It was an easy picture to paint.
A teenage girl who was running to a work crew for help, claiming that a man in a black pickup truck was trying to lure her in for a ride. Suddenly, a black truck drives by and the workers react, running into the street to scare the driver away and grabbing the license plate number for police.
Minutes later, a 52-year old man is picked up driving the wrong way on a one way street.
He was later charged with stalking and harassment and trying to lure a minor into a vehicle and DUI and driving the wrong way on a one-way street.
Since I know some of his family members, I spoke to him before his arraignment.
“Scott, was I drinking? Yes,” he told me. “Did I go after some little girl? Absolutely not.”
Until that moment he didn’t realize that the charges had extended beyond the DUI, charges that could add up to 12 years in prison.
There are three possible scenarios here:
1. He is guilty of all the charges and had evil intentions.
2. He is guilty of the DUI and really bad decision making under the influence.
3. There were two black trucks on the road that morning.
It would be hard not to convict the guy based on television coverage. Interviews with the work crew painted a scared teenager being chased by a predator. Pictures of the man showed a guy who had had a rough night.
But in only one of the three scenarios is the man a pedophile.
When I received an email from the man’s employer asking for more facts in the case, I realized just how much the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” has escaped us.
It’s not my job to decide guilt or innocence by the way, that’s why we elect judges, but it is my job to relate what happens with an appropriate perspective.
Some might argue that the need to protect our kids is so great that the loss of a reputation here or there falls in the range of acceptable casualties.
Others might say that the man’s drinking and driving makes him a tough sympathy sell in any scenario.
But tarnish once applied is hard to remove, and it is among my duties to make sure that people carrying labels applied by the public deserve to shoulder the burden.
We’ll see.
HEY! Do you think the media convicts people in the public eye even before the courts have a say? Sign up for the Comments section here or email me at scott.bremner@wsee.tv. Let me know what you think and I'll post your thoughts right after mine.
COMMENTS:
Scott, there are few journalists who have the guts to react to the story in question as you did. I feel you gave an excellent view of the "other" side of the story which made the headlines. It's easy for a scared individual to cry wolf, impossible for the driver in this case to ever clear his reputation before the public.
Yes, I feel the media coverage in general in a case such as this, amounts to a kangaroo court. He was identified, she will not be.
What is fair about this? He may indeed be guilty, but for sure he will never be found innocent in the court of public opinion.
Thanks for an UNBIASED take on the story.
Dale Hannah