The meaning of HOAX is to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous.

It’s like a well articulated artist who paints a replica of an original painting. The original is the authentic painting, and the second is a hoax.

What exactly is a HOAX THREAT?

A hoax threat is when the elements of the claim have specific contradictory detail to factual reality. In other words, a hoax threat is when the person’s claims don’t line up with things which are already known. It’s not that the elements and details are ‘grey’ or ‘foggy’ or ‘unknown’. A hoax threat is when the specifics of a claim totally go in total contrasting opposite to that which is proven to be real.

Let’s see a few examples of hoax threats here in Burleson. Note the details. You’ll see the claim, then you’ll notice that the elements and details of the claim do not match up.

A hoax threat is when a church in Burleson claims that a mom is alive and being harrassed at the church on March 11, 2018 (note the date)….. Who is being accused? Me. What are the elements? The ex fiance who is blowing through the Protective Order Judge Neil issued and a claim that I’m harassing my mother.

As most people know, this pillar of a Burleson woman died a full SIX years earlier and everyone in the church knows it.

That’s right: MOM died a full SIX YEARS earlier. So Pathway’s claim is a lie. (more on that in later posts – it’s still an ongoing open records request) One person from the church has fully confessed and apologized for his actions. But the damage has been done. And that was their point (at the time).

In this claim, there is actual PD evidence showing a contrasting contradiction for Pathway’s fake claim. BPD helped MedStar in the dispatch call on March 2nd, 2012, yet BPD also has this claim from Pathway church six years later on March 11th, 2018. So having pulled the 911 calls, body cam footage of Pathway’s claims, vehicle recordings, and email correspondence of Pathway’s ‘NinjaCop’, we can put that together with BPD’s own report from when Jan Griffin died to verify that this was a fake claim from Pathway church.

(plus, half the church and thousands and thousands of people throughout the whole city know our mom is dead)

See how the elements of the claim do not match reality?

So, what is this? Is this a legitimately dispatched emergency intended to instigate law enforcement to be dispatched out to a church on a Sunday morning because of an authentic claim? Nope.

It’s a hoax claim meant to instigate Burleson Police.

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A hoax threat is when a ‘mysterious profile’ on Facebook claims that “Bill Janusch, Brad Griffin and others have also made threats….”

Should local law enforcement turn to Facebook’s Records Request, they can follow up with the person making the hoax threat in an appropriate manner.

But that’s if BPD wants to. Other folks in the community would be all for it!

Had Bill or I (hi 🙋‍♂️) ever made any such claim, our Burleson Police Officers would have been immediately dispatched out to detain and question both of us. And, both Bill Janusch and I would be very much inclined and highly motivated to help and cooperate with BPD investigating who actually made up this fake claim.

It’s a hoax claim meant to instigate Burleson Police.

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A similar hoax threat is made by Tiffany Hurd (Council Member Tamara’s sister) in the lobby of City Hall.

So, Tiffany Hurd’s claim is that she’s being “intimidated” yet somehow manages to snap a picture of a person’s (🙋‍♂️hi) underwear showing as a result of their fly being unzipped. And of course then goes on to yell “Do you want me to go get the officer?” To which Andy, Whitney, Bill, Jimmy, and everyone else in the lobby simply gives Tiffany an eye roll, then laughs.

But of course, who is Tiffany’s hoax threat about?

It’s the “usual crowd of 2 bullies” and later goes on to message people that it’s Bill and Brad. (Oddly curious that the two individuals mentioned by Tiffany are the same two mentioned in the Hoax Threat by the fake profile Susan Meyers)

And, of course Tiffany’s claim is that she “had to speak to the Officer on duty about it.” Then goes on to claim “This was the second time.”

💡Wow. Pretty amazing that our Burleson Police Department are notified of a citizen getting harrassed in the lobby of City Hall …….. and they do nothing. TWICE! 🤨

One can only wonder why the officers on duty, nor anyone else with a lobby full of people, not one person “jumped” into action after witnessing & hearing Tiffany’s fake claim.

Interesting.🤨

The community of Burleson should ask Tiffany to clarify.

Which is it Tiffany Hurd: Do we have the most incompetent Officers who do nothing when a “damsel in distress” claims to be harrassed? Or was it a fake threat and you were immediately busted the second it flew out of your pie hole and you asked the officer to come over; then when you didn’t get the reaction you wanted, busted again once you posted those pictures and claims online?

