Legalectric

I hate it when this happens.  KAAL in Austin and Rochester, Minnesota, has presented a distorted half-truth using only a half-video clip of the car that rammed its way through the Minneapolis protesters last week, and it’s this distorted half-truth that has 5,236 comments and 17, 591 shares:

KAAL fb post – Partial KSTP video of car ramming demonstrators

This is their entire report linked to that partial video that was edited and doesn’t show the driver at the stoplight, other cars going safely around, and the driver going around the car in front of him waiting at the intersection and he drives INTO the crowd (emphasis added):

(ABC 6 News) — We’re following breaking news out of a Minneapolis where a car drove through a group of protestors.
    
One person was hit before the group of protestors jumps on the car and begins vandalizing it.  Police confirm one person was transported to the hospital with very minor injuries.
    
This protest was in response to last night’s grand jury ruling in Ferguson, MO.

Stay with ABC 6 News for the latest on this developing story tonight at 10

Very naughty — that is NOT reporting.  That’s a grossly misleading spin.  KAAL had access to the entire video just like the rest of us did, and maybe even before the rest of us did.

Meanwhile, there were over 5,200 comments to that misleading facebook post, and over 17,000 shares — sharing and commenting on an incomplete and misleading version of the video.  Read those comments, filled with hate and rage.

HERE’S KAAL’s  MORE RECENTLY POSTED VERSION WITH FULL KSTP VIDEO, CORRECTLY LABELING DRIVER AS SUSPECT.

From Alan Muller on today’s Mpls. yak-yak list, to consider when looking at some of the 5,235 comments on that KAAL post, comments like:

• “He needed a plow with knives”
• “I would have done the same…they were out to kill the driver for sure.”
• “Should get a snow plow and gas on it!!”
• “I would’ve drove straight over those idiots. White black pink don’t care, I’m not stopping for psychos in the street to get out from under me. Made their decision being out there.”
• “Good for him maybe more people should do this so these idiots will go get a job instead of standing in the street protesting free rights for hoodlums to act like gangbangers.”

What???  So back to Alan’s comment:

Every once in a while, on a list like this, a thread 
happens that seems that seems to speak about larger 
social or community problems.  This one does to me.  
Is it OK to ram a car into a crowd of people?  One 
could use answers to this as part of a test to 
diagnose sociopathic tendencies.  Do you have a moral 
compass?  Yeah, I mean "If you think the answer to this 
question is 'YES,' I would hope you don't ever get 
hired as a teacher or police officer, or reporter, or 
animal control person, or manager of people, or...."

For me, it’s the sort of thing where I long to see a societal intervention and treatment, this is embedded self-centered ignorance and hate with no regard for rights of others, or laws or basic human decency.  How ugly can we humans get?  That’s a question I do not want answered…

KAAL – though you have posted the full KSTP video, this other shorter one is so distorted that I think you should remove that post so that people won’t continue to be misinformed, and continue to pass on that misinformation.