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Post by crossride on Nov 29, 2009 19:09:33 GMT -5
After all, news and information outlets cater to US, right? So when this happens, it's because of US: On CNN.com....The "top" story is about Tiger Woods, basically how he failed to talk to police about his "accident" but he posted a statement on line saying his accident is all his fault. UNDER that, is the story about the 4 cops killed in WA. Four murdered cops are less important than Tiger Woods NOT saying anything? According to CNN.com's priority, which I'm sure is based on extensive market research about what is going to grab the average American's attention. Am I getting this right?
Screw you America!
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Post by crossride on Nov 29, 2009 19:20:12 GMT -5
FYI: I could check other news sources to continue to get pissed off, since the PD had it well down if you clicked "Nation/World"... but some seem to get it right, in my opinion: I first heard about this when my local paper website had it as the top story (no I don't live in PD territory anymore), and I also found it just now as the "top" story in foxnews.com. Please check your own favorite sources and see where a story like this rates.
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Post by The Big Dog on Nov 29, 2009 20:30:46 GMT -5
The media is sometimes slow to come to the realization that the story is passing them by. Hell, even heach coach Jim Mora of the Seattle Seahawks had it right when he opened his post game remarks in St. Louis by calling attention to the crime.
This apparent assassination, and there is little else it can be called based on what has been released by the Pierce County Sheriff's Department to this point, of four peace officers drinking coffee and having a cruller in a coffee shop is a crime that should strike to the very heart of our society as a whole. The deaths of four Oakland PD officers back in March was no less tragic, but at least they knew they were in a fight.
These officers, save for one who apparently was able to fight back in some manner, never had a chance. They were ambushed in the most cowardly way possible. There are very few potential explanations of motive possible, and all of them are distinctly troubling and should send a shiver down the spine of all Americans.
After all... if armed police officers, the men and women in whom we place our greatest trust and charge with the responsibility to stand between us and the bad guys, can be assassinated like this, any one of us can.
Very sobering indeed. But when, as crossride suggests, how Tiger Woods crashed his car is more important to the national media it speaks volumes as to just how deeply our society has devolved.
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Post by subdjoe on Nov 29, 2009 20:38:04 GMT -5
I'm going to suggest that the stuff was listed in the order it came in on the wires. However, that the Tiger Woods crash should stir such national attention DOES say a lot. What exactly, I'm not sure. Do we need that much relief from the really important stuff (face it, likely the most read parts of a newspaper are the comic and Dear Abby)? Do we just want to see the mighty humbled? Something else?
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Post by crossride on Nov 29, 2009 20:43:34 GMT -5
Joe in the case of the PD you might have a point about the order it came on the wires, and if so, lazy, lazy, lazy. But the other national outlets make a concerted effort to set up their web pages the way they do. Big pictures, bold headlines... in those cases it was not simply the order it came on the wires.
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Post by JustMyOpinion on Nov 29, 2009 20:47:38 GMT -5
Such news is a waste of time. I guess it says that many in this country need deflection from their own lives since reflection only causes a realistic insight ...
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Post by The Big Dog on Nov 29, 2009 21:10:53 GMT -5
That is the nature, as well, of "regional" or "local" stories. The national media is beginning to stir on it, but it takes a while for even stories of such tremendous gravity to sink in to the mainstream media's consciousness.
But thanks to being laid up with a bad back, I've been following the story all day on KIRO TV's web site out of Seattle. They've been treating it as a huge story, as they should, and covering it pretty much wall to wall and with a live stream on their web site.
The officers have been identified, as has a person of interest. All the officers were veterans of many years service, and the person of interest is a multi-strike felon with a long history. What seems to be becming a hard angle on the story is that the person of interest gained an early out from charges in Arkansas under the administration of then Governor Mike Huckabee.
Watch for that to blow up in the 527 Media before anything else.
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Post by subdjoe on Nov 30, 2009 8:39:47 GMT -5
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Post by subdjoe on Nov 30, 2009 11:59:33 GMT -5
UPDATE:
By MANUEL VALDES, Associated Press Writer Manuel Valdes, Associated Press Writer – 32 mins ago
SEATTLE – The suspect in the slaying of four police officers gunned down in a coffee shop was not found Monday in the Seattle home where he was thought to have been holed up overnight, likely wounded from his bloody encounter with the officers.
