations were sent out to people who ignored court summons, didn’t pay child support, failed to pay fines, etc. Approximately forty Ozzy fans (or Rob Zombie fans, to be fair) responded to the invite and attended the bash, which was held at the concert venue by PDL Productions. Little did they know, PDL stood for ‘Paul D. Laney,’ a county sheriff, and that all those meaty guys wearing PDL T-shirts were actually deputy sheriffs, probation officers and local DEA members. Rather than boozing, the miscreants who showed up got arrested on outstanding warrants.”

 

This story was picked up by a lot of media sources, and Ozzy Osbourne himself ended up responding to it. Ozzy said: “Sheriff Laney should be apologizing to me for using my name in connection with these arrests. It’s insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job.” The story continued to make headlines today when Bill O’Reilly featured it on his “Is it Legal?” segment of the O’Reilly factor. Fox News Analysts Megan Kelly and Lis Wiehl both agreed that there was nothing wrong with the sheriff’s actions, and I also agree. Why waste taxpayer dollars trying to track these criminals down when you can get 40 of them in one night? Well done, Sheriff Laney, and kudos to Mr. O’Reilly for picking the story up, although it would have been nice if he would have mentioned North Dakota.