Posted on 06/12/2007 10:37:18 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
What happened to Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, is almost too horrible to contemplate. The Knoxville, Tenn., couple fell victim to four crazed young criminals during a carjacking. The perpetrators allegedly kidnapped Christian and Newsome and brutally raped both of them before killing them.
Newsom was shot, his body burned and dumped beside the railroad tracks. Christian was strangled and left in garbage bags.
This heinous crime occurred in January. But it wasn't until recently that the tragedy has been talked about outside of blog posts on the Internet. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case had people not felt the need to embellish these already sordid facts with outright fiction.
Because Christian and Newsom were white and their alleged killers are black, the couple's brutal murder has been fodder for people who are convinced that the "mainstream" media conspired to keep this sickening black-on-white violence out of the news.
Lurid details fabricated Most of the complaints I get are from readers who claim that murders of black victims are often ignored or downplayed, while a homicide involving a white victim -- especially one from an affluent suburb -- is front-page news. It doesn't do a lot of good to try to explain to them that there are so many homicides involving black victims that the media could not possibly report them all as front-page news. So it is a little surprising that we are now being beaten-down because this story didn't go national. Last week, that changed when several national columnists stepped up to sort the fact from fiction in this case. And on Sunday, the Chicago Tribune ran a front-page story on the murders under the headline: "What is a hate crime?"
It probably took so long for this story to get legs, so to speak, because of the incendiary claims about what happened to Christian and Newsom before they were killed that have been spread on the Internet. For example, a Web site dedicated to debunking urban legends posted an e-mail that is reflective of the e-mails I've gotten about this crime:
"The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. . . . Channon Christian was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast and put chemicals in her mouth. . . . then murdered her."
Frankly, the truth is horrible enough. So it is difficult to see the embellishments as anything other than a white supremacist rant.
Was it inspired by hate? Fortunately, the painful truth about this terrible crime is slowly emerging -- painful because it's just another tragic example of how lost and how disturbed some young people are. We know now that Christian and Newsom were not mutilated, that Christian was not raped over four days and she was killed within one day of the kidnapping.
But even without the explosive false accusations, these murders raise legitimate questions about the way in which some crimes are labeled "hate crimes."
For instance, while Newsom's father, Hugh Newsom, initially agreed with law enforcement that the crime was not racially motivated, the heinous nature in which the killings were carried out has him wondering whether race did indeed play a role in the murders.
"I don't think it started out that way, but from all indications we have, it developed into that," Newsom said in published interviews.
That would mean that there's reason to believe the four black attackers would have treated black victims differently. It would mean that these criminals probably would not have kidnapped and raped a black couple, or that they would not have tried to cover up their crime by killing their victims.
Black-on-black crime just as vile I understand how Newsom's father feels. What happened to his son is incomprehensible. But given the coldhearted black-on-black crimes that continue to tear apart urban communities, there's not much basis for such an argument. Black victims have often been killed in horrible ways, and those murders weren't reported, either.
Like all senseless murders, even if it's not classified as a hate crime, it is still a matter of hate.
mailto:marym@suntimes.com
She is correct in a sense...there is no such thing as a “hate crime”.
There is a crime. The reason for it’s commission is a factor at sentencing after conviction.
After that...it just political gamesmanship
The fact is this crime was ignored not because of the race of the victims, but because of the race of the perpetrators. This crime was heinous and extremely uncommon. Much like the Wichita Horror, which we also heard very little about. This reporter is being disingenuous because of her own racist outlook.
While this may appear to support the popular assertion that whites are likelier than blacks to commit hate crimes, we must remember that the total population of nonHispanic whites is about 6 times larger than the total population of nonHispanic blacks. When we factor this population disparity into the equation, we find that the "average" black is actually about 50 percent likelier than his or her white counterpart to commit what is classified as a racially motivated hate crime. Because this fact so radically contradicts most Americans’ prevailing worldview, one would think it might be big news deemed worthy of discussion by activists and academics alike. But in fact these are among the most underpublicized numbers in all of criminal justice.
This writer is just a ghetto bitch that wants two Americas, one that blacks can do no wrong and one where whites can do no right.
Beat me to it. I was getting ready to post a similar article referencing the 2005 DOJ stats on race and rape. Keep shining the light on these pesky facts!
That's why we need to get rid of all the asinine hate crime legislation and get back to making criminals accountable for their actions.
She’ll have to point out why Matthew Shepherd’s death was a hate crime and this was merely a robbery gone wrong. So wrong that the vehicle was ditched while they focused on raping, abusing, torturing, and murdering the victims.
For example, a Web site dedicated to debunking urban legends posted an e-mail that is reflective of the e-mails I've gotten about this crime:"The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. . . . Channon Christian was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast and put chemicals in her mouth. . . . then murdered her."
Snopes is outed as a Leftist propaganda site. They defend their biases by saying that the "truth" or "false" status depends on the framing synopsis.
So if exagerations are introduced to the internet accounts of the attack, they are highlighted and propagated by Snopes in part to discredit those propagating the story.
