Los Angeles Times Questionable Behavior

Is the LA Times Partially Responsible for a Homeless Death?

Imagine the outcry if a major American paper put a picture of a women walking home in the dark on the front page of the paper when illustrating a story about a serial killer targeting women who were walking home late at night.  What if they identified the woman's name and the very next week she was targeted and killed by that same serial killer.  There would be protests and calls for a resignation of the editor from other papers.  This happened in Los Angeles and there has not been a peep from the media or even an apology from the editors of the Los Angeles Times.  

The LA Times posted on Friday January 6 a story about police warning homeless people to go inside in Orange County California with a photo accompanying the story.   This photo was taken on January 5, 2012 of John Barry, 64 (identified as a homeless man in the caption along with his name) talking to Anaheim Police Mike Lynch by LA Times photographer Allan Schaban.  As we all know from watching Criminal Minds serial killers feed off their own publicity in the local newspapers.  They often play to the local news, and FBI and local law enforcement often use the media to draw out a serial killer.  A week later on Friday January 13, Barry was killed by what police are claiming is the same serial killer who had targeted and hunted down this individual pictured on the front of the LA Times.  Photographer Schaban has to be feeling horrible that he did not hide the victims identity on the first photo.  The LA Times has said nothing in the week after the tragedy apologizing for their involvement in this case.  

We publish a paper so we have some understanding of the use of images in the paper.  Almost every time a newspaper features a homeless person, donors come forward to help.  It is almost always the case that the person experiencing homeless benefits from the publicity, but this situation was different because it involved a serial killer targeting a segment of the population.  This killer was hunting down a somewhat small community living within Orange County.  There were a couple thousand people homeless in a city like Anaheim at any one time.  Not a huge population vulnerable to this killer.  A newspaper editor in a modern American city should know what the rules are with regard to posting "bait" for a serial killer.  Law enforcement should have put additional protection on Mr. Barry when he was made the face of homelessness in Anaheim by the Los Angeles Times.   I am not saying that government should get involved in publishing decisions, because nothing done by the LA Times was illegal.  It just seemed unethical for the paper to identify a homeless guy while police were searching for a serial killer targeting homeless people.  At least, the LA Times owes the family and the community an apology.  They should compensate the family or the homeless community for using John Barry's image that led to his death. 

The alleged killer hunted John Barry.  In the article, Barry indicated that he was worried that someone was watching and following him. The alleged killer was watching Barry and then killed him when he was alone.  Witnesses followed Itzcoatl Ocampo, a recently discharged US Marine, who was arrested and charged with the killing of four people including Barry all of whom were experiencing homelessness.  I just don't understand why the Police and other media are not outraged over this story.  We mourn for John Barry and send our condolences to his family as well as the other three victims of the Orange County serial killer.

Brian
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Violence Against Homeless People

Are We Ready for a Dangerous Summer Part II?

We posted a concern on Saturday about the murder using a gun that happened on Friday night near the Bishop Cosgrove Center might be a hate crime. We were relieved to find out this was not a hate crime. Henry Casey was killed because of his association with the wrong people in the community. We actually had a lot of contact with Mr. Casey over the last three years. He was one of the individuals who filed a complaint against the state last year because he could not vote because he did not have identification. His girlfriend did a lot of work for us in 2004 signing homeless people up to vote in the Presidential election. Mr. Casey also was a valuable source for what is going on in the East 18th St. neighborhood with regard to homeless people and relations between police and those who choose not to use the shelters. His girlfriend and friends want a memorial session, which we will help to organize. His family is from Arkansas, and will be burying Mr. Casey in Little Rock, but his Cleveland friends want to say "goodbye".

As the Plain Dealer reported today, we have witnessed a string of attacks on people experiencing homelessness in Cleveland. NEOCH sounded the alarm on Monday after the third documented attack in less than a month with three people ending up in the hospital. Care Alliance had two other attacks that they were aware of in the same neighborhood from February and March 2007. This is a sharp increase since the last attack we documented in Cleveland was October and December 2005 and those both were on Public Square. We are worried that these might be connected or might be gang related since they are all in the same area and all involve young white kids. I hope that the attention given by WKSU, WKYC TV3 and WJW Fox8 along with the Plain Dealer will make people more aware of a problem and will keep homeless people safe. Also, we would love to see the dog, Train, returned to the couple who lost their encampment and their puppies after losing their housing last year.

For those who are wondering..."Why would anyone sleep outside, when we have so many shelters and services in the community?"...there are many reasons. There are those who do not like the rules or have an addiction that they cannot kick even for the night. There are those who do not want to accept charity from anyone. There are those who are married without children or just a couple and do not want to break up. Finally, there are those with animals that they cannot part with and so stay outside or abandoned buildings. NEOCH estimates that there are as many people sleeping outside or abandoned buildings as there are in the shelters every night.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.