Disgraced Teacher Sues Over Obama Assassination Story
If what’s alleged in this suit is true, it demonstrates that there are left wing outrages of the day as well as the right wing ones, and that the press fails to fact check before sensationalizing those ones as well.
An Alabama teacher says in court the Birmingham News Company defamed him by falsely reporting that he taught geometric angles with a scenario about where one should stand to shoot President Barack Obama.
Gregory Harrison says Birmingham News quoted a student who was not even in his class and destroyed his reputation by disseminating false and defamatory information about him in the national media.
Birmingham News reporters Marie Leech, Carol Robinson and Joey Kennedy are also named as defendants to the lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court.
Harrison says Corner High School in Dora, Ala., placed him on administrative leave after the Birmingham News article accused him of using the hypothetical assassination of Obama as a math example.
Birmingham’s Secret Service questioned Harrison, but found no “credible threat” and closed the investigation, according to the Associated Press.
Harrison says the defamatory article appeared in May 2010, a month after the geometry class in question.
“On or about May 18, 2010, Leech and Robinson published an article regarding Harrison on the front page of the Birmingham News, titled ‘Teacher uses killing of Obama as math example,’” the complaint states.
“The published article contained several falsities. The falsities include, but are not limited to:
”(a) A statement that Harrison gave a geometry lecture and used the assassination of President Barack Obama as a hypothetical to help teach tangent lines.
”(b) An erroneous description of what took place during the geometry class and describing Harrison’s conduct as ‘he used the example of where to stand and aim if shooting Obama.’”
Harrison says Birmingham News also posted the article online, where it was picked up “as written” by “USA Today”.
He says the piece contained offensive and incorrect information.