First things first: a couple of corrections. In a story in our December 27 issue, we referred to the teachers union’s call for an increase in the gaming tax, but we described it as a 3-percent hike. Strictly speaking, the proposal is for an increase of three percentage points; boosting it from the current 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent would actually be a 44-percent increase. Hey, it’s math—it’s not supposed to make sense. But it’s worth noting that the dollar amounts discussed in the story are correct.
Also, in our December 6 cover story about murders connected to the Palomino Club, we misidentified attorney Bret Whipple as representing defendant Jayson Taoipu; in fact, Mr. Whipple represents Terrance M. Jackson.
For some people, that was the least of the problems with that piece; it generated a lively bout of reader comment, and by lively I mean angry and vituperative. Some respondents were related to victims in the shootings described in the piece, angry that we hadn’t sought their side of the story. Others appear to be friends of relatives of the victims. Some just didn’t like the unorthodox writing style that staff writer Joshua Longobardy adopted for this project.
“There are several details of this story that are false and misleading & the right thing to do is contact a family before running a story about their murdered father almost seven years to the day.
“At least give them warning before they walk into a store to see a story about their father’s death plastered on the front page.” This from Holli Rowan, daughter of murder victim Ken Rowan.
“I am a really good friend of Holli Rowan,” writes Kara Hansen. “I cannot believe that a story like this would be published seven years later without the full and truthful detail. Ken was a loving father, grandfather and friend to all of us.”
“Seriously, it’s like one long sentence with 34734678342243 commas inserted at random,” woofs Brandon R. “I can’t believe this garbage made it to print. I thought I understood English until I came upon this article. ... It appears no one consulted the victim’s family prior for approval and I can see why. Maybe if you had, there would be a comprehensible story with more facts behind it.” He closes with this: “I think many apologies are owed to the Rowans and the readers.”
Well.
It’s certainly hard to fault a family for being angry under such circumstances. I probably would be, too. But this was never meant to be a story about the Rowans, or even the definitive account of Ken Rowan’s death, although Joshua certainly strived to present as complete an account as possible.
No, the story we set out to tell was about the eerie recurrence of a father-son dynamic that resulted in a murder; first, the case of Jack Perry, whose crime sounded the final sad note of the Palomino empire founded by his father, the legendary Paul Perry; and second, the case of Luis Hidalgo III and his father Luis Jr., later owners of the Palomino likewise caught up in a murder case. The point of our story was to explicate that angle, not to dig deeply into the lives of the victims.
As for Brandon R.’s comments on the story’s stylistic shortcomings, we’ll leave that to individual readers to decide, except to note that Brandon’s estimate of the number of commas in the piece (“34734678342243”) is off by 26.
“I was very interested in your article about the Palomino,” wrote a reader named Richard. “I was stationed at Nellis AFB from 1967 to 1969, and it was my favorite place to visit. I was very friendly with Paul and Gail, and often went out to breakfast with them at the early hours of the morning after they closed the club.
“When I moved back permanently, in 2003, I had no idea of the events that had happened, right to the time I read your article. A shame that all Paul & Gail’s hard work went up in a gunshot.”
Much more pleasant to relay are some of the responses to John Katsilometes’ December 20 cover story on the sorry fate of onetime Rebel hoops star Keon Clark. “This is about the best human interest article I’ve read in a long while,” wrote Rehmat Jamal. “Thank you.” Hey, thank accounting—they’re the ones covering the cost of sending John to Danville, Illinois, Clark’s hometown, where John was able to get a much clearer bead on his elusive subject. “I think this could be the best story you have ever written,” a reader named Dante wrote in a post on lasvegasweekly.com. “Brought back a lot of memories, too.”
Scott Dickensheets
Editor in Chief
Email: [email protected]. Fax: 990-2424. Post: Letters, Las Vegas Weekly, 2290 Corporate Circle, Suite 250 Henderson, NV 89074. Letters may be edited for length and/or clarity. All submissions become the property of Las Vegas Weekly.