Tag Archives: nice guy

Surprise that “nice guy” raped teen

This is the template used for domestic violence or rape – surprise that the “nice guy” hit, raped, or murdered.  I’ve yet to see this template used for gang members, minority groups, or crimes that are not personal in nature, involving a man and woman.

And my question will always be: What about the victims?

This article says this guy was nice, that his action was a complete surprise. Then – read how nice he really is…

Neighbors call rape suspect a ‘nice guy’   (check out his photo)

“It was shocking because I didn’t think he would do something like this, says neighbor Todd Barrow.

He has talked with Watson several times over the years and describes Watson as a “nice guy.” But police say last week, Watson grabbed a teenage girl while she was walking to the bus stop, on her way to school. Then he took her into a wooded area off 103rd and Connie Jean Road and raped her at gunpoint.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was able to match Watson’s DNA to DNA found at the crime scene. His DNA was already in the system because Watson is a convicted felon.

In 2007, Watson was arrested for grand theft auto. The next year, he was arrested for burglary and convicted of DUI. Last year, Watson was sentenced to a year probation for battery. According to a police report, he got into a fight with his father and bit him.

Do you think people really know their neighbors? Why do reporters continue to question them? This guy obviously had a record – a fairly long one at that. Why would the paper choose the headline that the perp was a “nice guy”? Do females get the same treatment? How are victims treated? Why do we learn more about the perp than the victim? Why are there more kind words for the perp and not the victim?

Dispute?! I don’t think so AP

Would you call getting your face slashed with a knife by your ex-husband a dispute? The ex-wife was killed. Three others were wounded, including a child.

NYPD:  1 dead, 3 wounded in domestic stabbing

Associated Press – October 1, 2010 11:55 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) – Police say a 29-year-old woman was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife and three other people were wounded, including a 4-year-old boy, in a domestic dispute in Brooklyn.

It happened at about 5:45 p.m. Friday in a basement home on East 18th Street in the Gravesend section of the borough. Police say a 46-year-old man, who knew the victims, was apprehended near the scene. Charges are pending.

The woman, believed to be the man’s ex-wife, suffered multiple stab wounds to her face and torso and was rushed to Coney Island Hospital where she died.

The other victims included a 38-year-old woman stabbed in the leg, a 62-year-old woman stabbed in the torso and a boy slashed in the shoulder.

All were listed in stable condition at Lutheran Medical Center.

A horrific death – getting stabbed by a knife repeatedly in the face and torso – yet…where is the outrage? Where is the media attention? Where are the national debates?

Ellen DeGeneres, you’re a woman as well as a lesbian….where’s the outrage, Ellen? Where’s the outrage?

To contact the Associated Press, email them at info@ap.org or call 212-621-

“Nice guys”…rape

Okay, I grappled with the title on this one. The topic overlaps on so many of my posts about women’s credibility in abuse allegations and men’s “nice guy” portrayal in the media. Here were my options:

1) “Nice guys”…rape

2) He’s “not that kind of guy”

3) Liar until proven honest

Read Jaclyn Friedman’s:   How the media should treat sexual assault allegations against Al Gore

The Tribune piece asks the question, “How can you judge the credibility of a sexual assault charge when there are no witnesses and apparently no physical evidence?” It’s a good question, but why not ask, “Why, in cases of sexual violence, is the victim assumed guilty of lying until proven innocent?” We assume that accusers of other crimes are credible enough to report unless there’s clear evidence to the contrary: a repeated history of making false claims, for example. Or evidence that the two people in question weren’t in the same place at the same time. Barring these sorts of clear contravening evidence, media outlets should consider sexual assault accusations credible enough to report.

Why indeed. Other victims of crimes are not presumed to be lying. Research finds it’s bias and NOT that other women have made false allegations and, therefore, have made it harder for honest women to be taken seriously.  

But sexual predators aren’t monsters. They’re men (about 98 percent of them are, anyhow). They can be handsome and seem kind. They can be well-liked. They can do you a favor and think nothing of it. They can kiss their wives in public and mean it. They can be brothers, boyfriends, best buddies, talented film directors, beloved athletes, trusted priests and even (prepare to clutch your pearls) lefty political heroes who seem like genuinely nice guys. What they all have in common is the sociopathic rush they get from controlling another person’s body.