Either we have horrifically incompetent Officers who can’t defend the “damsel in distress”, or it’s a fake threat from Tiffany.

It’s a hoax claim meant to instigate Burleson Police.

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Any and every claim has to be taken seriously. And to correctly take a claim seriously, a community of law enforcement has to first identify if the claim is authentic or fake.

How to identify claims as Authentic or Fake

If Burleson PD arrives at a church on March 11th, 2018 to find that the person making the hoax threat has a restraining order to stop making hoax threats, AND that they (BPD) actually assisted MedStar when the mother died at home here in Burleson on March 2, 2012 then that is a fake threat and should be followed up with appropriate charges.

Likewise, when there are ZERO threats made to former council member Gillaspie, the person who claimed the hoax threats should be followed up with appropriate charges.

Similarly, when everyone else standing in the lobby at city hall verifies to the officer that Tiffany is not being “harrassed” in the least bit, then that should be identified as a fake threat and should be followed up with appropriate charges.

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Time and time again we can find incidents of community members making hoax threats. So now that the community has clearly identified how to spot them, let’s examine Burleson City Council Member Tamara Payne‘s claim.

First, let’s define what a hoax claim is. There are numerous laws iterated on both a state and federal level which are put in place for definition and punitive actions that law enforcement should take.

Sec. 22.14 (a) A person commits an offense if the person reports a crime or an emergency or causes any report of a
crime or an emergency to be made to a law enforcement officer, law
enforcement agency, 9-1-1 service, official or volunteer agency, or
any other governmental employee or contractor who is authorized to
receive reports of a crime or emergency and:
(1) the person knows that the report is false;
(2) the report is reasonably likely to cause an
emergency response from a law enforcement agency or other emergency
responder;

Pretty cut and dry right? Not too hard to interpret that law or have too much gray area or wiggle room. Again, that’s just one of many laws for Texas. There are several federal laws against making fake threats, and of course Texas Penal code § 42.061 addresses any manufactured hoax threats which come through the 911 system.

As a community, let’s carefully give Tamara’s claim a fair and honest look.

Quite often, it’s best to type out a person’s words to really make sure that we as a community are indeed listening correctly to what the person is claiming.

Well I'm going to state for the record that we are elected officials and we have to go through an incredible amount of um digging of dirt about who we are right down to our comments on facebook or any type of social media how we speak to people we're held to a higher standard as elected officials as elected officials it's our job on this appointments committee to appoint people that we believe can do the job and uphold the same standards of which we want our citizens to see of us.

Yes. Yes indeed. Some decent level of standards should absolutely be expected. And those who willfully, maliciously, blatantly catapult those standards straight out the opened window should definitely be held accountable.

I believe that we have made a very poor choice for one of these appointments and I'm disappointed in the appointments committee.

Tamara is in fact quite frustrated with Bill’s appointment to the Planning and Zoning Commission. So ‘disappointed’ is she, that the council agenda item to vote, confirm, and move forward with board appointments has been held up for a full six months.

While I cannot change anything going backwards regarding how the appointments happen I want to make sure I have this on the record that we are appointing someone that has caused me to get security to and from council meetings for fear.

Not naming someone doesn’t prevent anyone from knowing whom Tamara is speaking about. It’s one of the same people that Tiffany claims to mention quite often in her hoax threats as well. Bill Janusch.
But council member Tamara’s claim is that Bill has “caused [her] to get security to and from council meetings of fear”
Take note of that claim: Tamar’s claim is that ‘something’ Bill has done, has caused her to get security.
So, not enough ‘fear’ to actually file any charges, but enough to make a story out of it during council meetings.

We are appointing someone that has said hateful beyond hateful things about incredible amounts of people in the city as well as sitting in this room. We're appointing someone who has referenced masturbation in a public post on facebook.

Wow. That’s a horrific “sky is falling” type of Chicken Little claim. Tamara is keen to record people, take screenshots, make videos claiming to document others actions. So, surely Tamara has a screenshot of this individual saying those words…… right?
While each claim should be taken seriously enough to actually listen to, there is always a need to ask questions and listen carefully to the claimant’s responses.

