Scott Stapp Public Statement (Updated: On Nightline Tonight)

[facelessman07]

wow, this is the same Stapp that used to have the "I couldn't care less" attitude and seemed to have his shit together in the early Creed days

Crazy, seems like a totally different person

[JaredWard]

I guess those calls prove his mental issues. Scary stuff.

[austinjhnsn]

Thats honestly petrifying. hope this isnt the end for him, he's so lost.

[Seeker_1306]

This is just getting downright scary. He needs to be in a treatment center as soon as possible.

[BSC]

Weird... But as someone who's not from America, I'm wondering how it can be legal to make emergency calls open to public? Isn't there any kind of privacy protection? I don't get it. To be honest I even have scruples listening to it. It's horrifying how far media can go these days to destroy people's reputation. But this is not only a problem of the USA, it's worldwide.

Someone linked to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which is the legal basis, but let me explain why: 911 is a taxpayer-funded service. The entire infrastructure of a nationwide emergency service, including its employees, are paid for by taxpaying citizens. Under FOIA, anything like that is open to the public. As it should be. Because it is paid for by the public.

There are 9 specific FOIA exemptions. Some commonly-cited ones are records that would interfere with law enforcement, and national security exemptions. For example, you can file a FOIA request with the CIA asking for details about their mission against ISIS. But they will either flat-out deny your request, or issue a "Glomar" response stating that they can't confirm or deny the existence of such records.

Just because you're worried about poor Scott doesn't mean we should suspended very important democratic (lower case D) laws like FOIA. Laws like that are what make America a democracy. You don't need to work for a newspaper to use FOIA. I am a journalist but I've shown friends how to file a written FOIA request for personal reasons.

I know Scott is going through a very tough time but "the media" (as if we all work for the same company) is not destroying his reputation. He is doing that to himself. The media is simply reporting on a matter of public interest. They wouldn't be doing their jobs if they simply ignored this story.

Thanks for your explanation. I give it a try and answer in English:

I am from Germany and we have a similar act to the FOIA, but far as I know it's not referring to emergency calls by normal citizens. It's rather created in order to make the work of public institutions transparent for everyone. This means you may gain insight into a wide range of documents from public institutions as well as documentations about these institutions, but there's a limit which is the privacy of other citizens. Privacy protection is of course a civil right and should be guaranteed in every democratic state. But I can't see how it is protected when recordings of emergency calls filled with delicate issues can be made available for everyone.

Of course this is just my opinion.

That brings me to another point....when you talk about media reporting on a certain topic and you think it's inappropriate or overkill (think Casie Anthony, Ferguson, etc.), you should be blaming your fellow citizens. Media companies other than PBS and NPR are focused on turning a profit by selling ads so they can stay in business. How do you do that? You report on stories that people want to hear. Unfortunately many dumbfuck Americans just want to hear about the same one or two stories all day long for months on end. If journalists covered what they think you should know, most news media entities would fold very quickly.

It's interesting to me that you come from a country where there is no such thing as FOIA but you seem to be defending that. It's hard to give people democracy when they don't even want it.

Media companies must fight to survive out there. No doubt about it. However if such 911 calls wouldn't be made public, no media could write about it in the first place. So why even open that door?

One more thing about Scott Stapp: Of course he's the one to blame for his actions. But on the other hand we neither know if he's still sane mentally, which would somewhat make him a victim of his own state of mind, nor do we know what actually happened when he made these phone calls. We don't know if he was indeed in serious danger and there is still a very small probability for this. So whatever happened, media doesn't know but blatantly portrays him as a drug-abusing and broke rockstar freaking out.

I don't know if this contributes to your debate, but I've used the UK legislation - Freedom of Information Act 2000 to carry out research. Under s40(2) of that Act a public authority does not have to release information, if by providing that information, the person given the information can cross-reference other information in the public domain, to identify any individuals to whom the information concerns. So in the UK, under Freedom of Information legislation, we wouldn't have a right to these 911 calls. I don't know whether there's any other legislation or regulations out there that would allow us to have these 911 calls in the public domain, in the UK (or 999 calls, if it was the UK), but the FOIA would not work.

Also - I guess it depends on people's attitudes towards mental illness, but I don't know if we can really say 'of course he's to blame for his actions' I doubt anyone chooses to behave like a mentally ill person. Yeah, he might be at fault for use drug use, which may (or most likely), contributed to his current mental health, but I don't know whether it's as clear cut to allocate blame solely on Scott.

[One Drew Remains]

Yeah. Forget how you feel about him professionally. I feel bad for him on a personal level, and quite frankly, I never thought I'd say that. It's sad.

