Horrible, horrible; just pathetically and absolutelty the worst

GREENSBORO, NC -- Yesterday, the News & Record reported of a robbery in which a gaming console was stolen at gun point:

"Armed men tried and failed to rob two people... The suspects ran from the scene without taking any property." (Emphasis added.)

That story is still online.

It's bad enough the News & Record turned a press release from the police advising of a "robbery from person" into a fiction completely contrary to the facts, but today, when the police issued another press release about that crime, consistent with their first but adding new suspect information, the News & Record "reported" it again, this time writing that one of the suspects pulled a gun and took the gaming console:

"[O]ne of the two men pulled a handgun, took the system and the two alleged suspects ran off."  (Emphasis added.)

So now, at the illustrious News & Record, one can simultaneously find two accounts of the same crime, one where suspects fled without taking any property and one where property was taken. Both contradict each other, only one is accurate, the other remains uncorrected and yet both are online together.

It Matters

For all the thought and effort that various people and institutions put into advancing Greensboro, I am firmly convinced we will be forever held back from making the kind of progress we could as long as we are burdened by the dung heap that is the News & Record.

How can we as a community ever properly address our shortcomings and understand our strengths if our primary "news" outlet is a sloppy and indifferent pustule of perpetual misinformation and ignorance undemanding of itself and deceiving us about who we are and what's going on?

Day after day, the News & Record offers up mistake after mistake and each reveals a troubling fact: Our daily newspaper is not careful, not a checker of facts, rarely a source of insight or enterprising inquisitiveness* and not even any good at the simple task of regurgitating press releases.

Greensboro deserves better.



* This makes the situation even worse—that there are one or two reporters there who manage, against what must be monumental institutional momentum to the contrary, to occasionally deliver some quality reporting. I feel as bad for them about the burden of the News & Record's institutional incompetence as I do for my city.

News & Record's huge error on drunk driving stats

GREENSBORO, NC -- There is a certain type of reporting error that astounds me, I call it an affront to common knowledge, where an assertion goes unchecked even though, on its face, it seems to violate common sense. It is the kind of thing a reporter or editor with general curiosity and some basic knowledge of the world would be compelled to stop and double check.

Today at the News & Record:

"In the United States, a drunken driver causes someone to die every 52 seconds." 

Reporter Danielle Battaglia doesn't cite a source for that tidbit but, on its face, it sounds hard to believe.

Just some quick math challenges the possibility this is true: If there is a drunk driving fatality every 52 seconds, then that's 69 drunk driving deaths every hour; 1,661 a day; 11,630 per week; and 606,000 per year. 

And here is where a lack of general knowledge comes in: That is a huge number of deaths per year for any single cause. It should jump out to a professional reporter and her professional editors as extremely unlikely. 

A quick search of "leading causes of death" would show that such a number would make drunk driving fatalities the leading cause of death in the United States, ahead of the roughly 598,000 per year from heart disease, the 577,000 from cancer and the third place 143,000 from lung disease. (source: Centers for Disease Control)

The fact is, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "In 2011, 9,878 people were killed in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes." That's far from insignificant, but it is nowhere near the hysterical one every 52 seconds the News & Record reported. It is about one every hour to give you a sense of just how far off the N&R is.  

And a big thumbs down to WGHP MyFox8 who copied and pasted this error to their website from the News & Record without correction.

The United States of Barbarians

The morality and ethics of whether or not the CIA can torture people in our name are non-negotiable. There is no argument that can be made to justify this atrocity. The corporate media are treating torture as if it's just another "issue" like immigration reform or the federal budget. It isn't. You cannot justify the unjustifiable. People who attempt to apologize for torture done in their name are embarrassing themselves; raising their heads to be counted as barbarians at the gate.

—  Joseph Polermo

I usually try to avoid letting copied writings stand in for my self expression, but since I've been having such a hard time finding words to describe my reaction to the revelations of United States torture, I will let Joseph Polermo stand in for me, for now.
--------------------------------------------------

Last August, President Barack Obama admitted to the press: "we tortured some folks." But he also added that torturing people "is not who we are." His CIA director, John Brennan, calls the CIA torturers "patriots." So which is it? Are they "patriots," deserving of our admiration, or sadists who engaged in acts that are contrary to "who we are?"

