How criminals become heroes in today’s screwed-up world
The biased mainstream news media is failing at its job to report facts. Instead of reporting facts, they are reporting half truths, and politically partisan opinions. The case of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin is a good example of how only part of the story focused on alleged police brutality was reported long before the full story came out about Blake’s actions and failure to listen to police.
By Ray Hanania
The biased leftwing mainstream news media keeps telling us that Jacob Blake was an innocent Black man who was shot in the back seven times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer.
What they have a difficult time telling us is why Blake was the Kenosha Police radar screen in the first place.
As usual, the backstory about victims of police shootings is often far different from the narrative preached by violent Black Lives Matter activists who have taken a legitimate issue and turned it into a sigil, a banner with a symbol that has magic powers in this case to replace the unpopular truth and with the popular lie.
Blake was accused in a felony criminal complaint, according to some media reports, of breaking into a woman’s home last July while she was sleeping next to her young child. He then sexually assaulted her on the bed.
The assault is so disturbing, I can’t describe his rhetoric or what he did. The woman, whom Blake knows well, told police he had sexually and physically assaulted her repeatedly over the years. He then apparently stole her car and fled.
In fear for her life, she fled the home and called police who issued a warrant for his arrest. He was being charged with sexual assault, trespassing and domestic abuse.
Last week on Sunday, August 23, Blake went back to the victim’s home. She called 911 saying Blake was crazed and wielding a weapon. Police arrived, identified him and sought to restrain him. But instead of listening to the police – knowing he was in serious trouble – he went on a verbal and threatening rampage flashing his weapon, police later said.
Police tried to taser him, but it didn’t work, according to media reports. He pushed his way past police and opened the car door and leaned inside.
That’s when he was shot with police believing he was trying to get a gun.
The media has written millions of words about how Blake is the latest victim of “police brutality,” a poor innocent man singled out because of his race. Few bothered with his past because the wave of emotion that fueled violent protests are helping to boost once sagging audience ratings and advertising sales.
Even liberal white-washing sites like FactCheck.org admits the facts but they begin by claiming that people on Facebook and social media are exaggerating what he did. The debunk straw arguments that he supposedly raped a 14-year-old girl and spent time in prison. And then downplay his sexual assault of the mother and his past sexual assault threats.
The expression driving the journalism business is “Violence sells newspapers.”
The other expression is whomever gets to the microphone first dominates the media discussion. Protestors hit the streets the same night with their assertions of police brutality and then proceeded to looted dozens of Kenosha buildings and burned down even more. One car dealer said that 50 of his vehicles were torched by the protestors.
The pastor of the church next to the dealership declared “we affirm that we would rather lose 100 buildings than one more life to police violence.”
Of course, other than the smell of smoke and a damaged sign nearby, the church was not damaged at all. So, I guess it’s easy to be so principled.
Left wing writer Vicky Osterweil argued looting and violence is a “powerful tool to bring about real lasting change in society.” She told NPR in an interview to promote her book basically that protest violence is not the same as home invasion or property theft. Yea, right. Until your home or business is one of the properties burned down in a protest, I guess.
It wasn’t until three days later on August 26 that Kenosha Police got their story out about Blake’s violent past – there are some media saying sexual assault isn’t the same as violence.
It’s amazing how far some will twist justice, justify violence and minimize other people’s suffering when it benefits their politically charged extremism.
Meanwhile, this twisted, protest logic is fueling violence across the country and throughout Chicago. Blame the police is far easier to scream than challenging the criminal backgrounds of the so-called victims.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist. This column was originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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