Meanwhile it took Snoped YEARS AND YEARS to call Hillary a fibber for saying she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. They gave her the benefit of the doubt until last year when her office relented that it was an innocent fabrication. Snopes afforded that it could have been a lie Hillary's mother told the young girl.
She neglects to mention that it was truth that both victims were raped or that the woman was forced to drink BLEACH!
And she was only raped for one day, not four. So humanitarian of her abductors.
While a vile columnist to soft sell the case which broke while the lies of the Duke Rape Case were coming to light.
This sentence is so astonishingly stupid I can't think of anything to say about it. I mean......seriously. WTF?
Hate crimes are BS.
Just as the dogs that murdered James Byrd(the dragging victim) should have been executed so should these thugs if convicted.
For justice to be equal so should the punishment.
Comply COLOUR BLIND
I see your point but I think it is cold confort to any woman if the rapist was a black man or not.
I think the media is all about stirring the pot to get people agitated and creating controversy. Sells newspapers.
correction
Comply COLOUR BLIND=Completely COLOUR BLIND
> I think the media is all about stirring the pot to get people agitated and creating controversy. Sells newspapers.
They’re certainly agitating the public but not to their commercial advantage.
It is the most peculiar thing to see media dolts hang themselves for exploitation across the folds of the new media.
The data demonstrates that media distortion is about feeding grievances that engender a destabilized nation at the expense of equal treatment under law. Angry mobs feel justified in retaliating against such ephemeral creations, justifying a police state to maintain order. Thus, it's not only about just selling newspapers.
Not all hate crimes equal in the media
John Kass
June 13, 2007
“Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton appear to carry the story forward. They know their roles and play them well. The cameras click. Editors dispatch think pieces on race in America. TV talking heads offer commentary and what are called “town meetings” and “national conversations on race.” Special-interest advocates use the media time to argue for racial preferences in academic admissions and hiring. Politicians mouth their platitudes. Editorials chant conventional wisdom....
...But when the hateful crime involves white victims and accused minorities, there’s a problem. Jackson and Sharpton aren’t there to round out the second act...
...But mostly we’re of a certain class and tone: white and college-educated, politically liberal, holding an abiding (and terribly mistaken) faith in government regulation to engineer social outcomes. Journalists generally mock evangelicals for “believing” in creationism, yet many journalists are fundamentalists when it comes to other beliefs, like using skin color — not the content of someone’s character or the quality of their mind — to discriminate against those of other hues while defining such discrimination as fair and affirmative...”
Excerpt
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass13jun13,1,1057941.column?coll=chi-news-col
Yahoo! News
Police: Boy forced into sex with mom
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press WriterFri Jul 6, 7:14 PM ET
Two teenagers were accused of gang raping a woman and forcing her 12-year-old son to join in the attack, then beating him and pouring cleaning solution into his eyes.
Authorities allege Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, were among a group of about 10 masked suspects who forced their way into the woman’s apartment in a crime-ridden housing project the night of June 18.
The two were being held without bail Friday on suspicion of armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, sexual performance by a child, armed home invasion and aggravated battery. Both were arrested this week, but formal charges had not been filed.
“Any rape case is horrible but this takes it to another level, something you can’t think of even in your worst dreams,” police spokesman Ted White said.
According to the police report, a man knocked on the woman’s door at about 9 p.m. and told her he had a flat tire. The mother and son, whom police have not identified, went outside and were ambushed by a group of gun-wielding suspects.
The victims told police they were forced back into their home and beaten and sexually assaulted. According to authorities, the men raped, sodomized and beat the woman, then forced her son to participate in the assault at gunpoint, making him have sex with his mother in front of them.
The boy was then beaten and had numerous household cleaning liquids poured into his eyes, according to the police report.
The suspects also stole a few hundred dollars worth of cash and jewelry, White said.
White said more arrests were expected, but he would not say whether authorities had identified additional suspects. The teens in custody were not cooperating, but Lawson confessed to taking part in the attack, White said. Walker has denied involvement, White said.
DNA evidence in a condom found in the victims’ home linked Lawson to the crime, police said. Investigators also say they found a palm print belonging to Walker at the scene.
The victims did not suffer life-threatening injuries and have been released from the hospital, White said.
“They’re going through the county victim services for counseling,” he said.
Lawson lived in Dunbar Village, the hardscrabble project where the attack occurred. Walker was apparently visiting a friend there, White said.
Authorities believe the suspects all knew each other from the neighborhood, but they don’t think they knew the victims directly.
Prosecutors have 21 days from the time a suspect is arrested to formally file charges. Lawson was arrested Tuesday. Walker was arrested Thursday.
Walker made a first court appearance on Friday, after which his father, also named Nathan Walker, spoke briefly.
“My son has a good heart,” the elder Walker said outside court. “I can’t believe my son would do something like this. I don’t teach my son violence so I don’t understand.”
Walker’s attorney, Robert Gershman, said Friday he intended to enter a not guilty plea on behalf of his client once charges are formally filed. He would not comment further.
A telephone message left at the office of Lawson’s public defender was not immediately returned.
(This version CORRECTS that police spokesman said more arrests were ‘expected,’ instead of ‘pending.’ )
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