ACORN Update: Worker called the police

The latest report of the ACORN "scandal" reveals that a worker who was a subject of the "sting" operation had contacted police within 2 days of the incident. Regardless, this worker, Juan Carlos Vera, was fired. Several news outlets including Fox news have reported this update.

This is exactly the problem with trial and conviction in the media: the facts are incomplete and now every side of the fiasco is dug in. The ACORN supervisor becomes defensive because he may be accused of wrongful termination, the employee is without a job, and the organization is tarnished.

Was Mr. Vera wrong in the way he handled the situation? We'll never know because he was fired before he was allowed to present his side of the incident. A couple of wealthy kids with too much time on their hands go around without any journalism expertise and entrap a bunch of workers and sell the edited videotape to Fox News. No rules of evidence are followed and no law enforcement is involved to ensure propriety... as for example was done with Chris Hansen's MSNBC series on internet child molesters.

Maybe the ACORN workers really are involved in trafficking child prostitutes, in which case they will unfortunately go free since proper procedures for a criminal investigation were not followed. More likely, however, the ACORN workers were going along with the silly ruse just to get these idiot kids out of the office, as evidenced by the lack of follow through by any of the participants. When crazy people come into your place of employment and say crazy things it's often better to go along with the insanity and hope they leave.

But now we have a major incident with people losing their jobs and an organization ruined that does community service in communities that sorely need such service... all because a couple knucklehead kids decided to be cute.