And I'm going to say that I'm disappointed and I believe you as citizens should expect more of your council members that you elected because the people we appoint to these committees their jobs are important even right down to the library board they represent this city.

As a community, at large and in whole, the emails and messages are filling up quite rapidly. Everyone is definitely in agreement that we as a Community of Character should indeed “expect more of [our] council members that [we] elected” Definitely. The bar definitely needs to be raised substantially.

They should hold higher standards as well if they want to be able to bash and take out other people then they too should be open for that same scrutinization. And I will tell you that I'm shaking for saying this because I didn't want to have to be put in this position but I'm going to say it loud and clear one of the appointments caused me to get escorted to and from council.

So now we get to the meet of the message. So Tamara’s claim is that she is shaking and that she just “had to be put in this position”. And that she had to be “escorted to and from council.”
Again, listen to the person’s claims. If, with a bit more listening, those claims do not add up, and there is a complete lack of anything to substantiate those claims, then it’s time to have some accountability.

Let’s unpack all of this a bit.

Tamara has held up Bill Janusch’s Planning and Zoning appointment now for SIX full MONTHS trying to figure out how to get other council members to nominate board members, asking things to be taken off the city’s Council agenda, then finally, once it got on the agenda and up for a vote SIX MONTHS later, she decided to speak up and had to go on the record.

Burleson’s own Sarah Carlson does a great job of articulating Tamara’s actions and the appointee’s timeline in this post —>HERE <—

https://www.facebook.com/groups/municipalmattersofbtx/posts/1433979760377515/

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As a community, let’s get down to the rubber-meets-the-road part.

Has Bill Janusch actually done anything to ‘scare’ tamara? Anything chirped in the tweeders, fax, email, said, texted, making faces, post it note, shoe polish message on car, fakebook post, carrier pigeon, … anything? Anything … at all?

Let’s all – as a community – listen.

• After almost every meeting there are ‘mommy and me’ classes out on the Plaza.
• There are always multiple people around Bill and all others in attendance.
• There is no “magical” spot, location, or some type of “mysterious location” where Mr. Janusch might have even been afforded the opportunity to do anything concerning to Burleson City Council Woman Tamara Payne.

How long would it take someone to go ask both the leader of those exercise classes, and everyone in attendance, if they have ever seen Bill do anything –anything at all– which might be –even slightly– considered as a reason for Tamara to be forced to get a police escort?

What about all the other attendees of our City Council Meetings?

• There are developers who speak at meetings,
• Land owners who show up to meetings,
• Police Chief Cordell & Captain McGuire are often present,
• Fire Chief Freeman shows up,
• Software contractors frequently appear at meetings to answer questions,
• Burleson’s I.T. people are in attendance of these meetings,
• Citizens and staff receiving awards are frequently in attendance,
• ………and hundreds more, but the community probably gets the idea by now

Now take all of those above examples and let’s multiply that times every meeting for the last six months as Council Member Tamara Payne presented her claim.

Can any of those people come forward with any incident, situation, or scenario in which they might have even possibly witnessed anything -anything at all- happen to Tamara which would cause her to have to get her own police escort?

If so, then charge him.

BPD needs to enforce all laws. All ‘concerns’ should be taken seriously. Is Tamara’s claim legitimate or simply a victim claim to gain attention?

Why enable it for months and months and months and months and months and months? That’s SIX MONTHS of enabling Council Member Tamara’s claims

Which is it BPD/Tamara? Is Bill making, doing, saying anything to conclude that Tamara is legitimately in fear of her safety? If it’s so serious that our City Council meetings need to double the amount of officers, then why hasn’t someone been charged with something along with a court appearance date?

Which is it, b/c it can’t be both:

Tamara IS in fear AND we ARE gonna let the guy keep attending council and board meetings, AND we’re going to give Tamara’s claims actionable enforcement (with additional police resources) AND we’re going to continue doing this for SIX MONTHS?

…….or…….

Tamara’s claim was indeed a hoax threat and we (BPD) are simply not going to enforce that law for that person?

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But the reality is already presented itself within some of the community’s questions:

Brad help me understand this: Either I make a legit claim that someone is creepin & bpd is gonna do nothing, or I make up a bs claim & bpd just puts their head in the sand and lets em do it again and again and again?