The Senate Intelligence Committee's executive summary report on CIA torture concludes that at least 26 of the people the CIA contractors tortured were innocent of any ties to terrorism whatsoever.

One of the CIA contractors, James Mitchell, was on TV lately where he was called the "architect" of the torture program. His Spokane, Washington company, Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates, received $81 million in taxpayer money for services rendered.

CIA Director John Brennan  argues that people like Mitchell and his business partner, Bruce Jessen, were doing legitimate intelligence work. But isn't it also possible that these "patriots" were acting out their post-9/11 revenge fantasies against a bunch of Arabs and Afghans who fell into their clutches about whom they knew very little?

Mitchell and Jessen had no specialized knowledge of Al Qaeda or international terrorism; they didn't speak Arabic or Pashto, and had no experience interrogating prisoners.

What they did know about as psychologists was how to drill down into the human psyche. And they knew how to reverse engineer the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) techniques designed to help U.S. personnel counter torturers. They applied the same appalling techniques to their own interrogations. Given their lack of qualifications to head such an endeavor it's likely Mitchell and Jessen were just winging it.

Can we get our $81 million back?

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney might have "authorized" the torture program, but it's still a war crime that violates the Convention Against Torture, the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  and the U.S. Constitution. Letting the people responsible for torture ride off into the sunset free of any criminal charges throws out the window international and domestic law, as well as almost everything we've learned from the Nuremberg Trials, Hannah Arendt, or the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

One of the CIA's "black" (secret) torture sites was located at Guantanamo, which should raise some thorny legal issues because, unlike Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Afghanistan, or Thailand, the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo is considered "U.S. soil."

Absent any criminal prosecutions, the only conclusion we will be left with is that these guys really are "patriots" and torturing people really is "who we are." But we shouldn't need "experts" like Max Boot, Joe Klein, or other apologists for torture to judge the morality of turning to torturers posing as "doctors" to root out suspected terrorists.

The morality and ethics of whether or not the CIA can torture people in our name are non-negotiable. There is no argument that can be made to justify this atrocity. The corporate media are treating torture as if it's just another "issue" like immigration reform or the federal budget. It isn't. You cannot justify the unjustifiable. People who attempt to apologize for torture done in their name are embarrassing themselves; raising their heads to be counted as barbarians at the gate.

We don't fight against terrorists to become more like them, but to maintain our differences.

Continue reading... 

Something is wrong

I've been wondering, just who is called to serve on grand juries anyway? Clearly, something is wrong when grand juries become secretive replacements for what is supposed to be the cornerstone of American justice: the accountability of public trials.

From the Federalist on the failure of a New York grand jury to issue an indictment in the homicide (as determined by the coroner) of Eric Garner, an unarmed non-violent man, whose death was caught on video:

"Why, it’s almost as if the grand jury system is just a convenient means for prosecutors to get the outcome they want wrapped in a veneer of due process. Want to indict a ham sandwich? Consider it indicted. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted for vetoing a spending bill, but a New York prosecutor can’t indict an officer who killed another man in an incident that was completely captured on video? Come on." 

Councilman: Militarize downtown

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record reports district 3 councilman Zack Matheny's ideas for public safety downtown:

“I want there to be an army down here,” he said. “Because I want people who are coming from Winston-Salem, from High Point, from Siler City to know that we mean business. I want cameras downtown. I want people that are loitering to know that we’re watching them.”

Think about a downtown policed by militarized patrols where the city "wants you to know" that lingering a little too long will have you subject to closer secret and remote observation, where all of your movements are subject to being covertly tracked and monitored.

These ideas, were they to come to fruition, would be costly, oppressive, hostile and, worst of all, they would kill downtown.

On Greensboro's next police chief

GREENSBORO, NC -- The City of Greensboro is searching for a new police chief and is soliciting public comments about the traits and qualities they should look for. You can offer your two cents worth with this online form.

Here are parts of my suggestions:

A chief who is sensitive to the problems of technological encroachment on citizens. One who is not enamored with the capabilities of technology to identify, track, monitor and store information about law abiding citizens as they go about their business. One who is confident he or she can provide a high level of public safety while letting law abiding citizens live their lives in obscurity, if that's what they choose. 

and

Transparent. A better understanding of public records law than the previous chief and a sincere willingness to default towards openness on matters where police have discretion on whether or not to make information public. A willingness to be forthcoming with citizens about how they are being policed. 

