One recent evening as my wife, kids and mother-in-law took a
cruise along Back Bay Drive, we got an inadvertent lesson in the
responsibility, or what some would call irresponsibility, of the
press.
"This is the road where that guy was killed by the paintball
shooters," I told my mother-in-law. "You remember that story, right?"
Of course she did. Yeah, the paintball killers. Whatever happened
with that, she asked?
Well, actually, I had to correct myself, we thought he was killed
by paintball snipers, but it turns out we had it all wrong, I told
her.
And now that's something I need to make sure all of our readers
know as well.
The guy I was talking about was one Gary Holdren, a Park Newport
resident who tragically lost his life April 9, two weeks after being
discovered unconscious on the popular bayside road on which joggers,
bikers and inline skaters can be seen daily.
The original story, as told to us by the Newport Beach police,
went like this: Holdren, wearing inline skates, was found on the road
knocked near lifeless with severe injuries to his eye and head.
Splattered about him was paint from a paintball gun. Police cited
witnesses who reported that three "youthful males" were seen in the
area with paintball guns.
Pretty clear evidence that paintball shooters were the culprits,
right?
Our first headline on March 26 said as much: "Paintball assault
leaves skater critical."
Subsequent stories and columns went on to surmise that indeed
paintball shooters were lurking in the bushes of the Back Bay, firing
at unsuspecting targets.
Bigger newspapers picked up the story as did television stations.
Rumors swirled that Holdren was a victim of either a prank gone
awry or some evildoers bent on pelting people with paint, evildoers
or pranksters who had not owned up to their crime.
But slowly, the paintball story started to change as coroner
officials downplayed the significance of a paintball strike and
instead proposed that Holdren had been injured by falling while
inline skating and then striking the back of his head, causing trauma
to his skull and brain.
Finally, on Aug. 9, four months to the day of Holdren's death, we
finished our reporting with the story that concluded: "Paintball
pellets not the cause of death.'' At least that's what the coroner is
telling us now.
We still get letters to this day, urging the paintball shooters to
come clean and admit to their crime -- even though it's possible
there never were any paintball shooters at all.
