By Michael Miner
Van Horne had just finished his shift; Muller was just arriving. As one of Van Horne’s attorneys tells the tale today, the “colloquy” at the elevator was a brief one, with “no threats, no chasing, no physicality attended to it. As you may recall, there had been some publicity about Keith’s encounter with a young female at a convenience store.” Van Horne had been charged with battery. “That encounter proved ultimately to have been precipitated by a young woman. The young woman refused to prosecute. Muller seized upon that incident and mischaracterized it.”
“His body is a weapon. This is a trained man who hurts other people. He is trained in pain, that’s all he does….This is not like a quarterback or a halfback or something like that. This is just a–piece of meat. This is a large, dumb individual coming at me. His body is a weapon.”
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In addition, says the lawsuit, Mancow’s sidekick Irma Blanco led off her hourly “news reports” all that morning with the Van Horne story: “Rock on the 103.5, good morning. It is now 6:01. For Mancow’s Morning Madhouse, I’m Irma Blanco and here’s the latest brought to you by Circuit City. Keith Van Horne’s violent side was shining through this morning shortly after 5 AM…”
Guess who attacked Mancow today?
The lawsuit presumes that WRCX and Evergreen knew exactly what they were doing by giving Muller a job. “Indeed, Muller’s past conduct served not as a beacon of warning, but as a promise of higher ratings and revenues,” argues one of Van Horne’s briefs. “Evergreen enjoyed the benefits of Muller’s broadcast activities in the form of increased ratings and profits, now it must answer for the foreseeable harm those activities proximately caused.”
The intervenors insisted on their own dignity. “Amici do not wish to be understood as endorsing the means by which Muller has drawn attention to himself,” a footnote to the brief assured the court. But speech can’t be curtailed before it’s spoken.
