One old story goes that our beloved Mr Payton once ran for officer of the ASME, and recieved 2 votes. Must have been rather hard on his pride.
Anyway, to mebbe answer your question, the conspiracy people will tell you there is a quick shuffle going on. The idea is to blame it all on the operators (who are dead). Why? To reduce the liability for the gendarmes in Medina and the State of Ohio. For that to be true, the press would have to also be a patsy, or in on the conspiracy.
Another option is that this was written by someone else, who used Mr Payton's name.
Rather interesting though, that the "leaks" or conflictory reports are pretty much all on the internet. Kinda like reading it in the Inquirer