[Fish Tacos]

Lol...oh Stapp...and here everyone was expecting your info from the Betty Ford clinic this week but got this instead

[AB23]

wow, those 911 calls. its affecting his family's image now. he needs to get help... i think its safe to say his music career is over. I dont think (and i dont blame them) people are even going to wanna support his music career after this. But he can at least get healthy and go down a different path

[creed009]

Yeah, ok. So he is crazy and/or on drugs. I doubt if we ever see any of these "documents" either. If he was able to make up such a detailed story, perhaps he should write a fiction novel.

[Ashlee]

Can someone remind me where Jagger's mom is? I keep reading "their three children", but Jacyln isn't Jagger's bio mom.

[nagpo]

Can someone remind me where Jagger's mom is? I keep reading "their three children", but Jacyln isn't Jagger's bio mom.

She left years ago. She's not involved. Gave stapp sole custody.

[julio]

I remember seeing her Facebook profile a while back. She seems to be happy, but I have no idea the relationship between her and Jagger. Seems like Scott got full custody of Jagger at some point. Maybe he talks about it in his book? Anyways, it is probably none our business.

[JaredWard]

Here's her profile. She as a few old pics of her, Scott, & Jagger.

https://www.facebook.com/hillaree.stapp

Pretty weird that she kept his name though..

[Shortman45]

Found this interesting. [youtube]http://youtu.be/N7610_9IHZg[/youtube]
I'm not sure I agree with it, but it does support Scott's point of view.

On the one side, Scott could be back on drugs and/or has mental issues.

On the other side, Jaclyn is lying and she is trying to cover up something by trying to destroy Scott's credibility.

This is messed up.

[Kreuger33]

I think the fact that he seems calm and rational even though he may be suffering from mental illness, greatly magnifies the fact that he's suffering. Crazy people aren't aware that they're crazy, right?

[abw1987]

You've got to be kidding me with that video

If anything, Scott knows that his sister in law has worked in government intelligence, and that's probably contributing to his delusions about ISIS, the CIA, Obama, etc.

[Seeker_1306]

Here's her profile. She as a few old pics of her, Scott, & Jagger.

https://www.facebook.com/hillaree.stapp

Pretty weird that she kept his name though..

Well, that was an interesting set of pictures to say the least lol. I find it funny that she's bashing him in picture comments but has kept his name after 15 years or however long it's been. And her new boyfriend is making a valiant attempt to look like Stapp.

[Finaldecision]

That video posted above is of course very speculative. There's only a very small chance that there is any truth to these conspiracy theories. Talking about schizophrenia, I know a thing or two about it for I have a near relative suffering from it. I also know few things about it from my days on university. Scott Stapp definitely shows symptoms linked to schizophrenia. I also remember him talking about the days when Creed was about to end, where he admitted that he suffered from a drug-induced psychosis. Who's to say that this psychosis didn't return? It may not take a lot for it to come back when you already suffered from schizophrenia in the past and in particular when you're using drugs. From a rational perspective this seems like a plausible explanation for the things happening.

On the other hand this whole situation reminds me of a prominent case that happened in Germany a few years ago. There was man called Gustl Mollath. You find his story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath

He was involuntarily kept in a psychiatry because his wife claimed he was suffering from a paranoid personality disorder and that he was violent at home. After being kept there for 6 years in a row, he managed to get released. It went public that Gustl Mollath unraveled a financial affair that had to do with his wife who worked for a major bank in Germany at the time. Today we know that he was actually right with his accusations. Some psychologists still say he's not mentally stable. Albeit it was admitted that his arrest was not correct and it's very possible that his wife tried to get rid of him because he uncovered these criminal financial activities.

[abw1987]

Yep, his behavior is very consistent with my understanding of schizophrenia as well. People who carry the genetics for schizophrenia can trigger the illness through the use of drugs like LSD, which he has admitted to using in the past. And God-knows what other drugs he's used more recently that might have further exacerbated the condition.

I say that there's a (very, very remote) possibility of there being a financial conspiracy against Scott, similar to that Gustl guy, but not after hearing those 911 calls. He thinks a vague group of cars is following him, he's been on the run for 36 hours, and ISIS is within the core of his family. That's just a bit too far gone for a rational mind.

[vChris]

Finaldecision, I can see why you compare it to Mollath's case but... no. His case was totally different. Well, in both cases the words "mental illness", "devious and money hungry (ex)wife" and "conspiracy" are used by media. But that's it basically. There were things like the structure of courts and the flawed joint work with the psychological experts as well as Mollath's own "weirdness" that played part in his case.

The video...