The News & Record stinks so bad

From Joe Gamm in the News & Record today, reporting on the City of Greensboro settling a lawsuit brought by former police officers:

"[Former Police Chief David] Wray resigned in 2006. Plaintiffs alleged he maintained a “black book” that was used to unfairly investigate black officers. Wray contended the department used the book to investigate a sexual assault."

The News & Record continues their atrocious willingness to let competing assertions substitute for fact, but the truth is the realities of the "black book" are far different from what the News & Record portrays. It wasn't just Wray who said the book was a legitimate investigative tool, it was the City of Greensboro, in a sworn affidavit, signed by the very city manager who locked David Wray out of his office, who said the book was compiled for the purpose of solving a crime.

Furthermore, the city also admitted in that affidavit, that it had no evidence of the line-up book being misused. Finally, the use of the book was investigated by the SBI, the FBI and the Department of Justice, all of whom found no improper use of the book. Only one police officer was tried as a result of investigations into the "black book"—for improper use of a federal computer—and he was acquitted.

The News & Record ignores the context of these details and reports the purpose of the black book as unknown beyond the competing assertions of two parties. There is no truth here as far as the News & Record is concerned, they are content to commit what renowned journalism professor Jay Rosen calls the ethical lapse of he said/she said reporting. It makes them look incompetent, or worse, contemptuous.

Summer reruns: Prepare for stories of mobs and riots

GREENSBORO, NC -- School is out, and around here we know what that means. It's time for local TV stations to rev up their scare machines and crank out wildly distorted fear mongering stories of marauding teenagers.

Cub "reporters," recently graduated with degrees in Personal Branding and minors in Hair and Makeup for the Camera, will find some downtown fight or incident of disorder and breathlessly exaggerate it beyond any resemblance to the facts. Dutiful anchors will read what's on the teleprompter, revealing the perfect amount of panic from behind their facades of sage concern while failing to recognize the mendacity of the words they are burping forth. If we're lucky, local politicians may even seize upon the fakery, deny the clear protestations of the police that the media have it wrong, and fan the flames to pursue some public policy for which they would otherwise have no support.

The bar is set pretty low, though, so it will be tough to beat previous years' winners.

WFMY, 2011: A Month of Violent Flash Mobs

In the summer of 2011, WFMY took a single assault and an overturned flowerpot and turned them into an entire month of "police [battling] large flash-mob beatings and vandalism." This whopper, refuted by police, lead the City of Greensboro to stop communicating with WFMY and to demand a meeting with station management to express their displeasure with WFMY "creating storylines." The story fanned all sorts of racist reaction to the detriment of our community.

WFMY never publicly corrected their story or apologized..

WGHP, 2013: 400-Teen Street Brawl

In the summer of 2013, WGHP reported a "massive brawl" downtown involving "400 teens." They even showed surveillance camera video of what they said was the fight. It never happened though, and the video, while showing crowds of people, some running and agitated, did not show a single punch, kick or any people fighting—much less 400 people—but WGHP played the video over and over, instructing viewers to see in the grainy and out of focus footage something that did not exist. This whopper, picked up by the Drudge Report and other media across the country, was also refuted by police, who described, and records document, a series of small and unrelated fights over a seven-hour period on a Saturday night, resulting in eleven arrests. Police accounts did not stop then-mayor and downtown resident Robbie Perkins from repeating the falsehood in an effort to rally support for a downtown youth curfew. The story also inspired  racist reactions to the detriment of our community.

Like WFMY before them, WGHP never publicly corrected their story or apologized (nor did Perkins who subsequently was voted out of office).

Greensboro Police Department public records malarkey

UPDATE (June 13th): The GPD has released a version of the accident report.

UPDATE II (June 13th): In reviewing the history of this request with city staff, it appears as if some confusion was caused by the request for an accident report being translated into a request for an incident report along the way. City staff explain that the accident report was begun on June 8, completed on June 11, and made public after review and approval by a supervisor.

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Greensboro Police (GPD) reported by press release of a collision between a pedestrian and a vehicle on Bryan Boulevard on Sunday, June 8th. As I wrote yesterday, the accident report was missing from the GPD's online database of accident reports so I requested it directly from the city.

