Note: this piece contains a curse word. If you are easily offended, don't read it.
My old boss, former Bristol Press Editor Frank Keegan, got arrested late Wednesday in Baltimore for allegedly pointing a shotgun at his next-door neighbor and his family.
According to reports in the Baltimore papers, Keegan, 58, was roused after 11 p.m. by someone pounding on his door. It was his row house neighbor, angry that Keegan's cigarette smoke was wafting through the windows or walls enough to make his 3-year-old daughter ill. The man's wife and daughter were with him.
Keegan, who may or may not have known who was at the door, called out, "You fucking lunatics, get away from my door."
At that point, the papers said (quoting from a police report), that the neighbor shouted back, "Look at what you're doing to my daughter."
The neighbor then told police he saw Keegan holding "what appeared" to be a long gun. Keegan "racked the gun in a manner consistent with a shotgun and shouldered the weapon, pointing it at the entire Ayers family from inside the house and behind the glass of the first-floor window," the report said, according to press reports.
The neighbor, who was holding his daughter, "reportedly raised his right arm and said, 'Whoa Whoa!' and backed away."
Keegan wound up in handcuffs.
Now I can attest that Keegan has a temper, but I can't imagine him deliberately aiming a shotgun at a little girl.
The other part of this tale is that Keegan's paper, the Baltimore Examiner, has been ripping into police overtime lately. So I suspect the cops were only too happy to have the editor in their clutches.
In any case, I'm on Keegan's side. The man is an old school editor, gruff and temperamental. But he's a damn good journalist and a solid citizen.
If you want to read more, here's the Baltimore Sun's story
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