death of a policeman

In an internet-related mishap that can only be described as “unbelievable” by this writer, a doctored photograph of the recently-deceased police chief of Owensville, OH, has surfaced on a local news station’s website.  This is not a hoax.  This is not of my doing.  It is there right now at 1:13 AM EST on December 25, 2008.  Click here to view the page which will likely be edited and corrected by the time you click on it anyhow.

But I’ve preserved the page for posterity here.

Update: If you go to this page on WLWT’s website and view the slideshow of images from the crash scene, a larger version of the picture is available with the accompanying caption, “Sturgill’s friends say he has a good sense of humor and particularly enjoyed this picture, which a friend of his doctored as a joke.”

While this explains the existence of the picture on Fox 19’s website, it does not, however, explain why of all the pictures posted on various local news websites of the deceased the Fox 19 chose to post the picture of the deceased holding edited-in doughnuts and coffee and chose to do this without any sort of explanation given as to why they posted a doctored photograph of a dead police chief.