For quite some time now I have been subjected to the rantings of someone, quite frankly, I consider a loon. In the middle of some of her rants on Twitter.com, I picked up a number of followers that I dubbed the "celebs" because of their fame ie: being on Television on a regular basis or otherwise well known. Being around celebs is nothing new to me. I have been around celebs in one way or another for most of my life.
Still, it was rather nice having their support, even if the extent of the support in one case or another was just to follow my battle, on Twitter, with Michelle McKee a somewhat prominent blogger in the true crime bloggosphere, someone who became a thorn in my side for no other apparent reason than her affiliation with another loon who writes a blog.
One person in particular on Ms. McKee's radar was Pat Brown, widely known as ProfilerPat. Mrs. Brown makes a lot of appearances on such shows as Nancy Grace, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and so on.
The moment that Ms. Brown appeared on my Twitter follower list, Ms. McKee went into a tirade lambasting me and coupling Ms. Brown and I as some kind of con artists making huge amounts of money off crime victims, missing and lost children and so on.
Early on, I had asked Ms. McKee to explain to me just what the heck her beef was with Pat Brown. At the same time I also asked Pat Brown what started the battle between her and Ms. McKee.
Neither of them provided any answer until now. The answer came from the both of them and it was not what I expected. It is an answer that leaves me both annoyed and baffled.
First, Pat Brown. I finally got her to answer my question......sort of. I also got Michelle's answer as to why she had the beef with Mrs. Brown, FINALLY!
The answer is QUALIFICATIONS. For quite time, it seems there has been a question as to the qualifications of Mrs. Brown to call her self a Profiler or Criminal Profiler.
From the perspective of a viewer of such shows as Nancy Grace or Issues with Jane Valez Mitchell I expect someone who appears as an EXPERT about the subject they talk about to actually BE an expert.
When Ms. Brown appears on one of these shows she is introduced as a Profiler. She has a website where she touts her self as a Professional Profiler which means she CHARGES A FEE for her services.
Up to this point I had never quite figured out why it was so damned important for Ms. McKee to question the qualifications of Pat Brown, and to do so with such virolulant language.
The answer to this question came from the both of them THROUGH Ms. McKee.
From time to tine I go through Ms. Mckee's posts on Twitter.com to see what gem she has written about me and my "celebs." as I dub folks like Ms. Brown and others who follow me on Twitter.
One Post caused me to write the first half of this article.
Woo hoo! @ used SEX to initially sell her shtick! Check out the sexpot pic!
2:57 AM Sep 24th from web
When I first saw this post, I expected to see what has been the norm lately when it came to criticism of me which would be altered and demeaning photographs or cartoons. I did not expect to see what was contained in this link.
The picture (top left) turned out to be a rather tame WWII'ish "calender girl photo. The link turned out to be the site of what is in essence Ms. Brown's resume explaining how she became a profiler in the first place.
The introductory part of the first paragraph got my immediate attention.
The most frequently asked question I encounter as a criminal profiler and CEO of The Sexual Homicide Exchange (SHE) is “How did you get into this line of work?” My CV states no law enforcement background, no master’s degree in criminology, psychology or forensics, and no family victim of a violent crime as an impetus.
My reason was immediate......WHAT DID YOU SAY????
This caused me to thoroughly read on further
This is part of the reason she gives for going in the direction of being a Criminal Profiler:
It was never in my life’s plan to become a profiler. I was never a true crime buff or an overly avid mystery reader. Profiling came to me, rather than I to it. I wanted to be an anthropologist.
Ok, no real problem here............so far.
She goes on to explain what steered her down the path of the Profiler profession:
" Then, in June of 1990, I went to the police with suspicions and evidence I had concerning a 26-year-old man to whom I had rented a room in my house for the past five weeks."
She goes on to chronicle the events that led her to go to law enforcement with her suspicions.
She finishes her article/resume starting with this:
"I established The Sexual Homicide Exchange (SHE) the same year the Perkins case crashed and burned for the second time. I began profiling other cases and working on reshaping the investigative system. Case after case taught me how and why the system was failing in its duty to get sexual predators off the streets."
At first glance, one would applaud her for doing such a noble thing in trying the improve the way law enforcement investigates these kinds of cases. Noble, that is except.......
This brings me back to the beginning of this article where I cite Ms. Brown being touted on the aforementioned Criminal case talk shows as being an expert in the Criminal Profiling field.
When most of us go to her website we think"wow, this is one remarkable person, famous tv personality with a noble foundation. To top that she follows me on Twitter!!!!"
http://www.patbrownprofiling.com/
But..........when you add in Ms. McKee's questions about her qualifications to BE a PROFESSIONAL profiler, her biography at this link has me baffled:
http://www.patbrownprofiling.com/bio.html
Now understand me here. I think that Ms. Brown is a real nice lady. She has been nothing but kind and decent to me when it comes to my problems with Michelle McKee. That said, I read this biography and became more than somewhat annoyed.
I had expected to see a .phd, a .bs or a Masters in something as part of her bio. What I got was ZIP. I do assume that Mrs. Brown has SOME college or would at least HOPE she has some kind of professional training that would allow her to be a PROFESSIONAL in this field of work.
I am both a Truck Driver and Used Car Dealer by trade. Both require professional training and certain licensing criteria set by the State and Federal government regulators of each of these occupations.
