I got a Christopher Dorner tattoo: Media turned a killer into a folk hero (Raoul Moat is dead)
CHRISTOPHER Dorner allegedly murdered three people, one a policeman – one Monica Quan, an unarmed woman related to a cop. The ex-cop wanted to murder lots more people. He went on the lam. He found Kim and Jim Reynolds’ mountain cabin in the San Bernardino mountains in California. He stuffed their mouths with small towels and placed pillow cases over their heads. He had a gun.
“I really thought it could be the end,” Ms Reynolds told reporters “…He tried to calm us down, saying very frequently, he would not kill us.”
Dorner made off in a car. A wildlife warden spotted him. He strafed Dorner’s vehicle. But he never scored a hit. Dorner ran to an empty cabin.
A SWAT team stormed the cabin. They had smashed the windows and fired tear gas. They used a vehicle to tear down the walls of the cabin. Then a shot was fired. A police source told the LA Times: “Then flames began to spread through the structure, and gunshots, probably set off by the fire, were heard.”
Then it came. local television channel using a police scanner heard a policeman shout: “Burn this motherf*****.” And: “Burn that smoke grenade out!” A few seconds later, he says: “Burn that f****** house down!”
This was all broadcast live. And, boy, did some people love it. The nodding heads on this CNN panel said Dorner’s alleged killing spree was like a “Denzel Washington Movie“. Mark Lamont Hill said it was “like Django Unchained in real life”.
It’s much like how the media turned Raoul Moat into a star. The British killer who also shot an unarmed woman and a policeman became a Facebook legend, a folk hero, his weapons brandished by wet-lipped TV news presenters “live” at the scene. Viewers demanded a televised death. And when the death came, the victims got rubbished.
The story became everything. Anyone who admired Raoul Moat was advised to drown. A national newspaper wanted Moat fan Siobhan O’Dowd to die. One paper wanted Moat fan Teresa Bystram (one of the Sun’s own) dead and her children left motherless. (Did the paper want Paul Gascoigne to die?) The media played its part in the Raoul Moat legend. The Daily Star turned Moat into a video game character. And, then, we were asked to wonder if the police kill him unfairly?
Dorner’s getting the full treatment. Someone got a Dorner tattoo…
Posted: 14th, February 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
