False Report Cause of Torch Switcheroo Mess?

Heather Fong is now saying that a false report on a police scanner caused last week’s Olympic torch route to “spontaneously” change, according to the New York Times. The chief of police claims that SFPD had been told that the Olympic bus carrying the relay members--the same bus that protesters “vandalized,” assuming it was also carrying the torch-- had “run over and injured protesters on the planned route along the waterfront.”

Oops.

Chief Fong quipped during a press conference after the torch mess, "[s]omehow we were given that information." That information, it seems, was what sparked the Olympic torch to make a surprise shift to Van Ness Avenue, fooling many people who came to San Francisco to witness/protest the flame’s only U.S. stop.