I couldn't help but notice my own personal local news feed light up yesterday and earlier today with the story of a thin blue line flag being stolen from the Trooper Paul Butterfield Memorial situated on North Custer Road near the site of his assassination by Eric Knysz back in September of 2013-- and then being returned or replaced this Tuesday morning after it was reported missing.  The local City of Ludington Daily News had a story about the theft and the return of the flag.

COLDNews- Butterfield flag returned  FREE SOIL TOWNSHIP — A thin-blue-line flag honoring the late Michigan State Police Trooper Paul Butterfield has been replaced. 

The flag was taken sometime Saturday from a memorial site near where Butterfield was shot and killed. When someone noticed the flag was missing, they called the state police, said MSP Hart Post Sgt. Charles Hockanson. 

By 8:30 this morning, that the flag — or a new one — had been returned to its rightful place, he said. 

The thin blue line through a black flag is a symbol used by law enforcement to commemorate fallen officers. It’s meaningful, and the removal of the flag from the memorial site of a trooper community members knew and loved was a heartbreak.

Hockanson said it’s good to have the flag back where it belongs.

“We’re very excited to have the flag returned back to the memorial site,” he said. “People noticed it was missing, but we don’t know who took it.”

To their credit, other local news agencies had reported both the taking of and replacement of the flag over the course of the two days, those were:

MiNews26- Stolen ‘Thin Blue Line’ Flag Returned

UpNorthLive- 'Thin blue line' flag returned

WZZM- Flag for Fallen Officer...

Several news agencies, however, reported on the flag's disappearance but have not updated (at least yet of this writing) the story of its reappearance:

TV 9&10- Thin Blue Line Flag Stolen From Memorial...

MCP- Thin blue line’ flag stolen from trooper’s memorial site

WWMT- Flag stolen from memorial

WOODTV- Flag stolen from fallen trooper’s

Fox17- Flag stolen from police memorial site

The mystery of the missing flag and its return has yet to be ascertained; it cannot even be confirmed at this point that the replacement flag was the same one taken.  But it leads one to wonder why more than a half dozen news agencies from over 70 miles away glommed onto a simple story of petty larceny (or maybe even 'petty borrowing' or even just a benefactor in the midst of replacing a faded flag) of no real significance, when other local mysteries of importance such as what actually happened when Lee Pat Milks was shot at his home by a Manistee Code Enforcement Officer is relegated to a police chief's hearsay narrative, while Manistee city and county officials block the public from any tangible information for well over a month. 

Obviously, a missing flag at a makeshift, unofficial memorial for Trooper Paul Butterfield is a lot more important, and newsworthy again when it just as mysteriously shows up.  Definitely gets more disgusted comments and clicks than the shooting of a man in his own home by a trespassing public official who has yet to be named.

Views: 237

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

That wouldn't be surprising, nor would it be surprising for someone to notice it needed replacement, flags in this climate fade and get tattered over time, and on their own initiative got a new flag.  It may have flew off its pole, fell to the ground, and got muddy, with a respectful passerby picking it up and cleaning it. 

Definitely a mystery, and worthy of making local media, but it befuddles me how much legs it got outside of the county. 

Very seldom does a thief return his stolen article. No doubt to me, the flag has been replaced with another new one by MSP. I guess they need a monitor camera to be mounted to help deter this into the future. Sad that anyone would do this, and likely juvenile delinquents that don't respect anything anymore.

RSS

© 2024   Created by XLFD.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service