NOWHERE in Mrs. Brown's biography do I see anything close to this. The gist of her "education" seems to be an Abraham Lincoln style of "self education" which might have been noble back in the 1800's. In today's more complicated world with the heavy regulation by any number of government agencies and the importance of the criminal profiling field and the ramifications of the end product, "reading books, writing books and appearing on Nancy Grace" does not cut it with me.
I now must take a second and much closer look at Pat Brown to see exactly what qualifies her to be a PROFESSIONAL CRIMINAL PROFILER.
Perhaps if Ms, McKee had been more forthcoming with me, setting aside for the moment, her attacks on my character and doing a better job of explaining her position, I would have caught on to this earlier.
Instead, it took an article by Pat Brown herself (provided at long last by Ms. Mckee in her Twitter post) that caused me to stop and ask.....What the heck is going on here?
UPDATE:
A couple of things have come to light since I wrote this portion of the article.
First: In a new post on Twitter, Ms. McKee provides the spark that triggered her to look into Ms. Brown and her qualifications to be a Criminal Profiler
http://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.com/2007/12/gore-and-slasher-films-are-no-laughing.html
This review by Ms. Brown of Mr. Mitchell's review of the film is apparently what prompted the events that have taken place since. My question here for Ms. McKee is what is there about this article that is defamatory or worthy of any civil retubution?
The Second update is that a member of my room has left a post that Ms. Brown has a Masters Degree in Criminal Justice. I went back and re-read the biography and there it is right at the bottom of the page. A BIG OOPS ON MY PART !! It looks like I may need to find a new set of reading glasses or something because this changes the tone of the article quite a bit.
My question then becomes this. Why is this not mentioned in the "sex pot" article cited by the link? I may not have written the article in the first place or at least concentrated on what started this spat between Ms. Brown and Ms. McKee. Another question would be, does the holding of a Master's degree in Criminal Justice get Ms. Brown off the hook in the qualifications department or is there specialized training that would be needed in the Criminal Profiling area that would be needed by Ms. Brown in order to be able to claim her expert status?
Now we turn to Michelle McKee.
Michelle McKee first came to my attention through an article written by another blogger as a guest author on this blog site at wich Ms. McKee is the Editor:
http://incoldblogger.blogspot.com/
At some point later, I decided to open an account on Twitter.com to use as part of my Paltalk chat room site.
Within a VARY short time, I started to get followers to my Twitter account that caught my attention. Along with my "roomies" as they are called were those who do not have a vary good opinion of me, Michelle McKee as well as a number of followers of ICB as it is known.
I thought this rather odd and made a comment about it. Ms. Mckee took issue with my comment and wrote an article on the other bloggers site as a "guest author" tearing into me, calling me a liar and worse. It all went down hill from there. Ms. Mckee started to Post all sorts of "things" about me on Twitter, and else where and does so to this day.
In the midst of these endless tirades, I began to get a new set of followers on Twitter as well as e-mails from people where having problems with Ms. McKee, Pat Brown being one of them. These were, as I said earlier, my "celebs."
When Ms. McKee noticed the new followers on my Twitter account, to say this did not sit well with her was an understatement.
Her tirade against Ms. Brown was quite intense and stood out from the others.
At one point, Ms. McKee engaged in an impromptu Twitter debate that lasted several hours. All that was accomplished was that we still had an intense dislike of each other and no answers were given to me as to why she was so intent on going after the "celebs" with Pat Brown getting the most intense scrutiney.
The answer, FINALLY came about in this recent link she posted on Twitter,com
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=48471144&blogId=435596733
There are two things that become quite clear here.Ms. McKee claims that Pat Brown is stalking her for making comments on HER blog that Ms. Brown may all hype and no substance. This is a problem I am personally aware of as I am suffering from the same problem.
Up until NOW, Ms, McKee did not provide the DOCUMENTATION that at least supports her position.
The second part of the answer is WHAT MADE HER QUALIFIED to question Pat Brown's credentials from a perspective other than that of a viewer of Nancy Grace or the Editor of In Cold Blog.
The answer is, again, in that link:
"Google Michelle Gray, Michelle McKee and the National Insurance Crime Bureau and YOU connect them, then try to find my address. "
I remember Ms. McKee stating that her profession consisted of being a consultant of some sort in the area of white coller crime.She was never quite specific in providing said documentation. This part of the link she provided recently on her Twitter posts, goes a long way toward that end.
Ms. McKee has yet to provide documentation as to her PROFESSIONAL qualifications to be in the occupation she states when working with The National Insurance Crime Bureau. I would have liked at least SOME general information as to training or other professional qualifications that would cause her to question Pat Brown from a prospective other than that of an angry poster on the blog.
I preface the next remark with this. I am not about to abandon Pat Brown or jump on the Michelle McKee band wagon. I consider Ms. Mckee's marks to be rather crude. It was the wording of her Twitter posts that caused me to overlook the points she was making that bolstered her arguments regarding Ms.Brown's qualification.
I feel like I am taking the worst tasting medicine one could imagine when I state the following:
I do have to admit and am giving credit to Michelle McKee at In Cold Blog. When it comes to Pat Brown, she got this one right.
UPDATE: NOT SO FAST HERE.
I was finally able to hear the other side of the story in this little saga and am satisfied that Pat Brown is fully qualified to be a Profiler. It was my error to listen ONLY to one side of the argument here and considering the source, I probably should have done more research.
Not only was Michelle McKee not right in her assessment of Pat Brown and her qualifications, she was DEAD WRONG.
As I am always fond of saying "I STAND CORRECTED."
STAY TUNED
MURT
