The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel finally got around to publishing more information about James Van Iveren, the rescuer in the story of "The Sword and the Porn."
There's no question that it's an odd story. Van Iveren behaved bizarrely and so did the porn guy, Bret Stieghorst.
Facts trickled out so slowly.
It took the media over a week to pick up on the incident in the first place.
Then, there's this lag. It took well over a week for the Old Media to put out details about Van Iveren's past brushes with the law.
(Read more here and here.)
I don't get it. What took so long?
Why bother running an article on Van Iveren's history now?
Slow news day?
It's [James Van Iveren's] fourth trip through the Waukesha County Courthouse in eight years.
Court records indicate that he's a familiar figure to Oconomowoc police.
In one of his more unusual encounters, he was accused of masquerading as an undercover investigator to avoid being evicted from an apartment.
"You see, I am a lieutenant in the Wisconsin State Patrol," Van Iveren wrote in a letter to his landlord in 2000, imploring a delay in eviction proceedings for him and his mother.
"I am very strongly insisting that you do this so that you don't compromise my current investigation or do any further harm to my mother."
Police knew otherwise, according to a criminal complaint charging him with impersonating a peace officer, and when they confronted Van Iveren he "indicated he was not a lieutenant with the Wisconsin State Patrol, but actually a captain with the Wisconsin State Patrol."
Court records also indicate that all but one of the cases were eventually dismissed at the urging of prosecutors over concerns about Van Iveren's mental health.
...The most recent charge, disorderly conduct-domestic abuse, involved allegations by Van Iveren's mother, Shirley, in September that her son hit her, grabbed her face and shoved her into a wall because she was talking too much.
She also said "she had been forced to lie still in her bed for a long time by her son who was hallucinating about drug dealers in the neighborhood," according to the criminal complaint.
The case was dismissed Dec. 21 on the recommendations of prosecutors because a competency examination showed that Van Iveren was not mentally fit to stand trial and not likely to regain competency in the foreseeable future, according to prosecutors' records.
Had this information been reported initially to provide the complete picture, as it should have been, I doubt that Van Iveren would have been praised as a hero.
As more details emerged, it became clear that Van Iveren was unstable.
And as off balance as Van Iveren is, I still think that porn guy has major issues as well, equally disturbing.
The stories printed in today's JS about Van Iveren's record were circulated almost immediately after the news broke of his break down the door, sword-wielding adventure.
Better late than never?
Not in this case.
Today's article serves as a reminder of how the New Media have left relics like The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the dust.
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UPDATE:
Waukesha -- The attorney for an Oconomowoc man charged with bursting into a neighbor's apartment while armed with a sword entered a not guilty plea on his behalf Monday during a court appearance on three criminal counts filed in connection with the incident.
Jenny Yuan, who appeared alone on behalf of James Van Iveren, was ordered to return to Waukesha County Circuit Court with her client April 27 for a scheduling conference.
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