Tinley Park Mall Shooting – 5 Women Killed Execution Style, AP Skips Description of Suspect at Large
Terry Trippany on Feb 02 2008 at 7:14 pm | Filed under: Feature Article, Media Watch
See my latest update on the story here.
Normally I wouldn’t write about a local Illinois story except for the fact that I live down the street from this mall in Tinley Park Illinois and the AP report neglected to mention a description of the suspect. Neither the Chicago Tribune nor the AP mentioned that the 5 women were reported to have been bound and gagged before being shot in the back of the head. One victim lived long enough to be taken to a hospital but was reported to have died around 4 p.m..
Normally I wouldn’t consider the omission of the suspect’s description that big of a deal except for the fact the man is still at large and local sources believe the murderer headed down route 80 toward Iowa. There is no better way to get a violent criminal off the streets than to actually give his description to the public; something the police have already requested.
Could there be an ulterior motive for the AP’s omission? We will never likely know but this is an election year and the man shares the characteristics of one of the AP’s preferred front runners.
Police described the suspect as an African-American man, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing between 230 and 260 pounds. He was wearing a black winter coat, a knit cap and dark jeans.
Grady said a police canvass and helicopter search had “given us every indication that the offender has fled the scene.”
Police are asking people with information to call authorities at 708-444-5368.
It’s not the fact that the man is black that gets my focus here, nor should it be; people of all races commit violent crimes. It’s the fact that the AP report omitted the description that has me questioning their motives. Could they possibly be overly sensitive to their own biases that they overreacted and left this info out based on some warped fear that Americans can’t differentiate between the two? It’s not like we haven’t seen such bias in the AP before (think Israel, photoshopped images, staged deaths, false stories of funeral procession bombings and the many cases of Islamic links to violence in America where the suspects name has been omitted as well as that one little detail about committing violence in the name of Allah).
At a time when Bill Clinton tried to make the underhanded correlation between drug dealers and black men it could be that the press is overly sensitive. But omissions expose bias, and bias usurps the duty of the press to report.
Five women were shot to death Saturday in what police are calling a botched robbery in a Lane Bryant store in a Tinley Park shopping center.
Police were still searching for a gunman Saturday evening.
The family of Carrie Hudek, a Frankfort social worker, said she was one of the victims. Hudek, who was in her early 30s, was in the store shopping.
“She is the most wonderful person, and that maniac took a piece of all of us,” said Jennifer Hudek, the victim’s sister-in-law.
Tinley Park police called the shooting a possible robbery at a 6 p.m. news briefing but offered few other details of the crime. Police still were not releasing the identities of the victims pending family notification.
Shots erupted at Lane Bryant, a women’s clothing store, in the Brookside Marketplace shopping center in the 7200 block of 191st Street in Tinley Park, officials said. Tinley Park police received a call at 10:44 a.m. reporting multiple gunshot victims inside the store, police said.
“Responding units entered the store and discovered multiple victims who’d been shot and killed,” Tinley Park Police Sgt. T.J. Grady said at a news conference about 2 p.m.
The offender fled the area after the shooting.
Will County State’s Atty. James Glasgow headed to the scene Saturday afternoon to discuss the case with his top criminal prosecutor, who was there talking to officials.
Tinley Park is a very nice area. The weekly police blotter is delivered door to door and usually contains the usual mayhem caused by spoiled teens left to roam the streets without supervision at night.
This is terrible. The AP once again gets an F for stopping short of their duty to report the news without filtering it for the sake of their own insecurities and biases; an action that falls far short of a duty to inform and helps a murderer remain on the streets.
Update: Yup, the story wasn’t even hours old before the gun grabbers took up the cause and reported on America’s “sad and preventable legacy of America’s psychological addiction to guns”.
Unfortunately this event could have possibly been prevented if there was an armed guard at the store. Yes I know, it’s ridiculous to advocate that there be an armed guard at a Lane Bryant but criminals get guns, and if they didn’t have guns they’d have knives, and if they didn’t have knives they’d have clubs… Who knows.
Does anyone want to take bets that the murderer probably didn’t get his gun at Wal-Mart?