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the location of Maurice Clemmons was not known, and it's possible he still could be in the neighborhood. Troyer also said people who know Clemmons told investigators he had been shot in the torso.
"If he didn't get a ride out of there, he could still be in the area," Troyer said.
Troyer said warrants for first-degree murder have been issued against Clemmons, 37, who is accused of shooting four officers from the Tacoma suburb of Lakewood on Sunday morning as they were working in the coffee house. Pierce County, where the shootings happened, is the lead agency investigating the case.
Police surrounded the house late Sunday. Before heavily armed police officers determined shortly before dawn that Clemmons was not in the house, negotiators spent hours trying to communicate with him, using loudspeakers, explosions and even a robot sent into the house. At one point, gunshots rang through the neighborhood.
Clemmons has a long criminal history, including a long prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago, and a recent arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer in Washington.
Authorities allege he killed Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42, as they worked on their laptop computers at the beginning of their shifts.
Clemmons is believed to have been in the area of the coffee shop around the time of the shooting, but Troyer declined to say what evidence might link him to the shooting.
Investigators say they know of no reason four gunning down the officers, but court documents indicate Clemmons is delusional and mentally unstable.
"We're going to be surprised if there is a motive worth mentioning," said Troyer, who sketched out a scene of controlled and deliberate carnage that spared the employees and other customers at the coffee shop in suburban Parkland, about 35 miles south of Seattle.
"He was very versed with the weapon," Troyer said. "This wasn't something where the windows were shot up and there bullets sprayed around the place. The bullets hit their targets."
Officer Richards' sister-in-law, Melanie Burwell, called the shooting "senseless."
"He didn't have a mean bone in his body," she said. "If there were more people in the world like Greg, things like this wouldn't happen.
Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas. He was also recently charged in Washington state with assaulting a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child. Using a bail bondsman, he posted $150,000 — only $15,000 of his own money — and was released from jail last week.
Documents related to the pending charges in Washington state indicate a volatile personality. In one instance, he is accused of punching a sheriff's deputy in the face, The Seattle Times reported. In another, he is accused of gathering his wife and young relatives and forcing them to undress, according to a Pierce County sheriff's report.
"The whole time Clemmons kept saying things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was Jesus," the report said.
Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were killed while sitting in the shop, and a third was shot dead after standing up. The fourth apparently "gave up a good fight."
"We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight ... that he fought the guy all the way out the door," Troyer said.
In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after Huckabee commuted a 95-year prison sentence.
Huckabee, who was criticized during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for granting many clemencies and commutations, cited Clemmons' youth. Clemmons later violated his parole, was returned to prison and released in 2004.
On Sunday, Huckabee issued this statement on his Web site: "Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state."
It was the second deadly ambush of police in the Seattle area in recent weeks, but the two cases aren't related.
Authorities say a man killed a Seattle police officer on Halloween night and also firebombed four police vehicles in October as part of a "one-man war" against law enforcement. Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested after being wounded in a firefight with police days after the Seattle shooting.
The officers killed Sunday had received no threats, Troyer said.
"We won't know if it's a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved," he said.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle, Rachel La Corte in Tacoma, George Tibbits in Seattle, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Ark., and photographers Elaine Thompson in Seattle and Ted S. Warren in Parkland.
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Post by The Big Dog on Nov 30, 2009 16:32:59 GMT -5
He's still in the wind. While I'd like to see him captured alive so that his true role and motivations can be assessed by a trier of fact, part of me hopes he is slowly bleeding out in a storm drain and that the rats have already begun to gnaw on him.
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Post by subdjoe on Nov 30, 2009 18:53:27 GMT -5
He's still in the wind. While I'd like to see him captured alive so that his true role and motivations can be assessed by a trier of fact, part of me hopes he is slowly bleeding out in a storm drain and that the rats have already begun to gnaw on him. I'm hoping belly wound and sepsis myself. |
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Post by crossride on Dec 1, 2009 9:56:09 GMT -5
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