With the recent shooting by a police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, of a fleeing, unarmed black man, everyone -- including me, this time -- has already convicted the police officer of crimes ranging from murder -- I say second degree, because I don't see any premeditation given the dash-cam footage that was released -- to a hate crime -- no way; the cop just lost it. Some are sensibly urging patience, which is something I typically do, because in most instances, we don't have video of the incident on which to base our opinions. This time, I think there's very little doubt what happened or what should happen to Officer Slager.
That being said, we've had an awful lot of incidents recently and going back twenty years or more where a rush to judgment took place, only to have it turn out that the judgment was wholly incorrect. Perhaps it's worthwhile to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of those incidents where a national outcry was heard only to have the outcry prove to be wrong because what was reported was incorrect.
(That last statement should be a cautionary one for people Bad reporting has, more often than not, led us into these problems. When bad reporting slants a story one way, inevitably those who seek not to solve the problem but profit from it use the reports to push their agenda as if they'd just gotten the tablets from God Himself. Careless and rushed journalism pervades almost every one of these stories.)
Tawana Brawley rape allegation: Largely championed by that noted race baiter Al Sharpton, it turned out later that that Ms. Brawley invented the story to avoid getting whupped by her mother for being out late. Nevertheless, Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan both led protests demanding justice for a black woman raped by a white man. Even Bill Cosby stepped forward to help the unfortunate Ms Brawley (insert joke here). The rape never happened.
Duke lacrosse gang rape: Frat boys are easy targets, usually because they do such stupid and insensitive things that it makes them easy targets. Rich frat boys are even better targets. Rich student athletes are in the same class. Or so thought Crystal Mangum. Ms. Mangum went after the Duke men's lacrosse team, claiming she'd been hired to strip for them at a party and was later raped. The prosecuting attorney, Michael Nifong, was so intent on making a name for himself that he corrupted the investigative process. Nifong was later disbarred. Jesse Jackson, never one to shy away from the bright light, declared that he would pay Ms. Mangum's college tuition no matter if she'd invented the story. Apparently, Ms. Mangum never took the reverend up on his offer, because a couple of years ago she was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of fourteen years in prison. The lacrosse players did realize $30M from various entities involved in the case.
Trayvon Martin: Shot by neighborhood watcher and police officer wannabe George Zimmerman, called by the press a white man of Hispanic descent, it was readily reported that Martin was shot dead in cold blood. Martin was portrayed as an innocent kid who was preyed upon by the racist Zimmerman. It turned out that Martin wasn't as chaste as the driven snow as portrayed by the MSM, and a jury agreed that Zimmerman was innocent. Or at least he wasn't found guilty. In any event, much of the MSM was trying to inflate this beyond what it really was: A very tragic mistake.
UVA frat house gang rape/Rolling Stone: Anxious to get a big scoop, a reporter very carelessly developed a story that wasn't edited very well about a woman gang raped at a frat party. It caused a big splash, with women's groups virtually marching on Charlottesville with pitchforks and cudgels. Not surprisingly, it turns out there was virtually no evidence of the incident beyond the woman's story. The article was picked apart by fellow journalists as well as students who were at the party in questions but never interviewed. As with the Duke lacrosse players, this fraternity is probably going to receive a very large sum of money with a lot of zeros involved, because the fraternity sued Rolling Stone for its shoddy but salacious story.
Michael Brown: Many innocent storeowners in Ferguson, Missouri, were put out of business because of the race baiting aided by breathless news reports that a white cop had gunned down an unarmed black teenager. Conveniently left out of the initial reports were the facts that the 6'4" Brown had recently knocked over a convenient store, where he shoved an older and much smaller store owner; that he'd charged the officer, Darren Wilson; that eyewitness accounts were less than reliable; and that forensic evidence vindicated virtually every point of Officer Wilson's story. Nevertheless, Ferguson burned, Officer Wilson resigned and moved away and the Justice Department launched an expensive but ultimately futile inquiry to see whether Officer Wilson had violated Brown's rights.
In each of those cases, there was no reliable video of the incident. In the Walter Scott shooting, we have pretty clear evidence of what happened. I expect that Officer Slager will go away for a long time, although being a cop, his time in prison may not last long.
Unless there is incontrovertible evidence of an incident, the rush to judgment ought to be delayed. Largely, this rush to judgment is fueled by the MSM, which is oftentimes more concerned about being first with a story instead of being accurate. At the same time, the MSM acts this way because we the public hang on every report as if it was announcing the Second Coming. Most often, these are simply tragic and unfortunate cases where people acted injudiciously or even stupidly. The results of those actions are bad enough. They don't need to be compounded by our collective stupidity.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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