Yesterday, I received a document specifically manufactured to respond to my request. It is not an accident report and was created an hour after yesterday's blog post wondering where the accident report is. Now we not only continue to wonder where the actual accident report is but we also need to know why it is being withheld and whose idea it was to fabricate a record in response to my request for it.

Here is a real accident report, from another accident on the same day as the Bryan Boulevard collision. You will notice it is three pages of great detail on a standard form (click to enlarge):

Here is the "report" the police created in response to my request for the Bryan Boulevard accident report (click to enlarge) :

Judge: eye contact with police equals reasonable suspicion

From the News & Record, in an article describing an appeals court decision throwing out a weapons possession conviction for a man who was stopped by Greensboro police for walking away as officers approached:

"In his dissenting opinion, Judge Chris Dillon said that if someone walks away from police after making eye contact with that officer, there is justification for an officer to stop the person."

Police unable to identify studies cited in their press release

GREENSBORO, NC -- In a May 6th press release announcing a new round of intensified traffic enforcement, this time on High Point Road, the Greensboro Police Department claimed this:

"Nationwide studies show that intensified traffic enforcement in hot spots serves the dual role of increasing roadway safety while serving as deterrence to potential criminals."

Upon request, Greensboro police were unable to provide or cite such studies. Instead, they provided a variety of documents explaining the methods used for this type of policing, one of which included a reference to a 1996 study of these techniques in Dayton, Ohio, but they were unable to provide or cite a nationwide study, much less the multiple studies they said existed, that demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques.

Is it the role of police public relations to propagandize the public they serve with made up information or to be accurate and honest?

Average Crime Stoppers reward: $26

GREENSBORO, NC -- You've probably seen the Crime Stoppers promise of cash rewards for crime tips: "You could be eligible for a cash reward of up to $2,000."

According to figures made public by the City of Greensboro, in 2013, the Guilford/Greensboro Crime Stoppers received 890 tips that resulted in 1,365 criminal charges and the clearing of 284 criminal cases. It paid $23,125 in cash rewards.

That's an average of $25.98 per tip or $81.43 per cleared criminal case.

Records contradict police P. R.

GREENSBORO, NC -- At the conclusion of a months-long intensive traffic enforcement campaign on Battleground Avenue earlier this year, the Greensboro Police Department announced that a "benefit" of the campaign was a decrease in "part 1 index crimes"—the worst offenses, like murder, rape, robbery and auto theft—during the period of the patrols compared to the same period the previous year. Records contradict the claim that crime decreased.

From Greensboro Police Department press release.

It is ludicrous to claim that because two things correspond to each other, one caused the other. Without including other factors that influence crime, such as population and demographic changes, weather, economic conditions and other crime-fighting efforts, it is impossible to credibly say that increased traffic enforcement caused a decrease in crime. It's even worse when the numbers used to come to that conclusion are wrong.

Faulty logic did not stop the media from dutifully regurgitating the claim, however. No surprise there considering local media's lazy preference for stenography over journalism. Nonetheless, it turns out that the claim of a reduction in crime during that period, no matter its cause, is actually contradicted by police records.

Information provided by the police in support of their press release said that there were 24 part 1 crimes within a 1/4 mile of the traffic enforcement area in 2013 and 22 during the same period in 2014.

GPD's list of crimes

Among the crimes in 2014, the GPD said there was one motor vehicle theft. Police records contradict that representation. A search of crimes just on Battleground Avenue alone (not even including the 1/4 mile radius the police said they included) in the confines of the enforcement area (Cornwallis Drive to Horse Pen Creek Road) and only during the hours of operation of the campaign showed there were actually four reports of motor vehicle theft during the period of the enforcement campaign, not one.

They were:

01/16/2014 17:09 Incident Case #: 20140116343
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2906 BATTLEGROUND AV

01/30/2014 12:00 Incident Case #: 20140227146
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2605 BATTLEGROUND AV

02/12/2014 12:00 Incident Case #: 20140227152
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2605 BATTLEGROUND AV

03/03/2014 07:00 Incident Case #: 20140317073
Primary Offense: MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT - AUTOMOBILE 2630 BATTLEGROUND AV

When asked about the discrepancies, Captain John Wolfe, the officer in charge of the enforcement campaign said in an email:

"I can't speak to the numbers specifically as they are generated and reported through our crime analysis unit. I can speak to the methodology but not in this format. I will look into the discrepancies you've noted to determine how they occurred."

