Just Another Homicide
From the never-ending cycle of carnage at the L.A. Times blog The Homicide Report comes a short, understated, and utterly heartbreaking post:
Alma Velasquez was at work when her son, Luis Albert Leon, 19, was fatally shot.
According to family, Leon was sitting on the curb outside a friend’s house about 11 a.m. Friday, May 9. Authorities said a vehicle pulled up next to him. A Latino man got out of the vehicle and shot him.
He had a two-year-old daughter. He is pictured with her here:
And he was apparently bringing her a teddy bear when he was shot. Here it is:
Go read the whole post.
There could be a whole front-page article about this, but there probably won’t be. All that you’re likely to see is this short post. But it’s better than nothing.
One question kept haunting me, though:
What are they going to do with the bear? Will Luis Leon’s daughter keep it?
I would bury the bear with the father. It’s bloodstained, so it seems a bit too much to ask the daughter to carry that for her life.
What an intractable nightmare LA is. Such a rich place… all the resources of California, all the money from tourism and industry and Hollywood, all those brilliant minds… and the city is such a nightmare, and the government is bankrupt with the highest taxes imaginable.
And of course, there’s all the murders.
Jem (4cdfb7) — 6/8/2008 @ 10:35 pmGah, I hate LA….
The first thing I think when I read any over-15 year old and “was shot” was “Hm…wonder if he it was gang-related…..”
This isn’t a bad movie about the ’40, that *should not* be the instant response!
Foxfier (15ac79) — 6/9/2008 @ 2:23 amThat there may be, and probably is, more pertinent information regarding this shooting such as gangs, drugs, illegal firearms possession, immigration status, etc., is to be ignored because these facts are irrelevant (and politically incorrect) when a Times staff writer can passionately emote the story’s soft underbelly for commercial and personal satisfaction. The old “where, who, when, what, why”, requirement of journalism that reported the cold hard facts has been replaced by a form of advocacy reporting that squeezes all the blood and tears that the “Times staff writer” can get out of such senseless crimes. The Times does not report the news, it emotes it. This must sell papers because The Times has at least one emoted story per issue, and two or more on Sunday.
C. Norris (ee3e12) — 6/9/2008 @ 8:27 amReminds me of the movie “White Chicks” (a fine legal drama if you never saw it) where the reporter babe talks about climbing over someones wall, falling in the bushes, all to get a paparazzi pix. She called it her passion, “investigative journalism”. It is really how journalists think, because with Affirmative Action and the liberalisation of J schools, reporters actually think that getting a crime victim to cry on camera is better than finding the root cause of the crime.
martin (cd5d90) — 6/9/2008 @ 9:46 amSure is a lot of mis-placed compassion from a paper that mans the ramparts against any enforcement of laws against illegal aliens – including those that have committed violent crimes locally.
I guess they just think they will be eaten last.
Morons!
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/9/2008 @ 9:51 amLA=Baghdad.
Patricia (f56a97) — 6/9/2008 @ 7:23 pmMartin – So who will find the root cause of the crime? Will your smug ass do it? I thought one of the implied points of the LAT homicide blog is that there were so many killings that don’t get mentioned that there should be at least one repository for them. I’d love to see someone in the blogosphere (outside of the MSM) actually do some legwork in looking into this problem, but doesn’t look like anyone will get to it yet, least of all you.
Max (8e0e3b) — 6/10/2008 @ 12:11 amBut, Max, the rationale you name (“there were so many killings that don’t get mentioned“) is a pretty durn weak one when it’s the LAT itself that’s failing to mention them. Or investigate them, or consider them, or prioritize them, or in any manner find for or share with the public any information about them. Tellingly, it’s been too consistent of a pattern and practice of theirs for too long to reasonably claim it’s an unintended one. Occam himself would be hard-pressed not to conclude that they’ve prostituted “journalism” in the name of their self-righteous advocacy for liberal political thought.
They can’t touch these murders with any degree of professional journo-expertise, because that would result in a story whose inexolerable conclusion would make them feel silly, stupid, or evil in at least half of their chosen editorial positions.
So, instead, they run this little paean to the cleansing power of painless tears, expiating their own dim yet lingering feelings of professional failure and, as an added bonus, letting them put a check mark in the “did you do your “minority concern” story for today yet?”
And who can pass up a twofer?
bobby b (df4492) — 6/10/2008 @ 12:56 amToo bad the Army did not clean up LA after the Stephanie Kuhen murder back in 1995. That would have been the perfect time to put LA under martial law.
Michael Ejercito (c5d682) — 6/10/2008 @ 1:20 pmNo, the perfect time would have been during the “Rodney King Riots”, when you had so much destruction participated in by illegals. They could have cleaned out a good portion of Pico-Union, Watts, ELA, & other areas.
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/10/2008 @ 1:38 pmIf only the president had the courage to put LA under martial law.
Michael Ejercito (c5d682) — 6/10/2008 @ 6:13 pm