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Showing posts with label random crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random crime. Show all posts

Monday, January 27, 2014

Random, violent crime in the news (surprise!)

Investigators combing journal belonging to Maryland mall shooter in search for motive
Teen suspected of killing sister over laundry

20 children hospitalized for gun injuries every day in US
Woman mysteriously vanishes  Woman mysteriously vanishes
Penn State student charged with building WMDs
Officials: SC State Univ. shooting victim has died 

So now I understand why people think crime is getting worse even though it is not, as shown in this figure from Gallup:

 
Now, the crime rate has in fact increased for the past two years, so technically these people are not incorrect. But the fact remains that fear does not match reality: People THINK they are likely to be victimized by serious, violent street crime when in fact the odds are highly in their favor that they will not.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Random, violence in the news, again, as always

Three of the men claim to be anarchists and they thought about a series of plots before deciding to target the Route 82 bridge, the FBI says. FULL STORY

Hundreds of secret al Qaeda documents found hidden in a pornographic file reveal details of how the group plans attacks. FULL STORY | BERGEN: A DELUSIONAL LEADER | OPEN STORY | POLL: MUSLIMS DISLIKE AL QAEDA
And then there is this ...

Al Qaeda 'body-bombs' threat is back

Mom accused of putting bleach into toddler's eyes

Boy's head held underwater in alleged swim lesson

Remember the effect of all this?


It keeps us afraid, which keeps us at home, which keeps us watching TV, which raises ratings and keeps getting us exposed to commercial ads, which produces profit for media companies.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Random, unusual deaths and violent crimes in the news

From Fox News this morning, one of their top four stories on the web:


So, some BAD parents make a child run, in ALABAMA, and that child dies. Should this story matter to me in North Carolina (or even if I lived in Alabama for that matter)?

The girl, Savannah Hardin, was a third-grader at Carlisle Elementary School. Superintendent Alan Cosby said: "This is obviously a very tragic, devastating, heartbreaking situation," Cosby said. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."

Which is why it is news!

Notice what Fox did below that story too. It linked the story to an accidental school shooting in Seattle and the trial outcome of the UVA Lacrosse player who murdered his ex-girlfriend.

this fits in nicely with facts of media coverage of crime laid out in the book.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Unusual disaster at sea? Yep, that will be news!

... especially given that there was allegedly a crime involved.

CNN reports numerous illegal and unethical actions by the captain, for example:

The grim discoveries bring to at least 11 the number of people killed after the Concordia ran aground off Giglio, Italy. FULL STORY
___________________________________________________________ 

The story is also being covered on Fox, along with this one:

Police: Mom Shot Kids, Dad After Making Drug Video

Police say woman videotaped herself smoking meth before killing her two kids, their father, a cousin and herself
___________________________________________________________

You see the pattern? Random. Violent. Deadly. Unusual.

Monday, November 21, 2011

"We've got death. We've got drama. We've got a situation basically no one could ever imagine,"

Not to mention murder and suicide.

So obviously, it will be in the news.

As shown in the book, random and unusual violent crimes make the news. This is no exception.

Woman with gun. Unusual. Woman uses gun for violent crime. Even more unusual.


http://news.yahoo.com/cops-woman-kills-1-injures-5-then-kills-153513093.html

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Random crime stories from NC today

Just saw this on Yahoo when checking my mail.
Iredell authorities make record heroin haul- Charlotte Observer
Teen assualted, robbed in Charlotte high…- WCNC
24 men charged in NC child porn cases- Rock Hill Herald

Weird, no?

Nothing about whether the heroin bust makes any difference.
Or how rare such attacks at schools are.
Or why we should care about guys looking at porn on their home computers.

Just random crime news to scare the heck out of you.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Don't randomly kill rich people on a yacht!

Or else you will end up on the news.

I wonder how much of a threat piracy really is?

According to this report:

Piracy has flourished off the coast of Somalia, which has not had an effective government for two decades. While piracy in the Indian Ocean has taken place for a number of years close to the Somali coast, "in 2008 we saw a very marked and rapid shift into the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates were attacking and hijacking vessels very, very regularly," Cyrus Mody said (an official with the International Maritime Bureau in London).

International navies combating piracy have been fairly successful in setting up a patrolled transit corridor through the Gulf of Aden, Mody and Fox said. But the pirates' activities then shifted into the southern Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea area, Mody said.

In addition, there was "a very large increase" in pirate attacks between 2008 and 2009, although the increase did not continue into 2010. Mody said. He noted that in the first few months of 2010, virtually no pirate hijackings were reported. So far in 2011, "we have already seen more than 50 attacks carried out," he said. "From 2008, what we've seen is they have evolved ... and increased their capabilities."

By the look of it, it is everywhere!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/22/somalia.us.yacht/index.html?hpt=C1

More in random, violent, stranger, black on white crime!

Old, helpless or vulnerable victim? Check.

Young, meancing black man? Check.

Stranger? Check.

With gun? Check.

Random? Check.

And that is why it is newsworthy.

http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/02/22/2853748/woman-72-assaulted-by-intruder.html

Monday, February 14, 2011

Kill 3 or 4 people, make the news

Isn't that a great message of media coverage of random violent street crime?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/13/virginia.triple.homicide/index.html?hpt=T2

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/14/new.york.stabbing/index.html?hpt=T2

Meanwhile, there are lots of ways to kill dozens at a time that either don't make the news or don't get called crime, even when the deaths result from negligence and recklessness of powerful people.

Apparently it is how you kill people, not how many you kill, that matters.