With four auto thefts instead of one, the total number of Part 1 crimes actually increased year over year, from 24 to 25. If the correlation-as-causation thinking still applies, one would say that as a result of the traffic enforcement campaign, serious crime rose 4 percent. Of course, the enforcement campaign no more deserves such sloppy blame as it deserved the sloppy credit assigned to it when the numbers were thought to imply something positive.

Greensboro hypnotized

GREENSBORO, NC -- This city would be a lot different if we had a decent newspaper, a place where reason and intellectual rigor prevailed. Instead we have a marionette dancing at the ends of strings pulled by entrenched interests, sometimes for good, sometimes not, but rarely independently challenging what it is told with skepticisms and a will to find the empirical truth.

A case in point comes today in an article by police reporter Joe Gamm "reporting" on the results of a period of increased traffic patrols on Battleground Avenue by Greensboro police. Gamm reports:

"The data from Battleground Avenue also showed a drop in crime, with the seven types of crimes tracked — murder, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft — decreasing by 8 percent during the campaign, (Greensboro Police Captain John) Wolfe said."

This paragraph is problematic in a number of ways. First of all, it purports to characterize empirical data and yet it is attributed only to a police spokesperson. That's nothing new, unfortunately; the News & Record is loath to check the facts against the pronouncements of authorities. Parroting assertions is one of the least valuable services journalists can perform. Making sure those pronouncements align with the facts is the value the News & Record fails to provide.

Second, it is woefully unclear whether the police are making the claim that each of the types of offenses declined by 8 percent individually or whether that is overall, with some crimes increasing and some declining. A curious reporter would have wondered himself and clarified.

Finally, and most importantly, is that attributing an alleged change in crimes to increased traffic patrols is such sloppy reasoning, the News & Record should decline to report it to begin with. That two things — increased patrols on a particular street and a vague description of a decline of certain types of crime in a unspecified surrounding "area" — imply a cause and effect is not reasonably justified. It is a failure in critical thinking.

Any serious examination of the factors influencing crime cannot examine one possible factor in a vacuum. Weather, economic conditions, population changes, even other public safety efforts such as neighborhood watch efforts, all may have an effect on crime. Correlation is not causation. To attribute a decline in crime to a single particular factor without considering others is a crock.

Here's why it matters. When the police officer in charge of these intensified traffic patrols offers the opinion, as he does, that, "people go back to their old habits after police are gone," he is not only implying that people, by nature, are prone to criminal activity (an insulting and disturbing view of the citizenry), he is also, not so subtly, arguing that we are better off with the intensified patrol efforts he oversees and, thanks to the sloppy and unskeptical reporting of the News & Record, that appears to be so.

Should we, as citizens, support the allotment of police resources for these kinds of traffic enforcement crack downs? Absolutely, I read in the News & Record that they make crime go down!

Without end, we, as a community, are offered these unthinking and doubtful reflections of our community by the News & Record. Although they look like reporting, they are crafted messages intended to manipulate public opinion by self-interested parties using the obliging News & Record as an authoritative conduit to give them a stamp of approval they don't deserve. The result is Greensboro is a community deluded by fictions. The repository of what should be truth and accuracy instead offers us figments and confusion that we mistake for an accurate representation of our reality.

How can a community possibly thrive under the spell of such an illusionist? How can it even survive?

News & Record censors police suspect description

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record reported this today about suspects in a robbery. The article was attributed to "staff reports" which is a euphemism for "regurgitated from a press release":

"One of the women was white, had long blonde hair, a piercing over her left eye, was in her 20s and was wearing a light-colored shirt and blue jeans. There were incomplete descriptions for the three men and the second female who asked for the water." 

That is misleading, relying on a very deceptive meaning of "incomplete description." In fact, there were no "complete" descriptions of any suspects — all descriptions were incomplete — but there were other descriptions provided by the police that the News & Record declined to report because they were "incomplete."

