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[The following is a transcript from the news program "Washington State Week".]
This is Wendy Hawthorne, coming to you live from the outside of Hargrove Hall, on the Rainier University campus in Cascade, where the students and faculty -- as well as several Cascade citizens not affiliated with the university -- have gathered in a good, old-fashioned campus protest.
Crying "Resurrect Blair Sandburg!" both town and gown citizens are protesting the dismissal of anthropology graduate student Blair Sandburg, whose falsified dissertation on Cascade detective James Ellison dominated the news last week.
Ironically, the protest is taking place around the very fountain where Sandburg made news last year, when detectives from Major Crimes rescued Sandburg, a police observer, from an attempt made on his life. Only this time, it's Sandburg's career in anthropology that's on the line.
The deans of the college, embarrassed by scandal, dismissed Mr. Sandburg last week, citing a series of disciplinary activities against the wayward graduate student.
Yet a board of anthropologists from the American Anthropological Association, including several Rainier anthropologists, have involved themselves in Sandburg's case -- despite the fact that Sandburg accepted the dean's dismissal decision without an appeal. They point to Sandburg's awards and fellowships for his gifted teaching, and to a startling series of injuries and personal emergencies that led to his absenteeism. They cite several articles and papers Sandburg has published to some modest acclaim within his field.
And -- perhaps most importantly -- an unnamed faculty member from Rainier's department of anthropology tells us that Sandburg never submitted his suspect dissertation for any official review, and in fact, repeatedly refused a lucrative offer from Berkshire Publishers to publish the manuscript.
Our source in the department declined to be interviewed on camera, citing the administrative politics which got Mr. Sandburg fired in the first place.
So how did the story of "the Sentinel" find its way into the media? How did an unpublished novel become mistaken as non-fiction? Why was Blair Sandburg forced to take responsibility for a choice he never made?
In search of more information, I spoke with Gayle Peabody, president and publisher of Berkshire Publishers, who had this statement:
[taped footage]
PEABODY: Our former editor, Sidney Graham, represented the manuscript to us as factual, and assured us that he had submitted Mr. Sandburg's manuscript for peer review, as we do with all of our non-fiction publications. He offered our board falsified reviews of Mr. Sandburg's work, which claimed its legitimacy. It was at this time that we offered Mr. Sandburg the unusual million dollar advance on the book, which we felt we could easily recoup if the dissertation were edited for a more popular audience.
[live footage]
HAWTHORNE: But Blair Sandburg didn't sell out. Ms. Peabody went on to explain that the manuscript had been sent without Sandburg's knowledge, and that Mr. Graham, a friend of the Sandburg family, had been asked to review it as a private citizen. In choosing to misrepresent his legal relationship with the book's author, Mr. Graham lost his job with Berkshire Publishing.
Sidney Graham was not available for comment.
I then had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Sandburg himself. He and star detective James Ellison -- whom the grateful citizens of Cascade will probably always call "the Sentinel" -- graciously granted me an exclusive interview earlier this afternoon.
(Taped footage: Ellison and Sandburg on the couch in their home in downtown Cascade)
HAWTHORNE: Detective Ellison, Mr. Sandburg. I wanted to thank both of you for allowing me to speak with you. I realize the press has been in your faces for some time now, and you're anxious to get out from under the spotlight.
ELLISON: We just wanted to set the record straight.
HAWTHORNE: Jim, Blair, let's answer the burning question first. Does Detective Ellison have heightened senses?
SANDBURG: Wendy, what you're really asking is, is Jim Ellison some kind of a mythical superhero. And the answer's no. He's a human being; he's not from Krypton.
HAWTHORNE: But you were studying his sensory abilities?
SANDBURG: Jim was part of a case study done on the entire Cascade Major Crimes Unit, which came out of work I've done previously on heightened senses. Most good detectives are unusually observant. I wanted to study the detective with the best case record, and find if his abilities were anything like the sentinels in indigenous South America. So yes, I did study his sensory reactions.
HAWTHORNE: So how about it, Jim? Are you a superhuman?
ELLISON: Sandburg's the expert.
HAWTHORNE: Blair?
