It turns out that the story that lit up the blogosphere was not exactly accurate. Or, as Perazzi says, “devoid of any foundation and the news is completely fabricated.”
With reference to press reports concerning Daniele Perazzi’s alleged unlawful arrest for terrorism last Saturday in Denver (Colorado), we state that the incident is devoid of any foundation and the news is completely fabricated. Daniele Perazzi (founder of Perazzi SpA) died last year, and his son Mauro was not in the United States last Saturday. The Perazzis are not involved in any wrongdoing in any way, shape or form and, to our best knowledge, are not under investigation or scrutiny nor are targets of criminal proceedings. It is difficoult to think that this news are a mistake; there are reasons to believe that somebody who has interests against the company is dissaminating false informations. The Perazzi Company, contrarily to what has been reported, is very familiar with the US legislation on weapons, due to its extensive and successful presence in the American market. Perazzi has allready given mandate to its lawyers to promote criminal and civil action with the purpose to protect the brand and company’s reputation and its activities conducted also in the United States.
Perazzi SpA
Roberta Perazzi CEO
I have read that the video from Fox News 31 describes the person arrested and released as the grandson of the Daniele Perazzi late president of the firm. For all I know, the grandson is named Daniele.
Hendrik Sybrandy, “Denver cab driver mistakes Italian gun executive for terrorist, calls police”, Fox 31 Denver, 18 May 2013.
“….Daniele Perazzi took a cab to the Colorado Gun Collectors Association trade show at the Denver Merchandise Mart around noon. He had seven shotguns at the time and apparently the guns scared Perazzi’s cab driver who called police and told them he’d just dropped off a terrorist….”
I would maintain a follow-up.
Okay, so at this point, only one news outlet is sticking with anything from this story. They also cite an unnamed source for the report. You maintain that we should believe this and assume this is still possibly correct when the company itself has said that nothing about the story is true? I just want to make sure we’re clear on what you’re suggesting.
I said maintain a followup. Which I have tried to do.
One source (Korrine Aguirre (27) of Walsenburg CO) claimed to be attorney for the grandson and namesake of Daniele Perazzi, CEO of Perazzi very high class shotgun makers of Italy. She told an NRA official and a gun rights lawyer attending the Denver gun show, the story: her client Daniele Perazzi took a cab to the Denver gun show with new shotguns for a display. The cabbie frightened by the shotguns called police reporting him as a terrorist. Perazzi was detained, questioned and released by police and went back to Italy. She told the news station the story, and when the news station checked with the Denver gun show, yes, they had heard the same thing. The story recirculated and amplified virally that the Daniel Perazzi, CEO of Perazzi, was arrested and charged as a terrorist.
It gradually came out: Daniele Perazzi died last year, and his son Mauro is current CEO. There is no namesake grandson Daniele. Perazzi officials were not demonstrating a new product line at the Denver gun show. Apparently no representative of Perazzi was at the show. While Korrine Aguirre attended law classes, she apparently never passed the bar and is not listed as an attorney in CO. She refuses ro return calls to NBC9 Denver.
Perazzi has been slandered. The TOPS program encouraging cabbies to BOLO for suspicious characters has been slandered. Fox31 Denver has been punk’d big time.
Someone posing as an attorney planted a bogus story with at least two officials at the Denver gun show then planted the story with a news station who checked with the gun show for verification. (I do note NRA HQ questioned the story when it was relayed to them and did not run with it.)
I think we’ve been had and would like to find out more about this “attorney”.
The Perazzi response is surprisingly defensive. We see a story of police (possibly) exercising poor judgement, but Perazzi seems to be responding to accusations of weapons misconduct and terrorism. I have to wonder how much is getting lost in translation.
As I understand it, the terrorism element came because the accusation was that the deceased was supposedly detained based on a report that he was a terrorist by a cabbie. The weapons misconduct element came because it was strongly implied that Perazzi executives were caught up in the mess because they were confused by US firearms laws. I can see where someone might get defensive about an accusation that they wouldn’t even bother to know the laws of where they were supposedly going and that they did something to set off something to set off a fear that they are really terrorists.
I suspect that it doesn’t help that this wasn’t just some random blog rumor on the internet, but one that apparently had the blessing to be shared by a guy who was just elected to the NRA board. It’s basically like being attacked personally through insults to your character and knowledge, and then finding out that a leader of a major organization on the issue helped to fuel those fires probably doesn’t exactly make you feel good.