What’s more, our fierce attachment to the idea of the obvious monster has the exact opposite of the intended effect: it puts all of us in great danger. Every time we indulge it, we give cover to the actual sexual predators among us: we discourage victims from reporting because we’ve already told them we won’t believe them, and, when charges do get filed, we’ve already encouraged the police, prosecutors, judges and juries to make like we do and find whatever reasons they can to dismiss, diminish and deny justice. All of which means that these guys—these nice-seeming guys in your community—are free to attack again and again. Which, research shows, they do.

If you’ve ever seen Dateline’s To catch a predator or watched America’s Most Wanted, you’ll understand that most of these men who commit abuse and murder are seemingly “nice guys.” They’re men that look like your neighbors, like your boss, hell, to me, they’re men I might consider dating. They’re not nice though, are they? But they come with no signs on their foreheads, no warning signs, no monster masks….

Bone-chilling

Here’s a bone-chilling article about domestic violence in the Washington Post today. While they describe the perp’s background, it’s not the typical “nice guy kills wife” template (the woman in this case did survive). They actually uncover his temper, his wife’s concerns about his control issues, and they even interview domestic violence experts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022405384.html

“Great guy” kills 8

The Washington Post printed my Letter to the Editor today about the “great guy” that killed 8 people, including 2 children:

More sympathy in a domestic violence case?

Can you imagine the story “Life after death: The strength of a mother” [Style, Jan. 20], if the writer, Neely Tucker, had described all the positive traits of Anthony Q. Kelly, who killed the mother’s 9-year-old daughter in Montgomery County?

Yet that is exactly what happens in reporting on domestic violence, where the perpetrators are known to their victims.

Just as Tucker was telling his heart-wrenching two-part saga of a stranger killing a child, staff writers Fredrick Kunkle and Josh White told the story of Christopher Bryan Speight ["A 'regular guy,' then something changed," front page, Jan. 21] after eight family members and friends, including two children, were killed in rural Virginia. Their article contained more than a dozen positive descriptions of Speight. How odd, such kind words for the alleged perpetrator and so little attention to the victims.

When the media offer more sympathy for slayings committed by strangers, society places a lesser value on domestic-violence homicides. Yet killing a spouse or family member is equally as heinous as killing a stranger.

“Great guy” kills 8 people

This takes the cake in the “nice guy kills family” genre. He wasn’t just a nice guy, he was a great one (don’t let the headline fool you). I wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, if it doesn’t get printed, I”ll post it here later.

A ‘regular guy,’ then something changed : Man charged in 8 Va. slayings was apparently troubled by family dispute over home 

Man is charged with murder in 8 Appomattox shootings

What is it about domestic violence reporting (or other mass killings) that makes writers find out all the positive characteristics of the perp? Some have said it is because most reporters are white males – when they write about crimes committed by other white males they have more sympathy and group affinity. Certainly, I have not seen the same sympathy written about crimes when they are committed by people of color or when the crimes involves shootings by strangers. When a guy takes his spouse’s or children’s lives, their is a patriarchal-based philosophy that those people belonged to the man – possessions – so that, in some sense, he had a right to take their lives. It is quite a different reaction from when a stranger kills a person or a family. Think about it – and notice the difference in writing when reading about these different types of crimes.

“Nice guy” kills stepdaughter

Usually, the story goes “nice guy” “snaps” and kills wife. Here’s one where the “nice guy” “snaps” and kills his 12-year-old stepdaughter. He gets the maximum time in prison: 24 years. Obviously, the judge didn’t see him as a “nice guy” but the Washington Post did:

Man gets 24-year term for strangling step daughter

Klein said Caceres had battled years of depression and frustration, caused by financial problems and stress as he tried to support his family in the United States and send money to his five children in Honduras. On the day Marisol was killed, Klein said, Caceres snapped.

Is “snapped” recognized by psychiatrists? If not, readers should know why a person would kill a child that referred to him as Daddy. The judge must understand it, but clearly readers cannot determine the cause.