Here is the description of the suspects from the GPD press release:

"The black female was described as having a ponytail, wearing a black shirt, black coat and black pants with gold specks. She appeared to be in her 20’s. The white-female was described as having long blonde hair, a piercing over her left eye, and wearing a light colored shirt and blue jeans. She also appeared to be in her 20’s. The white-males were described as wearing tan masks, light colored shirts and blue jeans."

For the News & Record to describe one suspect then decline to describe the others with the explanation that the other descriptions were "incomplete" is disingenuous, at best. None of the descriptions were "complete." The descriptions of the two females had the same level of detail but for the additional description of a piece of jewelry on one of the suspects.  How does it serve the News & Recrod's readers for it to withhold information from them? What purpose does it serve?

City acts in interest of drug-dealing market

GREENSBORO, NC -- Two weeks ago, Ben "The Troublemaker" Holder went before Greensboro's city council to bring to their attention the criminal activities at a market in his neighborhood. As Holder noted, the market, within a stone's throw of a public library, city recreation center, elementary school and the Greensboro Aquatics Center, was recently raided for trafficking in methamphetamine. As Holder has documented on his blog, this is the same market that has been previously busted for illegal gambling, cocaine and weapons, including the raid where an innocent bystander was handcuffed and claimed injury by police resulting in a $15,000 payout settlement by the City of Greensboro. (Continued after video)



After Holder spoke, the city manager started to explain that the city is working with the business but was interrupted by councilors Yvonne Johnson and Sharon Hightower who objected to the notion that the city would work with the business instead of shutting it down. After some discussion, the city manager said he got the message.

Apparently word did not spread. Police Attorney Jim Clark crafted the city's official response. It is a letter to the market owner requesting that he contact Clark to discuss "corrective action." Clark describes this invitation to have a talk as "entirely in your own interest" leaving one to wonder why the neighborhood's interests have been ignored in favor of action entirely in the interest of the market owner.

Clark's letter also says that if the market's "problems cannot be addressed by you" the only remaining option is for the city to seek "assistance" from a court of law. That is not the City's only option. As Ben Holder prodded the city to do recently with an illegally operating massage parlor, the city can revoke the business license of a business conducting illegal activities (city ordinance 13-48). It is unclear why the city has ignored this immediately available option (and councilors Johnson's and Hightower's preference) in favor of action that is "entirely" in the interest of accused drug dealers, but Holder says he is going to tomorrow's city council meeting to find out why those take precedence over the health and safety of his community.

Harris Teeter's false bargains may be illegal

GREENSBORO, NC -- I've noticed a pricing practice at Harris Teeter that is deceptive at best and may even be illegal. Here's how it works, using some actual examples. After months of a steady price on a particular item, such as Harris Teeter brand tuna fish in a can at $0.79, the price suddenly shoots up astronomically to, in the case of the tuna, $1.19. Luck you though, at the same time, the item immediately goes "on sale." The tuna's sale price, the same day as the price increase, was $1.00.

The unsuspecting shopper sees the yellow sale tag and the "savings" of 19 cents without realizing that, far from any discount, they are actually being conned into paying 21 cents more than yesterday's price.

The same thing just happened with Harris Teeter's gallon of organic milk. For a while, it had been $5.99, often it was on sale for $5.77. Yesterday, the price jumped to $7.79 but was "on sale" for $6.99.

I don't know why Harris Teeter feels they have to try to trick their customers. It's not only mean and manipulative, but it may well constitute the illegal practice of deceptive pricing.

Extra: In the case of the tuna, it has now gone back to $0.79. It never sold for $1.19. It was only advertised as on sale from that price at $1.00. In other words, Harris Teeter promoted a months long temporary 21 cent increase in the price of its tuna as a "sale."

Greensboro March madness: one night, three shootings, six victims

GREENSBORO, NC -- From Greensboro Police reports:

UPDATE: Suspect information corrected for Castlewood Drive shooting.

Time: 10:55 P.M., 03/15
Location: Ogden and Doak streets.
Victim: Kendrick Gilbert, back male, 18
Injuries: Non-life threatening injury, transported to local hospital
Suspects: First, black male, blue shirt and/or blue hooded shirt; second, black male. Both last seen in the area of Lee and South Eugene streets fleeing in a white Dodge Neon.