SANDBURG: Jim's responses are entirely within the established realm of human capability. His senses are remarkable, but not superhuman. I'm sure you could say the same thing for other detectives, or for another person who relies on their sensory abilities to do their job well.
HAWTHORNE: So why did you write the manuscript?
SANDBURG: The temptation to combine the work I'd been doing in the Major Crimes Unit with an account of tribal sentinels was too strong, even if the data were inconclusive. But I never intended to publish the work as it stood. It was a rough draft of my ideal thesis, maybe. The only way I'd have ever published it was as a novel.
HAWTHORNE: And your real doctoral thesis actually looked nothing like this.
SANDBURG: As soon as I realized that my sensory hypothesis was in trouble, I began comparing police department subculture to traditional warrior structures. That's my official topic as it was filed with the Cascade PD.
HAWTHORNE: So how did the fake manuscript find its way into the hands of a publisher?
ELLISON: (wryly) That was all my fault. I gave Sandburg's mom the keys to the apartment.
SANDBURG: (to Ellison) Lay off my mom, man. (to Hawthorne) My mother had a friend whom she trusted -- Sidney Graham -- and she asked him to take a look at it. It was an honest mistake. She trusted a friend, and he let her down.
HAWTHORNE: Why didn't you change the names in the book?
SANDBURG: I thought there was plenty of time for that. A lot of the anecdotes were based on notes from my journal, and it was easier to just paste them in as-is. No one on the outside was supposed to see it. I trusted my mom at home alone with the manuscript, and Mom trusted a friend to look at the book confidentially. We both made mistakes.
ELLISON: It's the publisher who committed the crime here, not my partner, and I wanted to make sure the world knew that.
HAWTHORNE: You refer to Blair as your partner.
ELLISON: Absolutely.
HAWTHORNE: Blair's been your unofficial partner on the force for some time.
SANDBURG: Three years.
ELLISON: Every case I've solved in that time -- if you've heard about the cooperation or the assistance of a civilian observer, if you've heard that a police observer was injured, or that he risked his life to save a brother on the force or a member of the community -- every single time, that observer was Blair Sandburg.
SANDBURG: (To Ellison) Thanks.
ELLISON: It's true, isn't it?
SANDBURG: Yeah.
HAWTHORNE: The two of you have also lived together for several years. Are you just partners in the cop world?
SANDBURG: (laughing) C'mon, Wendy, what do you want, another scandal? 'Gay Cops: Film at Eleven'? Save it for a slow news week, okay?
ELLISON: If Sandburg and I were -- what, involved? -- he couldn't be my official partner on the police force.
HAWTHORNE: And that's where you're headed, Blair?
SANDBURG: Yeah. I've gone native. Traditional case of the anthropologist being taken in by the tribe. Captain Banks of Major Crimes is negotiating a special-status program. If the department approves, I'll be a forensic anthropologist with the rank of Junior Detective, and I'll be studying profiling.
ELLISON: As soon as he learns to shoot.
SANDBURG: Yeah, whatever. At least I won't have to stay in the car and call for backup anymore. I'll be the backup.
HAWTHORNE: Isn't that somewhat unusual? Especially with your professional credentials at risk?
SANDBURG: Of course it's unusual. But that was one of the reasons we wanted to talk with you. My credentials aren't at risk. The administration at Rainier could only legally terminate my teaching contract. I left my department in good standing. I have nothing to publish, and I've chosen to leave the department while I'm still ABD, but that's hardly unusual. My so-called dissertation never, in fact, willingly left my hands. It was a private project.
HAWTHORNE: You chose to work on a novel, based on the research you wished you'd been able to do. Were you procrastinating?
ELLISON: He wouldn't be the first.
HAWTHORNE: What about your degree, Blair?
SANDBURG: I've had the opportunity to reevaluate my priorities. If I get a doctorate, it will be in forensics -- either anthropology or psychology -- and it won't be at Rainier.
HAWTHORNE: Hard feelings?
SANDBURG: I think there are a lot of hard feelings on both sides, and that most of them are justified. But I never asked Rainier to get behind the Sentinel story or to acknowledge it in any way. And most of my colleagues in the department itself didn't -- and wouldn't. It was the lure of the money and prestige that got some of the administration.