The story is full of positive attributes of the killer and rationalizations such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Why didn’t this man seek help if he was so ill?  

 

Nice perps

For sure, this is a template that is used by reporters for cases involving child abuse or domestic violence. The “nice guy” (as reported by neighbors) are stunned by the person’s actions. Not only that, we have to hear just how nice he was:

“He spoiled her. He treated her like his own. You never heard him yell at her, you never heard him say a bad word about her,” Worden says.

We learned Chris and Meghan were dating for a year and while Chris wasn’t the girl’s biological father, neighbors at his last known address say he played the role perfectly.

“He used to play with his daughter, right here, you can still see the rope. We never saw it coming,” former neighbor Cody Campbell says.

We have no idea what his girlfriend or her child were like. The reporter didn’t have a single nice word to say about them.

His crime?

To her horror, police believe, that blood was from her 2 year old daughter. Police say Mundell raped and slashed her thigh with a steak knife, then set her blanket ablaze.

A tw0-year old child was raped, cut and set on fire.

And there are only nice words in this article about the perp and not the victims.

Read the full article here: Athol Man Charged With Raping and Slashing Toddler

Snap, Cackle, Pop!

Snap goes the violent man,

Cackling or naggin was the “cause” of the violence,

Pop goes the gun!

Here is an example of a cookie-cutter approach to reporting that is used for domestic violence. The media reports that a “nice guy” (as reported by his friends, family and neighbors) “snaps” and shoots his wife/ex-wife/girlfriend/children. The cause? Why, her behavior, of course.

Read the article by The Washington Post, “Park Ranger ‘Snapped’ Before Slayings of Family, Court Told” (April 3) here.

Read my Letter to the Editor, published April 11, 2009, here.

 Snap

You’ll notice many of these articles on domestic violence refer to the abuser/killer as a nice guy. One reason is that they often interview friends and family of his. Many batterers do provide a likeable, even charming, exterior to their colleagues and neighbors. Another reason is, if he committed murder-suicide, many people don’t like to speak ill of the dead. But, this kind of reporting often fails to paint an accurate picture of the individuals’ behavior in the house, where they may have acted completely different from the way they acted out in the community. Reporters should dig a little deeper to find out if there was a pattern of abuse in the couple’s marriage or live-in situation. Murder, as much as they’d like us to believe, is not something that occurs out of the blue. While researchers find no previous use of violence in some femicides (like the Stacy Peterson case), sometimes it just takes some investigation to uncover it  - and it’s up to the media to take this step.   

Cackle

The story mentions that the wife “nagged” for two years. Well, how did the husband act? Was he controlling or jealous, which is the case in many domestic violence accounts? Why is her negative behavior listed but not his negative behavior?

A recent New York Times article did the same thing. It said more about the wife “complaining” and being “uncooperative” than it did about her husband (a judge) that hit her. Why are negative or harsh terms used for the victim but not the perpetrator? Can you imagine a reporter writing about an unknown perpetrator on the street attacking an elderly man and then referring to the elderly man as grumpy or mean? Wouldn’t it sound as if he deserved to be attacked by that stranger? Why, that perp did society a favor by choosing him as a victim! Really!

The New York Times article also included the lawyer’s comments, “It’s a personal and private matter and it was appropriately dismissed and sealed. ” Ouch! Domestic violence advocates have been trying for decades to educate us that this is a societal problem rather than a “private matter.” Justice does not stop at your door mat. You are not free to use illegal drugs or run a brothel from your home – nor can you assault someone in there and get away with it.

Pop!

Hmmm, why did the guy have a gun? Did he have a prior history of domestic violence? Was there a restraining order? Was there a history of mental illness (diagnosed or not), anger management problems, issues in his other relationships (past or present)? All too other, batterers have access to guns. Police officers in my town – some who will be called upon in domestic violence cases – have their own charges of DV and yet they still have their jobs and their guns.

 As a lesson from this article, we should demand:

1) to know the real cause of domestic violence (hint: it’s not the other person’s behavior)

2) to understand that domestic violence doesn’t often come out of the blue (“snapping” is not a cause of DV either)

3) to see the victim treated with respect and dignity

4) to hear from domestic violence experts

5) to learn where to go for help