Wheeling Jesuit lacrosse player beaten to death

What I found interesting was the description of the assailants in the story:

http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/589259.html

 

They just made a criminal of every white male in Wheeling with brown. I am sure the police will be going to door-to-door with batons and beating every one of them.

 

Why does the description interest you?

 

I found it interesting because in the thread about the Australian baseball player, that turned into yet another rehashing of the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman incident, it was mentioned that the race of both parties was not mentioned in early stories...and here we have the first story about a senseless murder and the journalist felt it necessary to mention the assailants were white. Just thought it was interesting and wondered if the writer was a member of these boards.

I actually thought the mention of them being white looked out of place or strange.

 

Concerned, as usual.

 

Of course they mentioned the race of the assailants. They're on the loose. The description is offered to aid in their capture. Same as it should be for any such case.

 

I completely agree...you just know one of the three they are looking for is going to sell out the other two to save himself. At least I hope that's what happens.

 

Just curious..... when you write a sports story involving players of different races, do you identify their races?

 

No. Never crossed my mind to do so.

 

As someone from the news side, that description was ridiculous and stood out as such. It does absolutely nothing to aid in their capture -- unless you plan to call police if you see a white man in his 20s, possibly wearing a cap.

Race is worth mentioning as one aspect of a decent description. It is not worth mentioning otherwise. The description in this article is too vague to be of any use, so including the race -- whatever it may be -- is pointless. "Black man, 20's, medium build, wearing a t-shirt and jeans" is a useless description, so including the race serves no purpose other than to be potentially inflammatory. "Black man, 20's, 6'8", 200 lbs, shaved head, tattoo of a butterfly on his left arm" is a strong description, so race absolutely should be included in it.

 

I can't confirm the veracity of this without seeing the first story written about the other case.

 

A couple of weeks after the shooting...

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-02-29/news/os-fatal-shooting-sanford-townhomes-20120226_1_gated-community-death-sunday-night-shot