HAWTHORNE: A lure which you turned down.
SANDBURG: I couldn't do it. It never even crossed my mind to do it.
ELLISON: He had a million dollars, his Ph.D., everything, and he couldn't do it.
HAWTHORNE: It sounds like we could use that kind of honor on the police force.
SANDBURG: It's just loyalty. Jim trusted me. I'd never betray that.
HAWTHORNE: And what about the people who say it's all an elaborate cover -- that the thesis was real? That your giving it up was the true act of loyalty -- to save Detective Ellison's career?
SANDBURG: If it had been true, and the media continued to hound him, it would have been more than just his career. It'd be his life, and the lives of those people he saves. The paparazzi last week were at least partially responsible for the injury of several officers and staff at the police headquarters. We're just lucky nobody was killed.
ELLISON: Which is why we agreed to only one interview, and we did it with you, because you've worked with us before.
HAWTHORNE: I do know how the press can get in the way of police business, but surely...
SANDBURG: We're totally behind the freedom of the press. It's just that you can't run into a movie theater and yell 'fire', and you can't point to a detective and cry 'Superman', because people will react as if it were true, even if it isn't.
ELLISON: We're just asking that the media think of the public safety. It might be impossible for me to ever do undercover work again. And how am I supposed to protect a witness' privacy when I can't even protect my own? Enough is enough.
SANDBURG: Wendy. The truth is that anyone facing that kind of sensory input in this society would constantly walk the brink of insanity. The only set of data I've ever intended to publish on a modern case of heightened senses belong to a woman who's now in the maximum security wing of Conover mental hospital. You'd have to have constant support, and incredible mental and emotional strength. Tribal legends suggest a few other unlikely factors to do with shamanism, spirit guides, and other phenomena that have no parallel in modern urban society.
HAWTHORNE: But it makes a good story.
SANDBURG: It makes a hell of a story. Maybe someday I'll write it again.
HAWTHORNE: Meanwhile, your admirers are trying to get you resurrected at the university.
SANDBURG: That's really amazing. One of my students called and asked me, did I still want my Ph.D., and I said, 'not like this.' But I appreciate the support, and thank people for it. The campaign to reinstate me has probably saved my professional reputation. I've voluntarily terminated my enrollment in the degree program there, and as far as the department itself, I left in good standing. I'm free to start over again somewhere else, if I ever want to.
HAWTHORNE: But right now, you don't want to.
SANDBURG: Right now, we've got a city with a crime rate that I've helped to keep down. The people that I love are safer than they were, and that's more important to me than a degree.
ELLISON: He's a better detective than he is an anthropologist. And he's a good anthropologist.
(Sandburg punches Ellison's arm, as if in thanks)
HAWTHORNE: Mr. Sandburg, do you anticipate any trouble from your brothers and sisters in blue over your promotion?
SANDBURG: I'd be stupid not to. But the police have taken officers from special training outside of the academy, and run them through the final exams with the other cadets. Jim here did that himself. If I can't pass the tests, then I go back to the academy, same as anybody else. And I have three years of experience with Major Crimes, including extensive undercover work -- I'm not exactly a rookie.
HAWTHORNE: And what's your mom think?
SANDBURG: (laughing) Right now, she's so glad we're still speaking that she'd encourage me in anything. Seriously. I'm a grown man, and she knows that. She's not happy with it -- she used to be a protester -- but the fact is that the PD needs people on the inside who know what that's like, too.
HAWTHORNE: So you're the hippie cop?
SANDBURG: Call me whatever you want. Just keep the media off our case. We promise, whenever we solve a case, we'll come to you.
ELLISON: Or you can get access to case information through the regular channels. But our stories -- both of them -- are no different from any of the other men and women who've put their lives on the line for this city.
SANDBURG: Everybody's got their own story. You've heard all you're going to get of ours.
HAWTHORNE: I guess that's as good a sentiment to end on as any, gentlemen. Thank you.
(back to live footage)
The word from two of Cascade's heroes: let us do our jobs. A message that seems to have come too late for Rainier University. They that have ears to hear, let them hear.
I'm Wendy Hawthorne, with Washington State Week, in Cascade.