Knoxville Adds Another Killing to it’s "Bloody List"
By Jack L. Key (08/22/08)
EXCLUSIVE! - Knoxville, Tennessee has added another bloody murder in less than a month. This time it was a 15 year-old student in his high school cafeteria before classes began on Thursday, August 21, 2008. The tragedy has stunned this mid-sized Southern City.
Shot once in the chest was Ryan McDonald, a sophomore at Central High School in north Knoxville. The teen suffered from alopecia, a rare medical condition that rendered him bald from an early age, and unfortunately made him the butt of numerous jokes and laughter most of his life. He died after being rushed to the University of Tennessee Medical Center early Thursday morning.
His uncle, Roger McDonald said “He was a good kid…who was dealt some bad cards in life.”
Arrested minutes after leaving the bloody scene of the shooting was Jamar Siler 15, who was charged with one count of first-degree murder and is being held in a juvenile facility in west Knoxville, police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. The school was put on lock-down and students sent home.
Police said the shooting was not a “random act” and was not the fault of the school. It was purely one individual directing his aggression and anger at another. It was not immediately known whether Siler had the gun on him when he entered school or if he left to get it later, or if he had hidden the weapon at some location at or near the school.
There are no walk-thru metal detectors at entranceways in the school.
The victim and his killer knew each other, police said, and there may have been an earlier argument. Ryan McDonald was white, and his killer was a half-black, half-white mixed race if appearances can be judged correctly.
Local television stations earlier had blocked out photos and views of the suspect, but later briefly showed him in custody. No mention of his race or background has been given; other than he was visited for 30 minutes after his arrest by his family. It is rumored the suspect has been in trouble before. He was immediately represented by counsel who also visited him briefly.
The coverage by the 3 major network TV stations in Knoxville has so far been useless to the public information, and has dwelt almost exclusively on the victim, the circumstances and local assistance to students and their families to overcome any trauma the shooting may have caused.
That’s fine for the community, and also the local prayer services for community support. But where is the outrage spewed out by the TV stations and Knoxville’s ONLY daily newspaper the News-Sentinel, when the last local shooting took place last month in the Universalist Church when two others lost their lives?
Then we saw charges of “conservatism” against the shooter, and all because a “liberal” church was involved. One newspaper columnist wrote columns calling it a “bloody list” Knoxville had joined, referring to other school shootings in Colorado and other public murders.
There were cartoons and follow-up news articles in the local press and TV for weeks following the church tragedy that some tried to tie blame on two well-known conservative commentators and TV personalities. Then later Newsday Magazine picked up the “liberal” storyline, and will now possibly result in several lawsuits being filed for slander if we are to believe some interviews and comments recently on the Internet.
In this latest outrage, a 15 year-old teen is dead and another is charged with murder.
There is no room for a double standard in reporting on these tragedies, and appeasement of certain groups or individuals can only result in more misunderstandings and public outcries. Hopefully, the city’s main sources of information and the press and media will report just the facts and truths of all occurrences AS THEY OCCUR, and refrain from playing a dangerous game of politics, correctness and personal points of view with its local citizens.
Jack L. Key, Ph.D.
http://www.authorsden.com/jackkey
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