Conversation with another older ‘deep roots’ citizen of Burleson

Have we been giving CP Payne BPD resources for 6 mo for no actual reason?

Text

I know she’s gonna say “but, but, but I didn’t use those actual words”, but she just slammed our police to everyone watching. I get that they are just trying to appease her, but you can’t have a recorded meeting of Tamara’s horse crap, then Bill gets up and does his citizen appearance. That just made our badge look horrifically pathetic and incompetent.

Conversation with 👮‍♀️ “someone” here in our Burleson Community

Those comments (and all the others) should INDEED be followed up with a cautious but listening posture with the direction of pointing folks back to the Burleson Police Department.

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There is a small, but quite vocal, tiny minority of people whose base of information is consistently a recycled rumor. If you listen, and listen for the deception, the community can efficiently spot it. The behavior is quite predictable, easy to identify, and quite frequently, it goes a bit like this:

• Faith told Kevin told Casey told NinjaCop Lt. Wickson told Casey Glendenning to call 911 and claim that was your mother. That’s cute, but it’s not an authentic claim
• A CIA operative told Tifany that a high level congressional member must have scrubbed the Navy records to remove the evidence from Naval Intelligence hacking your Facebook account. Cool story. Your claim doesn’t like up. Please dig your hole deeper
• Tamara’s answer to anyone questioning her claim could be something like, “Brock told Alicia told Faith told Tiffany said to Robbie told Tamara __(something)__ about Bill” Great story. So, Bill hasn’t actually done something and you’re just wanting people & BPD to simply jump at your rumor?

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ASK. AND LISTEN.

Ask officers who are in attendance to these meetings if they have ever witnessed Bill (or anyone for that matter) do anything first hand to cause Tamara fear? Then listen to their answer.

Ask Captain McGuire, Chief Cordell, Officer Wells, Officer Byrom, Officer Perez, or the new hire (sorry forgot your name), and any/every other officer if they have first hand knowledge of Bill (or anyone for that matter) do anything to actually warrant Tamara needing additional police resources. Then listen to their answer.

Ask any of them if there are laws against people who instigate fake threats based on completely contrasting and contradicting evidence. Again, listen to their answer.

Ask if we are allocating additional police resources to appease a council member’s hoax threat? As always, listen to their answer.

Ask, “Hey Bill. If BPD asked you to come in for questioning, would you be ok with that? If BPD wanted to go through your cell, would that be ok with you? Then listen to Bill’s reply. (Bill’s answer would be a whole hearted enthusiastic ‘YES’)

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We as a community should never become so complacent that we don’t ASK and LISTEN to questions that need to be addressed.

If you’re driving down Wilshire, pop in and see if you can ask to speak to someone at the Police Station. No really. You might …. be on your way to HEB with your niece 😉 and decide to simply ask. Our Police are indeed quite cordial, so there’s no reason to be afraid to ask. You, we, as a community who wants to support our police, should want to make sure that they receive the most credible, authentic, genuine information.

Ask if Chief Cordell, deputy Chief Sandifer, Capt. McGuire, or Capt. Crum is available. Someone will probably be available. They’ll buzz you through, then you simply walk up the stairs and say Hi. That’s it folks. Supporting our Burleson Police is really that simple.

You can ask about anything you’d like, make a clarification on what open records requests you need to follow up with, and even ask about Council Member Tamara Payne’s claim. The above is only a reference of questions that you can use or build on.

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As a community, it’s time we put a stop to some of these fake threats, hoax claims, and baseless claims. Are we going to ‘prevent’ them from happening in the first place?

Nope!

WE -the whole community- needs to stop tolerating & enabling people who make these fake threats. No one likes the ‘Little Boy Who Cried Wolf’ & being a damsel in distress who cries wolf is about 100 times as bad – especially in this tightly woven community.

When someone “feels” scared, it is always appropriate to listen to their claim.

To protect those who have legitimate claims, there simply must be Healthy Boundaries with those who take advantage of the public’s trust with a lie.

If, however WE as a community, do not protect legitimate victims, people will not come forward with authentic claims. As churches, WE have to do a better job to protect the authenticity of claims that come forward. As a Police Supporting community, WE have to do a better job of letting our officers know first hand authentic information to squash rumors. As citizens in a City of Character, WE must do a better job of discerning the TRUTH from a lie.