Leeds Police Chief Paul Irwin is not backing down from his recent criticism of AL(dot)com after the outlet painted his department's recent traffic stop of Giovanna Martinez-Hernadez with a "false narrative" after she was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for only presenting a Mexico-issued ID.
The original article claimed that Martinez was stopped on Interstate 20 last week by a Leeds Police officer for going one mile per hour over the speed limit, quoting a GoFundMe account for Martinez. Dashcam footage of the traffic stop later showed that Martinez was going "at least up to 91 mph" and "erratically" changing lanes.
Irwin was quick to criticize the outlet last week, lamenting that the reporter, Heather Gann, did not reach out to him for comment as AL(dot)com usually does.
SEE: Leeds police chief blasts AL(dot)com for reporting' false narrative' on ICE arrest
On Tuesday, Irwin suggested that Gann's report was done "maliciously to paint a picture of law enforcement" in a bad light. He added that despite all the pushback he and his department have received over the incident with Martinez, would not stop them from doing their jobs.
"[T] hey're looking for anything that they can to attack me and my department," Irwin said on Huntsville WVNN's "The Dale Jackson Show." "I have been called everything that you can imagine since Thursday afternoon."
"But let me just tell you this: Our mission is not wavered," he added. "We're going to go out and we're going to enforce the law every day, and we're going to work with all agencies, state, federal, and local, to do our job. And no media outlet is going to stop that. And no one's going to stop me as long as I can get up and breathe each day and go to work."
Irwin told host Dale Jackson that AL(dot)com leadership had apologized for its original article and that the reporter had learned a huge lesson, but he wasn't buying it.
"Their editor-in-chief contacted me and said that he's sorry and that he thinks this reporter learned a huge lesson [and] that she's going to do better. I don't really believe that, because I think she did this maliciously to paint a picture of law enforcement, that, you know, a picture that we've been having to, you know, law enforcement needs great leadership because we need to lead men and women who go out on our streets every day and serve, and that they know that there are people behind them that work in offices that are supporting them, and that's what I want to be. I want to be the person that's supporting them so that I can go out and do their job, and no one in the media or someone that calls and harasses me is going to stop me from that."
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