Man Lynched in Austin: The Media Ignores the Hate Crime of The Decade While African-American Leaders Excuse It

Posted by Citizen Servatius at 6/27/2007 6:35 PM and is filed under National

  The parallels between the Duke lacrosse case and the brutal murder of a Hispanic man by an African-Amercian mob are striking -- except this time the national media is AWOL. African-Amercian leaders are now attempting to excuse the actions of the mob that brutally murdered David Rivas Morales in Austin, Texas, last week. So is the Austin media. 

   Last week, after the car he was riding in accidentally struck a child, passenger David Rivas Morales got out to help the driver, who was confronted by a mob. The driver quickly returned to the car, but members of the crowd brutally beat Morales to death. Callers to the Austin, Texas, 911 dispatch center told police that the crowd that murdered Morales in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived came from a nearby Juneteenth celebration.
   Austin police say Morales, who was on his way home from his job as a painter, was a Good Samaritan who was trying to help defend the co-worker driving the car. (The child the car struck wasn't seriously injured.) Detectives described the beating death by the out-of-control crowd to Austin's CBS 42 News as "unlike anything they have ever seen, a flagrant act of mob violence, that happened just outside his sister's front door."
           
   Photos: David Rivas Morales, sister Margaret Morales grieves and Margaret and Mary Helen Morales at the scene of David Morales's death

     A Lexis-Nexis search showed that only one article out of the hundreds written about Morales' murder indicated that the members of the mob that beat him to death were black. 
    Several other articles produced by the Texas media mention that African-American and Hispanic leaders called for "healing" after the mob murder, but the articles didn't explain why or elaborate on the ethnicity of those involved. The national media has all but blacked out the incident after initially reporting on it without mentioning the races of those involved.
   Only one paper, the Reforma in Mexico City, told the whole story. "Hispanic Is Lynched in Texas," the Reforma's headline read.
   Though dozens are believed to have witnessed the beating, so far no one has come forward to help police solve the crime, a fact that Austin's African-American leaders are blaming on ... the Austin police. 
   Rather than demand that someone come forward, Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder excused the actions of those who saw the crime but so far haven't snitched. It's because they are "afraid of the police," he claims, due to a past history of racism by the police.

   "Let's face it," Linder said in a Houston Chronicle article. "There's a very intense effort to find out who was there. The folks who saw some of this stuff are afraid of coming forward.
   "If you were there, and you saw this and didn't stop it, that's also a problem," Linder said. "They're afraid of retaliation ... The large systemic racism in this problem is the fact there's been this historical breakdown over a long period of time between the police and the black community."

   Incredibly, Linder and other African-American leaders are now blaming Morales' death on the police as well. Because the situation remained too violent for paramedics to immediately intervene, police officers had to spend valuable minutes clearing the crowd while Morales lay dying in the parking lot, choking on his own blood in front of his helpless sister. 
   Because of that, 13 minutes passed between the first 911 call and the crew's arrival at the lot a third of a mile from their base, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. 

"We are firmly convinced that life is sacred and that no one, no matter what the circumstances are, deserves to be treated like this man was treated," the Reverend Sterling Lands II, who leads an African-American church in Austin, said in an article in the Austin American-Statesman. "We believe that this man didn't die because of the beating but because he was left unattended."

   The ironic parallels between this case and the Duke lacrosse faux rape case are striking. In the Duke case, newspapers across the country verbally bludgeoned the lacrosse players for weeks for not divulging to the police which of their teammates raped the stripper. 
   Here's a small selection of the headlines from the more than six dozen stories and editorials on the team's silence published in March 2006: "Team's Silence is Sickening," by the Raleigh News & Observer, "Shame is echoing in the silence," by the Albany Times-Union and "Lacrosse team's silence seems to scream hazing." That editorial, published in the Chicago Sun Times, postulated a bizarre theory that the rape must have been some kind of hazing ritual in which new lacrosse members were inducted into the group by "having sex with an outsider" and then adhering to a code of silence.
   African-American leaders and the NAACP were just as outraged by the lacrosse team's so-called silence. In April 2006, North Carolina NAACP State Conference President Reverend William Barber released a statement that encouraged the community to "denounce any code of silence" and show compassion for the alleged victim. 
   "How we proceed will have great impact on our ability to remain a community and meet the demands of justice," Barber wrote. 
   The same could be said of the Morales case. Ironically, the media and African-American leaders now seem utterly unconcerned with the silence on the part those who watched Morales die. 

(Note: Austin police, city leaders and African-American leaders at first denied any connection between the African-American Juneteeth festival and the vicious attack on Morales. They are still sticking to that story even though it has since been contridicted by the city's own 911 dispatches, in which callers repeatedly tell police that the crowd came from the nearby city sponsored Juneteenth festival, which celebrates the emancipation of slaves. The city is now refusing to release full, unedited copies of its own 911 tapes.)