Time: 2:23 A.M., 03/16
Location: 800 block of Castlewood Drive
Victim: Joseph Majak, back male, 18
Injuries: Non-life threatening injury , transported to local hospital
Suspects: No suspect information.

Time: 3:35 A.M., 03/16
Location: 2216 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Victims: Four victims, no descriptions
Injuries:  All transported to local hospitals, one in critical condition
Suspects: Black male, approximately 5'8" to 5'10" tall, last seen wearing a white shirt and black jeans.

What if the N&R editors' daughters were sex slaves?

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record published an opinion today on human trafficking in Greensboro that comes to a nice moderate conclusion:

"Urgency has its place here, but so does patience."

That is the kind of opinion one can form while safely isolated from any understanding of, or empathy for, the real human situation.

Here is what the piece would look like if the women involved included the News & Record editors' daughters.
----------------

Our daughters, "Porche" and "Kitty" (their work names) are trapped. They trusted a man who offered them jobs and glamor in a foreign country and who even offered to pay for their travel and living expenses (as a loan, to be paid back out of their employment with interest.) The man seemed legitimate, he even bought us bicycles (also to be paid for from our daughters' wages, with interest). That was nice.

Well, wouldn't you know it, it turns out that the "jobs" Porche and Kitty have are all about rubbing naked men. All of the money the customers pay goes to the employer; Porche and Kittly earn their own money, to pay off the travel and bicycle loans, by performing "extra" services.

We really, really, really wish our daughters would just leave, but they are under the constant supervision of their employer (they live at his apartment) who reminds them that they still owe him money and that his associates know where we, their families, live.

The local police visited once and Porche and Kitty ran out the back door and hid behind some bushes, but the police gathered them up and brought them back inside. We are not sure why the police didn't take them to a safe place. There was probably a language barrier.

We would like for the police to go back, this time with a translator who can understand Porche and Kitty and perhaps with some sort of social worker who can help them get to a safe place, but the police tell us that they are conducting a larger investigation of a criminal nexus across the region that makes this impractical. They can't say much about it but, apparently, attempting to get Porche and Kitty out of indentured servitude would thwart their larger plans. So they have to stay put.

We understand.

We love our daughters very much and we'd like to have them stop being coerced to perform sex acts with men for other peoples' economic gain as soon as practical, but let's be reasonable: if it takes a few more months or another year or two of our daughters prostituting themselves so that the police can continue their ongoing investigation, that's fine with us.

Urgency has its place here, but so does patience.

We love you, Porche and Kitty. We hope to see you soon. Stay safe and remember to brush your teeth.

WGHP stubbornly immune to the facts

GREENSBORO, NC -- Last week, Bob Buckley of WGHP MyFox8 reported of a multi-month Greensboro Police Department intensified traffic patrol on Wendover Avenue, that:

"the number of crashes dropped dramatically as a result."

That was at odds with what other media had reported, so I emailed Bob and the news director to ask them what their source was. The news director attributed the reporting to a GPD press release that he forwarded to me. However, the press release itself actually contradicted WGHP's reporting of a decline in crashes. It claimed that, as a result of the Wendover traffic initiative:

"There was a slight increase in the number of crashes."

Once this was brought to WGHP's attention, Bob said they'd correct it on the next newscast and in the accompanying website article.

It didn't stick. Once again today, WGHP MyFox8 is reporting on their website:

"During the same initiative on Wendover Avenue, police reported a 21 percent drop in the number of traffic accidents."

That's false and in direct contradiction to the GPD press release WGHP previously cited.

Regurgitating press releases is bad enough—a correlation between crime, accidents and increased traffic patrols does not prove a cause and effect and it's lazy to say so—but completely misreading a press release when doing so and grossly misreprorting what it says is really amateurish.

You may recall that WGHP MyFox8 was the instigator for the wildly exaggerated story of "Nearly 400 people" and "hundreds of students" involved in a "massive brawl" in downtown Greensboro last summer. (Police reported there were a handful of small fights over a seven hour period that Saturday night, never a several-hundred student brawl.) That malpractice by WGHP was one of many among a persistent pattern of WGHP getting their facts wrong, a pattern that continues today.

It seems to me as if WGHP would benefit from a focus on increasing its attention to detail, fact checking and critical analysis. You know: journalism.