I woke up this morning to a pile of annoying articles about how so few mothers in the US nurse their babies for even three months, articles like this one in Huffington Post. By the time I finished reading a half dozen of them and the comments that accompanied them, I was spitting milk mad.
Don't misunderstand me, I am not mad at the women who failed to nurse their babies at all, or the ones who gave up, or the ones who commented on these articles that some women can't nurse and sometimes it is better that moms give up on breastfeeding and bottlefeed. I am not mad that they wrote that moms shouldn't feel bad or blame themselves, that a comfortable baby and mom with a bottle is better than an unhappy breastfeeding mom and a miserable baby.
Even though I believe most women (all who don't have a weird physical problem or disease) can nurse successfully and most babies (all who don't have a weird physical problem or disease) can nurse successfully as well, I am not mad at those who fail or those that tell moms it is okay if they do.
I am mad at our medical and nursing professionals who refuse to tell 100% of the truth about breastfeeding in America; this makes me sick.
I will go out on a limb and tell the truth because they are too scared to do so. I know I will get comments and emails from this mother and that who will tell me she failed in nursing because she really didn't have enough milk or her baby just wouldn't nurse no matter what. I have totally empathy for these moms because they did try very hard under circumstances that were stacked against them; a society that doesn't support breastfeeding and professionals who screw women over with bad information, bad advice, and outright lies (like "We didn't give your baby formula in the nursery," or "You should pump milk and give your baby a bottle once or twice a day to get him used to it before you go back to work.")
Breastfeeding in America fails because mothers have alternatives (bottles and formula) and are told it is okay. Women in other countries, too poor to buy formula, almost never fail at nursing their babies. Why? Because they have no choice. Don't think for a minute that breastfeeding mothers in these countries are somehow more physically able. They nurse because they have to and some of them, if they could, would prefer giving the baby a bottle. Most of these nursing moms are loving mothers but some are mean women who don't even like their babies but, because society and economics require it, nurse the babies anyway.
I was a La Leche Leader for about six or seven years, a few decades ago. I counseled new moms in person, in the hospital and on the phone. Anytime I heard they were having problems with nursing - "not enough milk," "baby refusing nipple," and so on, I gave them one piece of advice, that if they followed it, they would succeed in nursing their baby; advice that worked, if they followed it, 100% of the time. You heard me, 100% of the time. What was this miracle advice?
Remove all formula and bottles from your house. Go to bed with your baby for twenty-four hours. Nurse on demand. Ignore any pain, lack of let-down, mad screaming baby. Just lay there and keep attempting to nurse. Ignore your tears and your baby's tears. Pretend you are on an island and your breast milk is all your baby has. Eventually, your baby will get hungry and latch on. Eventually your milk will let down. By the next day, you will have milk coming out and your baby will be drinking it. Even if it took you two days, your baby wouldn't starve to death; babies have been found alive days later buried under rubble in earthquakes. Your baby will survive long enough to get milk from your breast. Every woman who followed this advice called me in the morning to rave about her "huge" boobs and her totally nursing baby.
Nature is not stupid. God didn't give women breasts so men could ogle them. He even gave women two breasts just in case one was on the fritz or more than one baby showed up. Hungry babies nurse.
The reason mothers fail at breastfeeding is because, at the hospital, nurses give their babies formula behind their backs even if there is an order for no bottles. Why? Because the babies cry and get on the nurses nerves. Mothers fail at nursing because their babies aren't with them after birth; they are brought to them when it is "time to nurse them." Mothers fail at breastfeeding because they don't nurse enough due to idiots telling them to nurse every four hours; their babies are hungry and their milk doesn't come in. Babies should be fed on demand when breastfed. Babies should never be given a bottle, not even with one's own breast milk because it screws the baby up with nipple confusion. Fathers don't need to give babies a bottle to feel like they are part of their baby's lives; there are a dozen other things they can do with the baby. Mothers don't need a break from breastfeeding or their baby; they need help and support to make their lives with baby easier. One can help them with all the other baby chores; diapering, bathing, rocking, walking, rocking, walking, rocking. One can do all the cleaning and cooking for a new mom and keep her company so she doesn't lose her mind. One can take a mom out with the baby so she can have fun and see other people and places. Babies are very transportable, and when one breastfeeds, no formula or bottles need to be carted along. In fact, if a new mom is doing anything but but laying about with her baby at her breast, shame on those who should be pitching in and making her first two weeks after the baby is born work and chore free.
