And is he even Irish?
That hunting story he told, why the binoculars and extra pistol ammo was on the truck seat, how's it fit with this hummer:
Environmentalist, or conservationist the STRIB report stated. Horsefeathers. Do you suppose his truck is equipped with a spotlight?
__________UPDATE__________
Wanting to get the Google News focus posted quickly, on the latest Hackbarth-related developments, I did so without reading the reports of GOP top-down reaction to one of Anoka County's GOP leadership persons, (right up there with Mike Jungbauer, the bat-bite guy).
MPR reporting on the suspension was with a link to Dave Orrick's earlier PiPress reporting, headlined, "The state lawmaker, his loaded gun, a Planned Parenthood clinic and... an Internet girlfriend?" MPR is succinct about events subsequent to that Orrick-PiPress report:
Posted at 12:31 PM on November 24, 2010 by Tom Scheck
GOP House Speaker-elect Kurt Zellers announced today that he's suspending GOP Rep. Tom Hackbarth's role as chair of the House Environment, Energy & Natural Resources Policy & Finance Committee. The announcement comes just one day after it became public that St. Paul police confiscated a loaded handgun from Hackbarth after he was spotted with the weapon holstered to his hip in the parking lot of the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul (More on that here [linking to the PiPress-Orrick report which appears to have broken the story]). Hackbarth has a permit to carry a concealed handgun. He wasn't arrested or charged with a crime.
Here's the statement from Zellers:
Due to an incident on Tuesday, November 16, State Representative Tom Hackbarth has been suspended from any current and pending leadership roles within the House GOP Caucus. The suspension will remain in effect until the issue is fully resolved.
I'm following up to find out what "fully resolved" means since St. Paul Police say he won't be charged with a crime. One potential issue would be if an ethics complaint is filed against Hackbarth.
My guess is "fully resolved" will await at least a few credible details from Hackbarth - the identity of a real person he claims to have been stalking (no fictions allowed); his/her version of things; why the extra pistol ammo; whether there's a hunting license to go with the story of stuff left in the truck "from hunting" earlier, in season; the circuitous thing, allegedly, of parking in a Planned Parenthood lot to walk to some form of encounter or surveillance a block or more away, scooting on foot down an alley from the parking lot spot. "Duck down the alleyway," has an air of devious planning, intentional anonymity, perhaps, to it, and "fully resolved" has to mean something beyond "whitewashed."
PiPress, which apparently broke the story, carried an AP feed on the Zellers step, largely parallel in thinking to the MPR item:
According to the police report, Hackbarth said he was checking up on a girlfriend who was supposedly at a restaurant in the neighborhood and possibly with another man. Hackbarth, who said he is divorcing his wife of 25 years, said he had met the woman he was dating through an online matchmaking site.
A clinic security guard spotted the gun when Hackbarth was changing his coat in the parking lot. Security camera footage shows him walking through the lot and into a nearby alley before getting back in his truck and leaving.
The report said Hackbarth admitted being "jealous" but stressed that he always carries a weapon.
Officers worried about "stalking-like behavior" so they kept Hackbarth's gun. He retrieved the gun on Tuesday.
Hackbarth acknowledged to the St. Paul Pioneer Press the story sounds "really weird and odd."
"I understand why the police and the security guard thought what they might have thought, but it really was insignificant to me," Hackbarth told the newspaper.
In their report, police officers said they were unable to track the woman down. Hackbarth said the relationship with the woman is over. "Sure enough, she lied to me and I'm done with it," he said.
In a brief statement, fellow Republican Rep. Zellers referenced the incident in deciding to suspend Hackbarth "from any current and pending leadership roles within the House GOP caucus."
"The suspension will remain in effect until the issue is fully resolved," Zellers said. It was unclear what aspects remained unresolved, and a Zellers spokesman didn't immediately return a message seeking additional comment.
City Pages, here, on initial reporting; Politics in Minnesota, here. Strib, here, on the Zellers leadership freeze. TPMuckraker, here, indicating national attention and coverage. City Pages reports on the Zellers leadership freeze, here, with this photo and caption:
Tom Hackbarth goes looking for a girlfriend.
Run your own Google News search = Hackbarth. Keep up with any breaking news.
Zellers seems to have made the right move, and promptly after learning of things, but he seems unduly reticent about what would make him lift the suspension of leadership role, which for now seems temporary and only for until things blow over.
I guess it's up to the press and blog world to not let things blow away to lightly, with "fully resolved" ending up a premature happening.
This is quite serious. If the man was stalking some woman, armed and admittedly feeling "jealous," that's a public safety issue that police should not have prematurely abandoned.
It is serious if that story is a falsehood and harm was intended to the Planned Parenthood site.
It is serious if the phantom woman is a fiction and hunting something else down alleyways with a revolver was at issue. There is a credibility issue with the phantom woman whose auto he alleges he was looking for - without any report of police satisfaction with Hackbarth's detail of why there, not elsewhere; what auto - make, color, license or other certain ID info he had to rely upon; etc., etc. and onward. Swiss cheese has fewer holes than this story, so far, as reported.
So far, blowing smoke is the appearance of things.
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And again, don't blame me, I supported Olmon.