   

 

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  • 6/28/2007 7:21 AM Jeff A Taylor wrote:
    Hey, no wonder Charlotte officialdom trekked to Austin to learn a few new tricks. Next big crime story -- look for CMPD to release edited 911 tapes.
    Reply to this
  • 6/28/2007 2:38 PM Jim Irwin wrote:
    So where is the lawsuit by the Houston Chronicle to publish those tapes? Maybe we need a fairness doctrine for the newspapers, network TV, NPR and the rest.
    Reply to this
    1. 6/29/2007 5:46 PM Dan Palmer wrote:
      Outstanding comment!! I concur fully!!
      Reply to this
  • 6/29/2007 5:07 PM Beverly wrote:
    At some point, White and Hispanic Americans are going to retaliate en masse against Black American's refusal to snitch, to accept responsibility for their unlawful actions, and it won't be a pretty scene. They don't seem to understand they are in fact a minority, and when they have pushed hard working, lawful White and Hispanic America too far, they will have hell to pay.
    Reply to this
    1. 6/30/2007 4:15 PM Pepe wrote:
      Bev, what is your problem?
      Reply to this
  • 7/2/2007 12:48 PM Robert wrote:
    The only problem that I see is the fact that the black "leadership" is nonexistent. I can think of no other way that would have a more polarizing effect than the mob murder of an African-American working man. For this reaction from that community shows just how failed the liberal mindset is. Obviously it cant be the fault of anyone in the mob that is to blame because they were all victims of circumstance. After all how can one be responsible for their own actions when society as a whole doesn't expect nor demand said responsible action?
    Reply to this
  • 7/3/2007 1:33 PM Jared wrote:
    I heard you discussing this on the show last night... yes calls do get interesting after 11... One thing I may have missed though is the discussion about why the international press would have also dropped the story. I'll give you that most mainstream American media is spineless and agenda driven... but what about the O-so-enlightened international press? Nearly every western country has at least some race/immigrant issues to deal with.. but are we exporting the bad behavior of our media as well?
    Reply to this
  • 7/8/2007 4:15 PM Jennifer wrote:
    What evidence do you have that this is a hate crime? Two people were in the car, both got out after the child was hit, one got back in the car, why if the motive was purely racial was only one person killed.I would like to know how many people if they were attending a family reunion and someone rode up, hit a child in that family,got out of the car and said the child needed to get out of the way, how many families would just walk away? I to think life is important but without all the facts calling this a hate crime is just wrong. Why if there was a crowd of people standing in the street didn't this guy slow down, maybe he felt like the nixxxx should get out the way?
    Reply to this
    1. 7/9/2007 10:10 AM Daniel wrote:
      The problem is that the phrase "hate crime" should be obliterated from our language. There is no such thing. A crime is a crime -- period. If we would start punishing crimes as they should be punished -- with appropriate jail time -- we wouldn't need to consider making THOUGHT a crime. "Hate crime" -- how ridiculous.
      Reply to this
    2. 8/1/2007 1:45 PM Buck wrote:
      Come on now, put aside your white guilt. This, like so many other instances is another case of blacks being thought of as victims even when they are the perpertrators . Quit making the excuses for blacks. There is no leadership, just excuses, no accountability just justification. We have made excuses for their crimes until the public has grown numb. If this is not the example that does it for you, then how about the abduction of the 21 year old white male and female in Knoxville Tennessee, in which four black males and a black female abducted,raped,sodemized over a 4 day period,while the other was made to witness the rape and sodemy of the other victim, cut the penis off of the white male and then killed him, then cut the brest off the white girl, and then poured acid in her mouth and then set them on fire. Have you heard anything on this? Happened in May 2007. I copied, Jeff katz, Tara Servacious, keith Larson, and Rush Limbaugh on 7-13, again today. Wish that Tara would put on Blog. The liberal media refuses to publicize this, why? Because this incident does not fit their agenda, which is to portray blacks as victims and of course never as perpetrators. Nope can't print that, whites may feel anger instead of white guilt. What impact would this have on the race relations in this nation? We have made so much progress. Even if it means we sweep situations like this under the rug, its for the betterment of race relations in this nation if the whites just dont know about this and we help the Blacks improve their image. We are obligated or we become a Racist. We are not stupid or maybe we are. What about the real victims and their parents and families? No rights, right?. What about looking at the crimes being committed on a daily basis and the liberal court system that turns its head because "its not their fault" to the crime because of the accusations made by the so called black leadership that represents the greatest collection of bigots and prejudiced people that the world has ever witnessed,pointing out that far too many blacks are incarcerated, more than whites. Who did the crimes?..Should we convict whites for the crimes that blacks did, why dont you read right here in Charlotte what % of the crime belongs to blacks. Why? Are we suppose to ignore the facts Captain Obvious? Are we suppose to cower in ignorance and go with the flow? be vocal about the truth., the facts, or be called racist...term used only to describe whites, no not the R- word. Wake up and tell the truth, demand the truth and settle for no less, It is time for the black leadership to take ownership of the behavior that permeates its people. I dont care who did what, a crime is a crime I do not care what color of skin is involved and until the powers that be, make all parties accountable, there will never be good race relations, just a double standard. In fact the only people that the hate crime is for seems to be whites. Maybe these 5 thought these 2 called them Nixxxx.
      Reply to this
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