Women quit breastfeeding because they can or because they don't want to deal with it considering the lack of support and confusion they experience when trying to breastfeed or because they must go back to work and society doesn't support nursing at the workplace. Our society reinforces so much negativity about breastfeeding that quitting seems a good option. With all the support for stopping nursing out there, it takes a mother with a great deal of determination to continue; she must believe in her own mind that there IS no other option for feeding her baby. I have no idea where I got that mindset myself - maybe because I spent time in Africa - but I never once considered bottle feeding my babies. And I kept that mindset in spite of the major nipple pain I had with my first that had me crying through entire feedings during the first two weeks.
But, I never even envisioned I had an option; I must breastfeed my baby and not give her formula because this is what is best for my baby (not trying to appear righteous; I really think seeing African moms nursing stuck in my brain and the fact I was a health nut at the time helped put me in that frame of mind). And so I carried on. Lo, and behold, the pain went away, the nursing went fine and I continued for the next two years. I repeated the process with the next child (without the initial nipple issues). I never learned how to fix a bottle for my babies.
I can live with women choosing not to nurse because of employment; sometimes there is no option. But, we should not as a country delude ourselves into thinking women can't nurse their babies because this doesn't work and that doesn't work and this mom doesn't have enough milk and that baby doesn't latch on properly. Garbage. Put all our American mothers (healthy women with healthy babies) on an island with no bottles and formulas and a few days later you will find 100% of those mothers nursing their babies.
America's professional attitude toward breastfeeding is what makes it so hard for our new moms to be succeed in breastfeeding their babies. If these supposed professionals only told new moms the truth, they could make a real choice; do I want to nurse or don't I? Then they could be successful at whatever road they decided to go down.
Harkening back to the writing styles
of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson
McCullers, "Only the Truth" is a story of soul searching, a
psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and
when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated
African-American man living in the mountains of Arkansas, runs across a mysterious young woman
at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her
with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene,
unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally
good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the
neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray
is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic
killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth,
whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it
frees him from her spell.
Sheriff Chuck Wright of the Spartanburg County South Carolina Sheriff's Office - Guilty of Nonfeasance, Misfeasance, Malfeasance or just Incompetent?
What I didn't read on the web about this South Carolina county and their broken form of justice
Sheriff Chuck Wright and His Only Suspect
By
Don Corbett Board Certified
Investigator-Retired Police Detective
June 3, 2012
Note to The Daily Profiler Readers from Pat Brown: Today’s guest post is written by Don Corbett, a retired police detective, private investigator, and instructor for law enforcement. Like me, he has put in many hours pro bono on behalf of the families of the victims of the now near nine-year-old 2003 Spartanburg Country Superbike Motorsports quadruple homicides. And also, like me, he understands the struggles of police agencies to solve homicide cases and bring them to prosecution. However, he also fully recognizes, that there are some police agencies and government representatives, like those of other professions, that fail to do their jobs, refuse to be accountable for their work product, block oversight, and abuse the powers given to them by the state or the citizens. These particular agencies and individuals need to be identified and corrected if truth and justice is to prevail for the victims of these crimes and their families, and for the perpetrator or perpetrators of these heinous crimes to be removed from the streets so they cannot commit further damage to the community.
Sheriff
Chuck Wright has been heard on local and national television over the past year
stating ad nauseam, “Our form of justice is not making it.” Yet instead of making an
effort to be innovative and try something new to fix his broken form of
Spartanburg justice, he simply took the easy way out and told all women to arm
themselves. The Sheriff and his staff have treated the eight year unsolved cold
case of The Superbike MotorSports Quadruple Homicides in exactly the same
manner, the easy way, telling the victims' families that the Spartanburg form of
justice is broken in one breath (the case has been inadequately investigated
from the start so we can’t fix it) but seconds later telling that they don’t
need any outside help because they have everything under control.
