Posted on 05/17/2005 4:24:26 AM PDT by Miami Vice
A suspect is assaulted by a police officer after a car chase in Philadelphia on April 28, 2005. A local TV news helicopter crew videotaped the incident.
Normally this is the type of thing becomes a mainstream media frenzy. Normally this is the lead report on every network national and local telecast. Rodney King was. So were the incidents in Inglewood and Cincinnati. This also proved true nearly five years ago, when a similar incident occurred just before the Republican convention in Philadelphia.
This time there is no saturation coverage in the national media.
Charles Baum, who is white and a resident of the Kensington section of Philadelphia, had been paroled last August. He served four months less than the four- to eight-year sentence he received after being convicted of burglary, theft, criminal mischief and conspiracy in December 2000.
The video showed Officer Michael Collins, who is black, striking Baum eight times during the arrest – even after he had handcuffed his white charge. As is the standard procedure Collins was transferred to desk duty pending an investigation.
Police brutality stories are red meat to the mainstream media; this would seem to be perfect for them. If this were a white cop using excessive force to arrest a black suspect, it would be on television round-the-clock. That is always national news – especially if it is on videotape –and especially if the video is taken by the NBC network affiliate of a major city like Philadelphia. Yet the silence from the mainstream media has been deafening. Only the local Philadelphia media reported this in depth. The Washington Post gave the incident all of 177 words in their May 2 online edition.
Why was there no ad nauseum reporting by the national news network broadcast or front page New York Times, L.A. Times articles? Why no righteous indignation and outrage by columnists and editorials?
Because this incident did not involve a white cop and a black suspect. This time the cop was black and the suspect white – and that does not fit the template of the liberal mainstream media, just as the shootings of black suspects by black cops do not fit their "police brutality" mold.
A September 2, 2002, article, I wrote for Front Page magazine detailed the differences of reporting by the media regarding incidents where police shot a black person. One example I used was that of LaTanya Haggerty. Haggerty, who was a black woman, was shot and killed by Chicago Police Officer Serena Daniels, a black woman. The shooting took place after the police pursued a car in which Haggerty was a passenger.
Daniels ordered Haggerty to stop talking on her cell phone and exit the vehicle. She was shot after refusing the command. Daniels said she saw Haggerty grab a silver object. Thinking it was a gun, the officer fired.
A subsequent investigation could not locate a gun; instead, officers found a silver padlock.
This incident occurred in 1999. Yet, it is doubtful that one-in-ten people ever heard of this incident. Contrast this to the Amadou Diallo shooting, which also occurred in 1999 and was a staple of the mainsteam media for months.
There were no cartoons about the Haggerty shooting, though there were countless cartoons about the Diallo case. The Diallo cartoons contained illustrations such as one which said, "NYPD weapons training: Sawed off hankie, 38mm house key, semi-automatic lipstick, 45 caliber wallet."
The reason for this disparity is the fact that any journalists believe their purpose is not to communicate information about events to people but to right society’s wrongs. The more righteous indignation they can provoke, the greater audience they can attract for their advertizers – which is their real purpose. It is an added benefit that they get to indulge their left-wing ideologies in the process. Naturally, this contrasts sharply with their self-portrayal as hard-working go-getters looking out for the public interest.
Somewhere during their journalism school education, they are taught they are unbiased, rational examiners, and moral arbiters of the human situation. They are taught that they are omniscient and sagacious – when actually they are ignorant and bigoted.
The bias of the mainstream media is never so apparent as it is when it comes to law enforcement. Their exploitation of race and law enforcement is unconscionable – so much so that I made it part of the plot of my soon to be published novel. I depict a journalist manipulating the events of a racially charged police shooting alongside a local civil rights leader whose career has waned.
Far-fetched? I would say not.
It is an issue that the mainstream media deny exists. Yet, the evidence of a racial double standard by the mainstream media concerning law enforcement issues is irrefutable. Just ask Charles Baum.
I don't feel too sorry for this guy, but then I did not feel too sorry for Rodney King, either. It's the media that has the double standard.
So you approve of police brutality as long as its administered in a race neutral way? What ever happened to Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights does not give you the right to flee a cop.
I think that is the point of the article - it is the MSM that is racist and has a double standard
Nor does it give the police the right to pound someone after they are arrested and cuffed.
Spiky Isikoff would give full-throated approval to this statement.
Right you are my homeboy, yo yo, no justus, no peace I say my brother from a different mother, yo yo, do you know what I am saying? yo yo, the man can not hold us down like that, no justus, no peace. Do you know what I am saying my homeboy? Yo yo...
Sheesh! That sounds like every white wannabe in my hood.
It's kinda hard to comment on this story since the media won't show us the video. They say in the story that the cop hit him even after he was cuffed. If that's true, then maybe he went too far.
But when a felon resists arrest, he's gotta expect to take a few licks, and I for one, am not going to penalize a cop for trying to do his job, unless he was way out of line.
Growing up years ago, the black guys on my high school football team referred to the wannabes as "wiggers". According to my kids, the "wiggers" are still around. Only now they have been joined by the "latiggers" and "chiggers".
The fact that a black cop beats a white suspect is a red herring.
Read the story without the race of either being mentioned and what do we get? Nothing, zilch, zero, nada.
The PD took action. It will be investigated and the chips will fall where they may.
Of course we can all put on a Helter Skelter cd, play like we're Charlie Manson and make believe we are about to have a race war.
But the Fifth and Sixth Amendments do prohibit the governement, including A-hole cops of any race, from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," and from administering criminal punishment without first providing the accused with the right to a "speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."
No most people do not know their is a double standard in the media. If they did there would not be a double standard in the media.
Ditto that! We need an automatic ten year sentence if you run from a cop. The "back off, don't pursue" approach burns me up.
This guy was a convicted felon. He had due process. He was fleeing the cop. The cop may have gone over the line. He may not have. We may never know if the media won't let us see the video.
Due process also protects the cop.
Read the book "Coloring the News" and you will understand it a little better. The liberal media does not like to portray minorities in a bad light.
http://www.coloringthenews.com/
And he served his time.
The "people" have absolutely no control over the plays in the Left's playbook, and yes, they are most certainly aware of it. Afterall, how many times have you said, or thought ... "If the Republicans had done this?" "If Conservatives had done that?"
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