Here is a clear case of media reluctance to acknowledge a drop-dead obvious fact — one even the often fact-averse New York Times has admitted.
In an 8:40 p.m. report tonight (HT to a NewsBusters tipster; saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), Jim Salter at the Associated Press spent eight paragraphs avoiding any mention of the race of Jeffrey Williams, the 20 year-old man arrested today and charged in connection with the shooting of two Ferguson, Missouri police officers on Thursday. Finally, in paragraph 9, the AP reporter only partially relented, writing that "Williams, who St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said is black, is being held on $300,000 bond." An easily found mugshot of Williams relating to a prior arrest indicates that the law enforcement system classified him as black six months ago:
Police Chief Belmar had ample reason to say what he "said" about Williams's race, and if Salter really was skeptical, he could have done what yours truly did or even navigated his way to official county records quite quickly to address his doubts.
Though both outlets have noted that Williams was on probation for receiving stolen property, neither the AP nor the Times have mentioned the "controlled substance" charge noted in the above mugshot.
Both Salter at AP and the New York Times gave quite a bit of space to spokespersons for the Ferguson "protesters" who claimed that Williams is not one of them, even though police have placed him at a demonstration earlier that day and even though the Times calls Williams a "demonstrator" in its story's headline.
Here are the "Who's he?" deniers in the Times's report, which at least directly acknowledges Williams's race (bolds are mine):
Prosecutors expressed skepticism at his version of events, but said he had attended the demonstration the evening of the shooting and previous rallies. Several protest leaders, however, quickly took to Twitter to deny that Mr. Williams, who is black, was one of them, or that they had even seen him among the crowd the night of the shooting.
The authorities said Mr. Williams, who was on probation at the time of the shooting for receiving stolen property, admitted his involvement to investigators and acknowledged firing the shots. He told investigators that he had a dispute with some people outside the police station that had nothing to do with the demonstration, officials said.
... DeRay McKesson, who has been participating in and documenting the demonstrations on social media, said that to his knowledge, Mr. Williams was not “a regular member of the protest community in St. Louis.”
Mr. McKesson criticized the way the police handled the investigation, pointing to previous statements made by Chief Jon M. Belmar of the St. Louis County Police Department in which he called the shooting an ambush and said the shooter may have been embedded with the demonstrators. Both of those assertions have been called into question now, Mr. McKesson said.
What Chief Belmar said “was intentionally said to incite and invoke fear,” Mr. McKesson said. "This does not change the momentum of the protesters. This person was not aligned with the protest community and the values within."
That final excerpted sentence is debatable, given how many "protesters" and their sympathizers have been on social media during the past several days saying in various ways that the officers somehow got what they deserved.
Salter gave the deniers four paragraphs:
Brittany Ferrell, 26, a protest leader with the group Millennial Activists United, had just left a meeting with other leaders Sunday when word of the arrest circulated. She said no one in the group knew Williams, and they checked with other frequent protesters - who also hadn't heard of him.
Ferrell suspected McCulloch tried to cast him as a protester to reflect negatively on the movement.
"This is a fear tactic," she said. "We are very tight-knit. We know each other by face if not by name, and we've never seen this person before."
John Gaskin, a St. Louis NAACP leader, said of Williams, "I don't know him. I've never seen him."
Blogger "Nickarama" at Weasel Zippers has exposed Facebook and social media posts by Williams indicating that he may have had a far more than casual acquaintance with the "protesters."
Weasel Zippers' "Nickarama" also has a different mugshot of Williams indicating that his justice-system classification is black. Too bad the Associated Press's Salter wouldn't directly admit to what's obvious.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