So, the
Sheriff, instead of trying a new proactive approach such as by utilizing outside
assistance from trained, experienced investigators and criminal profilers, valuing fresh sets of eyes and their findings and recommendations, he has
decided he will continue to do it the good ole boy’s way of broken Spartanburg
justice. Keep the facts concealed to only a chosen few who have been doing the
same thing over and over again for eight years without any quantifiable results,
openly lie to the public, mislead the families into believing the case is being
actively investigated by one cold case detective who has 50 other cold cases on
his desk and shooing away any assistance who might identify nonfeasance,
misfeasance, malfeasance or outright corruption on the part of the past
sheriff, himself or his investigators. Why else conceal the facts after 8
years other than that they are hiding something?
Are Spartanburg County South Carolina Sheriff Chuck Wright
and his staff guilty of wrongdoing in the 2003 Superbike Motorsports Unsolved Quadruple Homicide
Investigation or are they just incompetent? That’s a question the victims'
families, residents and news media of Spartanburg County
need answered.
By failing to allow other experienced professional board
certified, retired police detectives and investigators such as myself to review
the cold case file under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and failing to
consider all of the findings and recommendations of the highly
recognized and experienced criminal profiler, Pat Brown (who
DID review the file for a total of 50 hours at the department's request and about which Sheriff Wright
outright lied on camera to the citizens of Spartanburg when he stated, “She's
pretty critical of a case she doesn't know anything about…that she's getting
off the Internet”), by failing to cooperate with them in hopes of developing new leads, Wright sends out a clear
message - to hell with the victims' families and the public; if we can’t solve
this case by ourselves, nobody will. So what if a quadruple murderer still
lives and works in this town with the broken justice system? Maybe will get him
next time. I have my ego to protect!
The Center for Public Integrity recently released its 2012 State
Integrity and Corruption Investigative findings and out of 50 states, South Carolina finished as one the worst five in the US. The
South Carolina Corruption Risk Report Card gave them an F receiving a 57% out
of a possible 100 points. The report can be viewed by viewing this link: http://www.stateintegrity.org/south_carolina.
In the report, South
Carolina received an F in Release of Public Access to
Information, Ethics Enforcement Agencies, Executive Accountability and other
critical areas of government. Sound familiar? It sounds like the Spartanburg
County Sheriffs Office was the place graded.
After working with Pat Brown on this case and looking at the
facts as we know them, it is blatantly obvious that the Sheriff and his
investigators have failed miserably by not focusing on the evidence at hand, not properly investigating the two most obvious persons-of-interest, and not letting the family and
others know what they really have uncovered at this point but, more importantly, what they don’t have not.
Sheriff Wright has forgotten about the family and victims
and has let his ego stand in the way; his broken justice system refuses to
reach out for free assistance. What does he have to lose? Sheriff Wright needs to
quit hiding behind his lame interpretation of the South Carolina Freedom of Information
Act Exemptions section and open this case to those who can develop the
information he needs to put a killer behind bars.
On his first full day in office, President Obama issued an
executive order that turned a new page on open government and emphasized the
importance of transparency, stating, "A democracy requires accountability,
and accountability requires transparency... In the face of doubt, openness
prevails." Apparently Chuck Wright missed the president’s comments or
believes it doesn’t apply to his “Good Old Boy Network”.
A great majority of Spartanburg County residents and the
media are currently under the false impression that their sheriff and staff is
omnipotent and above misfeasance, nonfeasance or malfeasance when investigating
violent crimes and cold case homicides, believing that all cases will be adequately
investigated in a timely manner by a professional-experienced investigator who
is willing to think outside the box, and that they will release pertinent information which will
assist in identifying suspects and murderers. But they have been badly misled
by Sheriff Wright and his “Good Ole Boy Network”.