The point is that law abiding citizens need a way to protect themselves from criminals. How are women supposed to protect themselves from bigger and stronger men who mean them harm? Even though the notion of an armed guard at a Lane Bryant is a bit absurd I made such a statement to make a bigger point; it would make much more sense to have a concealed carry law as a deterrent to crime.
Part of the sad narrative of America’s love affair with gun violence is that we historically have seen “fads” of deadly shooting outbreaks: schools, workplaces, and now malls.
Yeah, this is a fad, as are all botched robberies. The gun grabber version makes it sound like the guy simply shot the people for the sake of whetting his love of gun violence. I wonder if the murderer is from Chicago, where hand guns are outlawed by the gun grabbing mayor, Democrat. Funny thing, we are confronted daily by reports of gun violence in Chicago, shootings by drug dealers and gang bangers yet those guns are illegal. Hmmm, the prohibitive gun laws didn’t seem to work.
Prediction: I predict that Barack Obama will beat Hillary Clinton to the punch on shamelessly using this story as a springboard to advocate another gun grabber stance. Keep this prediction in mind if you hear Hillary or Obama use this tragedy as an angle for getting votes. I wouldn’t put it past them. If Hillary uses it she will bundle this tragedy with some story to remind people that she was from Illinois. If Barack uses the story it will be tied into some memory of life as a young politician in the state. Actually on second thought I bet Hillary will beat Obama to the punch; she is much more of a cold calculating political machine.
Source: Chicago Tribune via La Times
Tinley Park, Illinois, Lane Bryant, multiple gunshot victims, AP
I normally don’t blog about anything that happens in the area as well, but seeing as though I shop at that center all the time, and I LIVE here, it’s shocking. I mean, I know it happens–I know there are violence, but for this to hit as close to home as it did was just a huge shock.
I was just googling around to see what other people have been blogging about what happened when I came across yours–Since I’ve only been paying attention to the news online and whatnot, I had NO idea that they were killed in that way :\
I mean honestly though, I can see why this wasn’t actually made in any public statement. Do you think the friends and family really want to hear how they died? How they suffered for absolutely nothing? No.
Hi Jordan,
The police or someone must have made a public statement because I reported the details as I heard them on WBBM, AM 780 in Chicago. I haven’t heard much more outside of those early morning reports though. The Trib did report other aspects of the crime in some varying detail.
Thankfully at least one person is reported to have survived the attack contrary to earlier reports of no survivors.
This is a terrible tragedy and underscores that there are people in the world that have no regard for life. How people go so wrong I will never know.
This sort of violence is the man reason I strongly support the 2nd amendment. Good law abiding citizens need to be able to protect themselves and their families from people like this that would undoubtedly find a way to get a weapon whether they were outlawed or not.
Yeah, I hadn’t heard it from WBBM, but rather word of mouth from friends that were in the area when it happened. CLTV didn’t give many details, and most of the articles I had read up until last night omitted most of those details.
But thankfully, as you’ve said now too, there IS a sixth survivor and with an amazing description she’s given.
With the 6th person still being alive, I think it’ll definitely help explain what happened… Why noone tried to defend herself and whatnot.
I’d also heard much of the events on TV and radio without a description of the suspect. At the time I wondered why and, upon hearing there were no cameras or available witnesses I understood.
It’s understandable that media outlets wouldn’t give a description until they have supporting evidence. Or, at least, until police officials provide that information first. Lawsuits are expensive.
However, I do not understand how or why a shopping mall had no cameras nor did the store, Lane Bryant. Also, I’m suspicious of a description that came from one person, whom we know nothing of, and without any supporting evidence. A black man: easy target. Not saying it wasn’t, but we can’t know for sure.
Hi CC,
This isn’t a case of a black man being an easy target. The description came from the one surviving victim. She gave the police the description. The reason they didn’t identify the person as a victim in the first place was because they wanted to control certain information. She was also placed in protective custody.
The police immediately gave the media a description of the murderer hoping to put citizens on alert.
In this case we can know for sure and the AP decided that it wasn’t important to the story.
[...] The murderer is still at large. I am writing a follow-up on the investigation. As many of you know a sick maniac murdered 5 young people execution style at a strip mall in the small south suburban town of Tinley Park, Illinois. He attempted to murder a [...]