In newspaper speak, to “bury a lede” is to fail to place the most important part of a news story at the beginning.

In today’s AJC, the story “Slain woman’s family: ‘We just want to see the truth’” hides its most important “new” information in the 33rd paragraph.

“At first police said that the drug buy was made by undercover police, but later they said the purchase was made by an informant.”

The possibility of a police cover-up in this case is the news story now.

At 4 a.m. Saturday morning, New York police shot and killed Sean Bell and wounded two of his friends.

We know how many shots police fired (50).

We know that the officers involved likely violated police policy, first by firing into a moving vehicle, secondly by firing 50 shots.

We know that NY city officials recognize that shooting three unarmed men is not what police are supposed to do. We know this because NY’s mayor today stood at a podium and called the men victims.

Last Tuesday afternoon, 88 year-old Kathryn Johnston was shot and killed by Atlanta police during a drug raid on her home.

We still don’t know why police raided Ms. Johnston’s home.

At first, police claimed said that “undercover officers” bought drugs from the home. Sometime over the weekend, “undercover officers” became “confidential informant.”

There’s a big difference. An undercover officer is a trained professional. A confidential informant is quite possibly a crackhead.

Today, APD Chief Pennington informs us that the “informant” has since denied buying drugs from the house and in fact now claims that police have asked him to lie.

Ms. Johnston’s autopsy report has not been released. Even though the autopsy took place last week, it was only this afternoon that the public was informed how many times she’s been shot.

For the past week, Chief Pennington has been mostly silent. He says that he was out of town last week for Thanksgiving and, according to the AJC, “unable” to get a flight back to Atlanta. The AJC did not report where Chief Pennington was or if flights to-and-from were in fact available.

Mayor Franklin has been entirely silent. To the best of my knowledge, she has not uttered a word about Ms. Johnston’s killing. Where is she?

The absence of city leaders has meant that news about Ms. Johnston’s death has been largely dictated by announcements and leaks from the APD — announcements and leaks that have been incomplete and inaccurate.

City residents deserve to know what happened to Ms. Johnston and why. The Mayor needs to stand in front of a microphone and tell Atlanta everything the city knows.

Let the public see Ms. Johnston’s autopsy report.

Tell us definitively who, if anyone, bought drugs from her home?

Tell us how exactly her address ended up on the search warrant. Did the informant provide an street name and number, or simply a description of a house? Did the informant point at the house in the presence of an officer? How exactly was the information delivered.

Not for a moment do I believe that police went out last Tuesday intending to shoot Ms. Johnston. This was almost certainly a tragic mistake.

Nevertheless, it’s obvious that the APD has not been forthright with the public. Mayor Franklin needs to emerge from wherever it is that she’s been hiding for the past week and lead the city through this mess.

UPDATE: It turns out the Mayor has actually spoken. She issued a statement indicating that she’s not going to speak about the shooting or the investigation. She did, however, stand in front of a podium to discuss an affordable housing initiative.

“Back in the 1980s, Daniel Ortega was depicted by the Reagan and Bush administrations as a threat to freedom in the United States. On the American boogeyman scale, he was somewhere between Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein.”

Read the rest . . .

I wrote this week’s cover story in Creative Loafing.

It’s called “Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.” Among the those profiled, a man who got fined after someone else broke his septic line, Atlanta residents who have tried for three years to get a dump truck towed from in front of a fire hydrant, a panda nobody cares about, and a city councilman who was ordered by the mayor not to speak.

The story is rambling, silly and disjointed — not unlike its author.

Special shout-out to Joeff Davis for taking the amazing pictures that accompany it, and to Ken and Mara for editing.

Behold, State Supreme Court Carol Hunstein’s spectacularly mean ad attacking her opponent, Mike Wiggins.

If you can’t see the image above, click here.

I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it.

Will Bobafred and Tony please e-mail me so I can send them their reward money. You’ve both won.

I pulled into my driveway about 10 minutes ago (11:45 P.M.).

As I turned in, I saw a man walking in my direction on the street. He was walking two racing bicycles next to him — one on each side.

He waited for me to get out of my car.

“You interested in a bike? You can have both for $5.”

I politely declined.

With 10 minutes hindsight, I should have bought them so I could try to return them to their owner.

UPDATE:

The following is from a Reuters story that appeared today:

Apple says shipped iPods carrying computer virus
Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:26am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some of Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod digital music players shipped in the past month carry a computer virus, according to a posting on Apple’s technical support Web site

What sort of virus is the iPod carrying? See the text below, which appeared on this web site on Monday.

——
From the Chinese news web site, Xinhua:

And, putting aside the headline for a minute, the Beatles never sang “red is the color of my true love’s hair.”

I’m attempting to compile a list of songs with lyrics that pay back-handed compliments to a love interest. To qualify for the list, the song must have a lyric that’s seemingly intended as a compliment, but would likely be received as an insult if said in real life.

Examples:

“A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of, you wouldn’t get this from any other guy.”

-Rick Astley “Never Gonna Give You Up” — basically, Rick is saying to a girl, “If wnat you. Nobody .”

“She may not be the best lookin’ woman I ever did see, nor have the charms of the ladies of high society, but the woman’s got soul”

-Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions “Woman’s Got Soul”. Just because it’s true, doesn’t mean someone wants to be told that they’re neither good looking nor charming.

You get the idea.

Can you think of any others?

If I get enough, I’ll make a mix CD. If I make a mix CD, I’ll make a copy for anyone who offers a suggestion. You wouldn’t get that from any other guy.

If you can’t see the ad above, try clicking here.

Translation: Yes, I cheated on my wife. But no, I did not try to strangle my mistress while I was giving her a massage.

President Bush plans to campaign for Sherwood, and Senator George Allen (Racist-Va.) on Thursday.