Of course, nothing sets a pack of journalists hungry for answers on the hunt faster than that. Goffman explained this practice by saying hospital employees “selectively” run the names of hospital visitors in criminal databases, searching for outstanding warrants after those visitors show identification at the door. She also threw the name of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in the mix when further insisting that Philly hospitals as a matter of regular practice collaborate with cops to lock up people with warrants. In response, Goffman seemed to dig herself even deeper, offering a different version of the events in her book to defend herself from claims of having committed a felony, which did little to convince critics there weren’t major flaws in her work. In subsequent months her claims seemed to fray further as she came under a prolonged assault by Northwestern Law professor Steve Lubet, who accused her of abetting a conspiracy to attempt homicide, and fabricating research claims. Skepticism around the accuracy of her work started last year with an article in The Atlantic that questioned her claims about police trawling Philadelphia hospitals for fugitives, and hospitals cooperating in getting them arrested. Now, New York Magazine comes to her rescue, verifying some of her disputed claims and speaking to her suspected to be fictitious sources. By Friday, it looked like her heralded book on fugitives in Philly, On the Run, was unraveling under increased scrutiny.
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