Posted on 03/17/2005 6:13:30 AM PST by Randjuke
The recent killings in an Atlanta courthouse brought a few heated comments about the role of crime reporting on NPR. Some listeners worried that NPR might be moving toward tabloid journalism in giving this story the prominence that it did.
Following the murder of a judge's husband and mother in Chicago, I think it was a good decision to cover the Atlanta story as well.
However, NPR frequently mentioned the gender of the courtroom guard who was overpowered and shot with her own gun by the fugitive. That evoked strong reactions from many listeners.
The implication was that the female guard inadvertently contributed to the murders and the escape of the prisoner simply by dint of her gender. That remains an unproven assumption. NPR's repeating that it was a female guard who was overpowered seemed to play on some stereotypes of "the weaker sex."
I think that the listeners are correct: the gender of the guard is irrelevant to the story (unless and until proven otherwise) and mentioning it implies that the reporter believes women are unfit for jobs in law enforcement.
This is from the NPR ombudsman in response to complaints that NPR mentioned the guard who was overpowered and shot was a female. I "bolded" his conclusion.
Well, if the perp had been a 5'1" man who weighed 125 lbs and the guard had been a 6'1" woman who weighed 210 lbs (and also had been a college linebacker/blackbelt) maybe this all wouldn't have happened. So, maybe the NPR guy is right... /sarc
I thought he didn't shoot her, didn't he just whack her in the head and she suffered further injury when she hit the ground?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Ricky Tidwell's Mama?
Well, being a 51 year old grandma, all she had to do to get help was push the button on her Medic-Alert necklace.
I don't know that I would go that far, but to put a five foot tall grandmother--in possession of a weapon--guarding this prisoner? Stupid.
Query: why was this guy not wearing some sort of cattle prod-type stun belt? He starts something and a guard--even a female guard--can zap him and he goes to the ground in a drooling heap.
This editorial is wrong--the sex of the guard does matter--but I wouldn't go as far to say that women shouldn't be guarding men. It just has to be handled differently than it was here.
Yep, and I'm sure he just loves "the Emperor's new set of clothes".
Equal is equal. The girls should hit off the same tees as the guys.
Whoever assigned a 51 year old woman to guard this guy should never work in law enforcement again.
Of course, the deputy's gender was not the ONLY problem - plenty of incompetence to go around (single guard, single guard with sidearm, single guard with keys, no surveillance, panic buttons didn't work, etc. etc.).
Putting a diminutive, overweight, 51 year old grandmother of marginal intelligence as the sole guard of a known violent escape risk, while having no backup or surveillance, is the sort of stupidity that is typical of people who think that a woman "can do anything a man can."
I'll agree that the gender in itself is not the mitigating factor. If it had been a frail 70 year-old man, like I see at the banks, the results would probably have been the same.
However, women are, by nature, generally smaller, weaker and more frail than men. This is no secret nor is it a shortcoming in women. It is simply a fact. Political Correctness requires that we ignore such facts at the cost of human life for fear of "offending" someone. Never mind if 4 people get brutally murdered, as long as they aren't offended.
Reality collides with liberal fantasy.
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Exactly -- the standard fare from leftist NPR. This maggot murderer should NEVER HAVE BEEN OUT OF SHACKLES. That is why this happened -- PC excrement got in the way of sanity AGAIN -- courtesy of our liberal-infested legal system.
I would surmise that the failure of the guard to perform her duties were more because of a lack of training than her gender.
Although I didn't see the event happen, I can imagine that he was able to get the gun because he was FASTER, not because he was stronger. She may not have reacted fast enough. When me and Mr. Melbell are playfighting if he is able to CATCH my arms, then he can always hold them still...the key to my "winning" is that I don't let him catch me.
But again, this is all speculation.
The "sex" of the guard is the prime point of the entire event, since Nichols could not have gone on his rampage with a large,unarmed, male guard who was able to take care of himself.
Having the woman guard armed was another great PC idea. Why didn't the Sheriff just give Nichols the gun and save the woman a beating?
Four people are "allegedly" dead because of a PC decision rendered by the Sheriff's office, and no one wants to talk about it.
The prisoner was black - the judge was white. So perhaps the PC crowd went easy on this dude because otherwise he might feel "oppressed". And people have been criticizing the lack of professionalism in the FCSD courthouse security for 20 years to my personal knowledge - but the sheriff has always deflected criticism by playing the race card.
Until fairly recently, most of the superior court judges were white - but over the last 10 years that has changed radically. I am not at the courthouse as much as I used to be 10 years ago, but I believe a significant majority of the current judges are black, and most of the white judges are liberal. But the habit of deflecting criticism has not changed, and the endemic incompetence is what you get as a result.
Political correctness isn't limited to one "special interest" e.g. sex. It also includes race, disabilities, age, nationality, etc. etc. etc.
And P.C. in the context of prisoner security KILLS.
If NPR could have found a way to blame this on a rightwing, white skinhead, they'd have repeated his/her description in every broadcast. It's only painful/unfair when it brings the consequences of PC behavior out in the glare of daylight. Reminds me of the DC sniper story. They twisted themselves into knots over that one. Even worse, one of them was a Muslim convert. (How can you blame that on GW Bush? This being the underlying theme of all NPR negative news stories.)
Thought I read that the gun was in a lockbox, and the lady was knocked out, and had the keys stolen.
There are too many versions of this, speculation on one side, CYA on the other.
Unfortunately, this happened in Atlanta, and thus is self explanatory.
Not to mention the fact that she failed her firearms qualification, but they flubbed the score so she could get a pass. She was below the required skill level in her firearms course - so even if she drew her gun she probably wouldn't have hit him, and if she did it would probably be somewhere that would just fuel the man's adrenaline even more.
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