I’m merely suggesting the disconnects and misunderstandings are building upon each other. A quick search of the story revealed it went through the Infowars spin machine and the title was progressively embellished on each reprint. I didn’t realize how many search results there were for Brand Name + terrorism. I now have a much better understanding of why they are reacting so defensively.
Ah, good point. I didn’t realize that Infowars jumped on this, either. Good lord, I feel for Perazzi to be pulled into this mess by folks.
I had to translate the Italian statement on the website using an automated translator.
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.aspx?ref=IE8Activity&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perazzi.com%2Feventi-perazzi%2Fcomunicato-ufficiale-del-20-maggio-2013
Colorado “attorney” Korrine Aguirre may be in deep doo-doo.
Before accepting anything, find independent sources that are not quoting each other. All this traces back to one source. Who apparently seeded the story before contacting Fox31 Denver.
Two local news channels reported on this actually. & they claim to have talked with a lawyer for Perazzi. Plus from what I’ve heard (second hand – I keep missing on air interviews with this guy) the NRA fellow says that something did occur.
Now granted, I ain’t a champion of the msm, but usually they get the details wrong, not entire incidents. Wrong name? Wrong number? I can see that. Reporting on something that didn’t happen? Not too likely. Not impossible or even implausible but not too likely.
Perazzi seems to be in damage control mode. They’re approaching this, from their press release, as if they’re trying to dispel accusations against them, rather than merely trying to clear up that they weren’t victimized.
& there are several questions, such as why did an exec take a cab instead of a private car? Or was the “cabbie” a driver for a car service? How did said cabbie know the cased shotguns were in fact shotguns? etc. All of those could have very simple, reasonable explanations, but it’d take someone who knows who this cabbie is to ask.
I think it’s likely something happened. Whether it involved a Perazzi heir is unclear. What is clear is that of all the disbelief you’ll see about this aspect or that concerning the matter, no one is saying “No way! The Denver PD would never do such a thing – they’re way too professional!”
Did I mention if anyone is thinking of visiting Colorado after July that Montana is simply lovely that time of year? :)
(btw, if it turns out to be an illegitimate or disowned grandson who was showing up with some new innovative O/U designs despite the family still not speaking to him, would that increase the odds of getting Michael Bane to direct the made-for-tv movie about this situation? :D )
I’ve only see one MSM outlet report on it, and they relied on an unnamed source claiming to be an attorney representing someone. They did not reveal an actual person as the source of the story or include any kind of official acknowledgement from law enforcement of any kind. The same with the claims by the recently elected NRA board member – I haven’t seen anything he supposedly said backed up by names and real sources. Everything I have seen at this point directs people unnamed sources that we are told are attorneys, but not given any kind of actual evidence that these attorneys represent anyone or have any sort of direct knowledge. If another MSM outlet had actual names of people willing to speak on the record and/or represent themselves on camera, then that would be relevant, but I never saw it.
As to answering your questions about their statement on why they took cabs, did you not read the part where they note that the living executive wasn’t even in the country? If so, that’s you’re answer as to why he didn’t hire a car company in Denver, because he wasn’t in need of transportation in Denver since he wasn’t even in the US. Simple. Your questions about the cabbie assume the cabbie exists at all. Who is this cabbie? No one has interviewed him. No one has provided a source or a name on that front that I have seen. You can’t exactly ask a cabbie who may have never called about cased shotguns if the situation never happened in the first place.
I have never said anything that defends the Denver PD as too professional. In fact, I don’t think anyone here has said anything like that. If I recall, one of your Congressional representatives made the statement that citizens should count on being dead by the time the PD ever even respond to an emergency 911 call of a violent attack in progress, so I think it’s pretty clear that gun owners have been given ample reason outside of these wild accusations to think they are less than stellar.
I think you’re looking for fire where none may exist. If some guy was reported just for being a gun owner, that’s fine for blog fodder and still a relevant topic of discussion. However, making up shit and dragging a company into it possibly just to add drama or maybe, as Perazzi believes, to hurt their reputation, means that most people probably won’t trust any gun owner who comes forward to say this happened to them. Because other people got it wrong and misrepresented the story, it only hurts the cause of defeating the underlying issues of the situation.