The father’s history has no bearing on what happened. That the Mail would highlight it is yellow journalism at its most blatant.
See post 10.
The father is a violent career felon.
I think that’s germane.
Even if it is not germane, I still want to know.
It may not be good journalism yet, but I think it is entirely within bounds for the zoo and the police to be curious as to how the child got into that enclosure. If the parents have a history of suing businesses or something then it may be possible they put the child there.
I mostly agree, but Shaun King inadvertently reveals the critical role in this played by the father:
“...it does not appear that the boy’s father was even at the zoo with his family on Saturday.”
Might this whole incident have been avoided if the father had been there to control his willful son? I do not pretend to know why he wasn’t there (we can be sure King doesn’t know), but it’s almost too apt a metaphor for the dysfunction that affects black sons when fathers are absent. Photos of the child show a great deal of anger and belligerence, resembling a miniature Michael Brown. All toddlers get frustrated, but how they act on it is learned. Maybe the father’s criminal history played a role, maybe it didn’t.