Quote:
The rock star Ozzy Osbourne has demanded an apology from a county sheriff for staging a pre-concert sting operation in the rocker's name without his permission.
The former lead singer of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, who notoriously once bit off the head of a live bat on stage, claims his reputation has been tarnished.
In an increasingly popular police ruse, Paul Laney, the sheriff of Cass County in North Dakota, invited 500 people with outstanding arrest warrants to a fake party at a nightclub in Fargo before Osbourne's concert at a nearby arena.
More than 30 of them showed up and were arrested. Osbourne, the star of a popular television series about his family, said in a statement: "Instead of holding a press conference to pat himself on the back, Sheriff Laney should be apologising to me for using my name in connection with these arrests.
"It is insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job," he said.
Mr Laney replied that it was his job to arrest people with outstanding warrants. "We meant no disrespect toward Mr Osbourne or his show. What we did was a very creative law enforcement technique to lure individuals who had active criminal warrants to come to us."
He argued that mentioning Osbourne's name in the invitations was no different to a bar advertising a Super Bowl party by mentioning the teams playing in the game.
The sheriff said the operation was carried out to let the community know his office was doing its best to serve about 3,000 outstanding warrants.
Referring to the targets of the sting, he said: "They get very creative in how they abscond from the law. We just got real creative in how we reeled them in."
He claimed even some of the fugitives had taken the ruse better than Osbourne. "Three people called to say, 'I got one of those letters. Since you're being so creative, I'm turning myself in. Give me a court date.'"
The former lead singer of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, who notoriously once bit off the head of a live bat on stage, claims his reputation has been tarnished.
In an increasingly popular police ruse, Paul Laney, the sheriff of Cass County in North Dakota, invited 500 people with outstanding arrest warrants to a fake party at a nightclub in Fargo before Osbourne's concert at a nearby arena.
More than 30 of them showed up and were arrested. Osbourne, the star of a popular television series about his family, said in a statement: "Instead of holding a press conference to pat himself on the back, Sheriff Laney should be apologising to me for using my name in connection with these arrests.
"It is insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job," he said.
Mr Laney replied that it was his job to arrest people with outstanding warrants. "We meant no disrespect toward Mr Osbourne or his show. What we did was a very creative law enforcement technique to lure individuals who had active criminal warrants to come to us."
He argued that mentioning Osbourne's name in the invitations was no different to a bar advertising a Super Bowl party by mentioning the teams playing in the game.
The sheriff said the operation was carried out to let the community know his office was doing its best to serve about 3,000 outstanding warrants.
Referring to the targets of the sting, he said: "They get very creative in how they abscond from the law. We just got real creative in how we reeled them in."
He claimed even some of the fugitives had taken the ruse better than Osbourne. "Three people called to say, 'I got one of those letters. Since you're being so creative, I'm turning myself in. Give me a court date.'"
Interesting way to catch people offguard. But seriously, 30 people were dumb enough to go, "Holy ****, Ozzy wants to party with me????" in North Dakota.
