Leatherman vs Nunn
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — A Scottsdale man inadvertently shot himself in the buttocks Thursday morning. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Daniel Leatherman, 26, heard a disturbance outside his apartment and saw a man he knew fighting with a cab driver. Leatherman told police that the man, Cody Nunn, 25, had assaulted him in the past, so he grabbed his gun and went outside. Leatherman told police that he accidentally dropped the gun while hiding it behind his back and shot himself in the derriere. Nunn and Leatherman’s friends took him to a local hospital. When police arrived, Clark said Nunn was drunk and disruptive. He was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct. Leatherman was released from the hospital later Thursday. There were no phone listings for Leatherman or Nunn*.
*Well of course not! Can you imagine the calls they got when they were listed?
As a novelist I appreciate good fiction… but the people writing it should know it is fiction they are publishing. Since you don’t appear to know, I thought I would take a moment and show you.
Firstly, it is amazing to me how many details you managed to get wrong in one small paragraph, so perhaps you are better at fiction than journalism and you and I should change careers. But that is just a personal observation.
Let me put that aside and address the issues and correct your many errors:
Daniel Leatherman is 24, as of December 3rd, 2007… he is not 26.
The apartment is not his, it is mine.
The gun is mine, not his.
Cody Nunn is my ex-lover and has assulted me in the past, not Leatherman.
Leatherman owns no gun, did not go outside, was not holding a gun, or hiding one behind his back.
Cody Nunn did not drive anyone to the hospital or come with us when we went to take Leatherman there– if you read the AP report you would find that Nunn arrived at my apartment in a CAB and fought with the driver and refused to pay the man.
Cody Nunn had no vehicle with him and did not drive anyone anywhere.
Nunn showed up at the hospital some 20 minutes after Leatherman was admitted and put on a loud drunken scene which caused his own arrest.
Some reports (particularly the one on the Washingtonpost.blog) are trying to make Leatherman sound like a vigilante who pulled a gun and tried to take the law into his own hands.
The truth is that Leatherman went to retrieve MY gun from the place I keep it safely stowed. He did this because Cody Nunn (a person who has stalked me and assaulted me several times in the last 5 years) was trying to force his way into my home and I might have needed the gun in a hurry.
Cody Nunn is nearly 6 foot tall, weighs about 165 pounds, and about two weeks prior to the events of the evening you are reporting he assaulted me with a kick to the stomach and then with a bottle of liquor he was carrying– bruising me in multiple places.
In contrast to this, Daniel Leatherman is 5 foot 4 and weighs 103 pounds. He is hardly anyone’s idea of a vigilante who tries to take the law into his own hands.
Here are the actual FACTS of the shooting:
Leatherman was not holding the gun, aiming the gun, waving the gun, and he certainly did not take it outside. The gun was sitting on a piece of furniture near him so it could be handy if I needed it… and it fell off onto the tile floor and discharged, firing straight upward into his body.
Oh, and it might also interest you to know that while the bullet entered Leatherman’s body through the upper left buttock (causing all this hilarious journalistic laughter at his expense) it was traveling UPWARDS towards his skull as I said, not in a downward motion.
That bullet continued upward along the spine and lodged in the middle of his back just above his spinal column– which is where the emergency room doctors found it and had to remove it surgically.
It may also be of interest to you and others who find this so funny that if the bullet had traveled even 1/2 inch in another direction it would have exited his back and continued upwards to blow off the back of his skull; 1/2 inch in the opposite direction and it would have exploded up through his spine shattering it and leaving him paralyzed or dead.
I have spoken to several people in the health care community and it is nothing short of MIRACULOUS that his injuries were not life-threatening. That is not an exaggeration. It is a MIRACLE he is still walking and breathing.
Again, forgive me for trying to interject any “facts” into your “story”. As a fiction writer it is hardly my place. If you still are unclear on any of this and require more details on what actually happened do feel free to contact me and I will be happy to provide those facts.
And finally… it is a shame that America is so starved for news that some 90+ papers reported this story– inaccurately and with humourous slants intended to make the victim appear like an inept vigilante or a criminal somehow.
Don’t you people have any real news to report? Hasn’t O.J. Simpson attempted to rob or kill anyone lately? Do your jobs, people. Or I may just give up writing novels to become a journalist and show you how it is done properly.
Rhys-Michael Silverlocke
Firstly, it is amazing to me how many details you managed to get wrong in one small paragraph, so perhaps you are better at fiction than journalism and you and I should change careers. But that is just a personal observation.
I don’t think you’d go very far in journalism if you’re not perceptive enough to realize that the little (AP) in the lead to the story indicates that the Associated Press, not Donna, wrote the “one small paragraph” you’re critiquing.
and it fell off onto the tile floor and discharged, firing straight upward into his body.
And so we now have the gun that fired the famed Magic Bullet of the Kennedy assassination…
http://regulus2.azstarnet.com/comments/index.php?id=216092
Alex, apparently, Rhys is pointing out that he merely compied and pasted his comments to the original story (as he read it)…why that should concern us is beyond me.
Wow! I wasn’t online for one day and look what I missed! He reminds me of the guy who asked me to change “canoe man” to “kayak man.” He didn’t have much luck with any of the other news outlets.
I wasn’t asking you to change a thing. I just thought you might want the facts– since the story you quoted didn’t have any really.
Rhys-Michael