In cased you missed it, a tip from a 'psychic' had authorities in Liberty County, TX searching for a mass grave containing 30 bodies. The home of Joe and Gena Bankson was raided by FBI agents, cadaver dogs, and approximately 15 carloads of local police. Two dozen news outlets camped outside the home, and at least two helicopters were spotted overhead. Several state agencies were on the premises. And as things go, several news agencies were reporting that a mass grave had indeed been found. Like a nasty virus, reports were passed along, re-tweeted, and the next thing you know, "Texas police, acting on a tip-off, found a mass grave containing 'a lot of bodies,' including the corpses of children."
At the end of the day? Nada. After wasting hundreds of hours of agency resources and, reportedly, up to $1 million dollars, authorities declared at the end of the day, "There is no crime scene."
Via Reuters:
Capt. Rex Evans, a spokesman for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, said the female caller, who apparently was familiar with the rural property about 50 miles outside Houston, may face a misdemeanor charge for filing a false report. The punishment could include a fine and jail time.
So, let me get this straight. The Liberty County Sheriff's Office wants to charge someone for sharing her supernatural visions -- supernatural visions which they decided to treat as evidence of an actual real world crime.
A supernatural vision is not a 'tip.' It's not a 'report.' Charging someone for making a false report because their supernatural vision didn't pan out is like getting mad at someone because they were mean to you in your dream.
Officers, I believe what you do in this situation is cut your losses and remind yourselves that this is not Scooby Doo.
First, I want to wholeheartedly thank you for the Scooby Doo reference. Hilarious! I hadn’t read that anywhere else but it fits so perfectly. The law enforcement officers going after this “psychic” should feel ridiculous for following the tip in the first place, which they said they did because it involved children and they take anything with kids very seriously. But that they alerted the media, which also shouldn’t have made such a huge spectacle of this sensational and false story, just pointed out to everyone the officials’ mistake. Ha.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to share this video on this event, which I hope shamed the media and cops into rethinking their procedures for responding to these types of scenarios. I think you’ll appreciate how it analyzes news coverage from different sources to show various perspectives on the media’s response and how outlets fanned the (nonexistent) fire on this one. I hope you’ll considering embedding the video in your post.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/media-race-to-report-tx-mass-grave-leads-to-false-reporting/
tremendous. thank you for the link.
ReplyDelete