Crime

Say you're minding your business hanging out at a coffee shop and some punk kid swipes your smartphone out of your hand. You chase him down, catch him -- unfortunately only after he handed off the phone to a much swifter accomplice who got away -- physically detain him and press charges after the police arrive. Good for you, right? Not if you're a white woman and the perp is a black youth, at…

On Tuesday's This Hour, Michaela Pereira endorsed guest L. Z. Granderson's take on the media's extensive coverage of the ongoing turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown. The liberal commentator pointed out that "this past weekend, we had over 30 people shot – seven of them died – in the neighborhoods in Chicago – many of them black and brown. None of…

Imagine that a prominent Republican activist proposed a campaign of malicious destruction against Hillary Clinton's latest book. Does anyone doubt that the press would be all over it as proof that conservatives and Republicans are disrespectful and mean-spirited? Well, Erica Payne is a prominent, aggressively self-promoting progressive. The advanced nature of her activist bona fides might…

Kudos to Ed Driscoll at PJ Media, Eddie Scarry at Mediaite, and likely others in pointing out that the Associated Press has frequently violated its own stylebook in describing Michael Brown, the 18 year-old who was fatally shot in a scuffle with police in Ferguson, Missouri, as a "teen" or "teenager." The AP's latest stylebook, in sync with the one I have from over a decade ago, states that…

Like what?  Seriously, Mika Brzezinski, when you claim as you did on today's Morning Joe that Barack Obama has done "great things" on race, precisely what do you have in mind? H/t NB reader Ray R. Was it choosing to make the racist Reverend Wright his personal pastor?  Appointing Eric Holder as Attorney General?  Accusing the Cambridge police of acting "stupidly" in the arrest of a black man…

Appearing on Fox Business Network's Cavuto program last night to discuss the liberal media's penchant for hyping Republican scandals while downplaying or outright ignoring Democratic ones, Media Research Center president and founder Brent Bozell offered free advice for Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), against whom the Big Three networks devoted 37 minutes of hype regarding an indictment which dropped…

Move over, War on Women, there's a new war in town. On the August 18 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, contributor Michelle Bernard warned there is a "war on black men" in the United States, as evidence both by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and persistent criticism of President Barack Obama from Republicans. What's more, Bernard insisted, there would be a "genocide" of…

Boy, it's a good thing that we don't have any bloggers, Twitter amateurs or Facebook fulminators going off half-cocked and helping people find out where Darren Wilson lives. Wilson is the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who reportedly shot and killed Mike Brown. I mean, if anybody knew that or could figure it out, his safety and that of any family members would be in jeopardy. Oh, wait a…

Craig McDonald, the director of Texans for Public Justice, was on CNN today. He tried to "respond" to something Lone Star State Governor Rick Perry's didn't say yesterday in his reaction to his indictment, and followed that up with a comical gaffe. McDonald opened as follows: "The Governor again in his defense yesterday said this is merely a partisan political witch hunt." The trouble is that…

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who, in the oddest of coincidences (that's sarcasm), just so happens to be considered one of the Republican Party's stronger potential contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination, was indicted in Austin today by a Travis County grand jury. The charges are "abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant" in connection with a veto "threat" he carried…

Good Morning America has a history of ignoring the spasms of bloody violence that rock Rahm Emanuel's Chicago. The city's little league baseball team prompted ABC to mention the problem. Correspondent Lara Spencer on August 15th noted the appearance of the Jackie Robinson West squad in the Little League World Series and reminded, "The victory bringing a much needed moment of pride to a city…

Smartphones and social media are enabling African-Americans all over the country to join in on peaceful, digital protests of the fatal shooting of unarmed Ferguson, Mo., teenager Michael Brown, CBS's Jim Axelrod reported on the August 14 Evening News. Axelrod turned to one such Twitter user, "Andre Fields... a 27-year-old political aide" from New York. But while Axelrod presented Fields as…

On the August 11 edition of CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin invited fellow CNN host Don Lemon and former NYPD detective Gil Alba on the show to discuss the latest reports of unrest in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of an unarmed African-American teen. While the policeman bluntly stated that “there should never be rioting,” Lemon seemed to excuse the behavior, arguing that “when people are…

A brief report at the neighborhood web site DNAinfo in New York City, which describes itself as "New York's leading neighborhood news source" with "award-winning journalists" on staff, exemplifies how weak and negligent reporting on urban crime can be. A video capture of an assault in the City's West Greewich Village area shows a young black man first punching and knocking to the pavement a…