More on the Austin beating death

CNN

Today's Austin Statesman isn't headlining it on their website and most of the majors have apparently moved on. Looks like it's heading to the dustbin. Previous coverage here.

We did learn today that Mr. Morales was a long-time resident of the area who served in the Navy during the 80s, which suggests he wasn't illegal, although the mob, er, gang, er few heinous criminals might have figured otherwise. His family is demanding to know why it took so long for the ambulance to arrive if there was no mob, a very good question. After all they are saying the ambulance was staged pending reports of a gang fight and had trouble fighting through traffic.

We could engage in wild speculation but we won't. Had we done so it would have focused on the lengths to which Austin officials have gone to downplay the event, highly suggestive they were trying to avoid a powder keg situation. Day by day the event has been reduced from thousands of rowdy Juneteenth participants down to a few random punks. It might help if witnesses would come forward and ID those random punks but so far no takers, including the driver, who "escaped" and is apparently either in protective custody, hiding or gone. Apparently that's something not worth pursuing.

Perhaps not, because doing so would force reporters into opening a debate on the sensibilities of hate crimes legislation. The James Byrd dragging death occurred in Texas and keep in mind that Austin is not only the state capital of Texas, it's the progressive capital of Texas.

Amidst the silence we can always turn to bloggers, and sure enough there's a metablog site for Austin where we find Translucence on the story:

Ok, so here's the question of the day...three or four beating a man to death and about twenty watching and doing nothing to stop the violence. Is that or is that not a mob mentality?

Speaking of translucence, that seemingly describes the other bloggers covering the story.

Is it a major story? We don't know. We do know that similar events occur daily in America and that sensationalizing it might well spark more senseless reprisal violence. Yet it sure seems indicative of how certain stories are played for their ability to drive politically correct opinions and worldviews, while others are not.