Results tagged “descriptions” from Crime & Courts

Q. Just read your article in the Daily Breeze about the Marine who was beaten unconscious and robbed while walking on the Esplanade. What struck me as odd, was the complete lack of any sort of physical description of the assailants.

I find it hard to believe that the victim could describe their baggy pants, and remember exactly what was said, but could not at least identify the race of his attackers.

Could it be that the Daily Breeze is putting political correctness ahead of the need to report important details that could help solve this crime?

John S. Campbell
Rolling Hills Estates

A. Thanks for writing. Plenty of people regularly ask about this.

We publish descriptions when they are more specific, including race, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, and other aspects, including clothing, tattoos, jewelry or what car they were driving. To say the suspect was a "20-year-old white man, or 25-year-old black man in a red shirt" isn't specific enough.

In this particular case, police told me the victim was unable to see much beyond age, race and their baggy pants before he was clobbered on the head.

The description -- young men in baggy pants -- identifies a large section of the Southern California population.

Some might consider it politically correct to leave race out of the story, but the race makes up a huge Southern California population. There's no reason to indict an entire group of people for the actions of some.

Feel free to send your responses and I will post them below.