Lonzie Cox, Jr. – 3/22/05

This page was last updated on March 23, 2005.

Why the double standard?; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; March 22, 2005. I am not related to Mr. Cox.

I’m note sure, but I believe Mr. Cox is back to race-related letters.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“The shocking news of March 11 informed us that a judge and several others had been shot and killed in an Atlanta courthouse. It was a terrible crime and it deserved the massive media coverage it received.”

[RWC] Not to be picky, but three persons were killed in the courthouse. A fourth person was killed while the fugitive was on the run.

“The following day, an equally horrible crime took place in Milwaukee. In that case, a gunman entered a motel meeting of a church group and shot up the congregation, killing seven immediately, including the pastor and his son.

“In the week since, the story of the Atlanta shooter has been told over and over. We know where he was born, raised, went to college and members of his family.

“On the other hand, we know nothing about the man who attacked the preacher and his group of Milwaukee worshippers.

“I watched all the news channels this week and not one of them has broadcast the picture of the church group killer. While the Atlanta killer’s mug shot was on every front page and every TV screen, glaring crazily at everybody, the Milwaukee murderer made the back pages - if his photo appeared at all.

“True, the Atlanta shooter was on the run for 24 hours, but does that justify ignoring the Milwaukee shooter by all the media at once? I don’t think so.

“It’s as though the public is being encouraged to just forget about the Milwaukee church massacre as if it didn’t really happen, and to concentrate only on Atlanta.

“Why?”

[RWC] I don’t accept the premise in real life, but let’s accept Mr. Cox’s “observation” for the sake of argument.

Given the race-related nature of many Lonzie Cox letters, my guess is Mr. Cox believes the answer to his question is race. The Atlanta killer (Brian Nichols) was black and the Milwaukee killer (Terry Ratzmann) was white.

If race is the reason for what Mr. Cox believes he observed, how does Mr. Cox explain the extensive coverage given the white killer of the little girl in Florida? What about the coverage of the Scott Peterson trial? Would anyone in America not recognize a picture of Peterson?

I suspect the true answer has nothing to do with race. When Mr. Ratzmann killed himself after killing his seven victims, he also “killed” the story. In effect, as terrible as it was, the mass murder was over within a couple of minutes at most. As a result, there was no manhunt and no need to splash Ratzmann’s photo all over the place. It also meant there would be no court appearances, no speculation about a trial, et cetera. As bad as it was, the story was over from a news standpoint.

You’ll note Mr. Cox didn’t mention Ratzmann’s immediate suicide. My guess is Mr. Cox knew that would shed light on his perceived coverage difference.

Let’s look at the Nichols case. Mr. Nichols, a prisoner under guard, overpowered a deputy, took her gun, killed a judge, a court reporter, and a sheriff’s deputy, and escaped in broad daylight from a courthouse presumably crawling with law enforcement personnel. While loose for about 24 hours, he pistol whipped a newspaper reporter, killed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and took a woman hostage. Nichols finally surrendered. The vast majority of the pictures I saw of Mr. Nichols were when he was at large and when he was transported to court for arraignment. As I noted above, those “opportunities” didn’t exist for Mr. Ratzmann because he immediately committed suicide. As sick as it sounds, the Atlanta incident made a far more compelling story.