More and more often, victims’ families are learning that they are again victimized by the very
agency charged with solving the crime. Sheriff Chuck Wright must begin to work
with the public by sharing information with them to take murderers off the
street. He has obviously forgotten he is responsible to protect and serve the
public and needs to be held accountable for his organizational dysfunction and
lack of professionalism.
Each of us knows that
people's trust in law enforcement is increased when their police, sheriff and
related law enforcement authorities can show and demonstrate to the public and
victims' families that they have conducted a thorough investigation with integrity.
By failing to release information on this investigation to other trained
professionals and the victims' families it would appear to the family and public
that Sheriff Wright has failed to adequately investigate the case or has
something to hide. It also breeds corruption which sources have advised me openly
exists in South Carolina.
In this case, Sheriff Wright has intentionally withheld
information from the media, trained outside investigators, the victims’
families and the public by denying them access to the case file, again hiding
behind his lame interpretation of the FOIA law enforcement exemptions section
and what appears to be blatant incompetence in office.
This is a travesty of justice and an insult to the victims'
families who must live every day traumatized by not knowing who and why
someone murdered their loved ones and when and where they will strike again.
And without question, this killer will kill again and may have already done so.
I have made it clear to the Sheriff that I do not need to view any restricted or confidential data that may
affect a future trial and will not copy or record anything he deems restricted.
I also offered to sign a confidentiality and non-release agreement with the
Sheriff.
In this nearly 9 year old blitz style quadruple homicide
where four young lives were snuffed out with no named person of interest or
suspects being publicly identified, Sheriff Wright still refuses to allow the family
or me (acting on their behalf) to view any part of the investigative file in an
effort to develop new leads, locate something that was overlooked by the original
investigators, etc. They had steadfastly refused to allow the family or me to see Pat Brown's profile even though they claimed it was useless. My concern is when does a cold case of this magnitude
become available to the family and their representatives so that they can
confirm that every thing that can be done to solve the case has been done? Simply
relying on Sheriff Wright’s hollow statements that they have done everything in
their power to solve the case is not acceptable and disrespectful to the
families and public.
If the case is never solved by the authorities but left in an
"open-active" status, the family, outside investigators, public and media
will be forever kept in the dark as to what occurred on that hot November
afternoon and a killer will continue to roam the streets to kill again. We believe
the Sheriff needs to open this case file, listen to our recommendations and
findings and solve this case.
Based on my professional opinion as a seasoned board investigator/retired
police detective and my interpretation of the South Carolina FOIA, Sheriff Wright
should have no reason to deny my viewing of the investigative file (minus
restricted data) based on the totality of the circumstances and the 8 + years
that have passed since the crime was committed which certainly confirms I am
not acting prematurely in this matter. If the sheriff never closes the file or
allows others to view it, this investigation will go unsolved forever.
As a retired police detective and board certified
investigator with 30+ years experience it is obvious to me that Sheriff Chuck
Wright is either guilty of nonfeasance, misfeasance or malfeasance for his
total lack of accountability and failure to respond to my repeated official
request for documents which under the FOIA is a clear violation of South
Carolina law punishable by jail and fines. Sheriff Wright has also commented
that if I had been in his office when he received my initial request, he would have
ignored my FOIA request for these records and he would have “decked me” which is an
obvious threat, not to mention extremely unprofessional for a person in his
position. His investigator William Gary, has also threatened to arrest me if I
failed to stop interviewing witnesses while in Spartanburg.
It is further evident that Sheriff Wright has intimidated
others in the community including the media, his own investigators, deputies
and potential witnesses to the extent that they fear repercussions if they
discuss the Supebike Motorsports killings without his authorization.
There
is an old Latin phrasefrom the Roman poet Juvenal, “quis
custodiet ipsos custodies,” that
translates to “who’s policing our police” which desperately needs to be
answered in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Who’s policing Sheriff Wright
and his Posse? Evidently, no one. Sheriff Wright needs to lose his over-inflated
ego and do the “WRIGHT” thing. Open the case file.
Don Corbett is a retired police detective and board
certified investigator with 30+ years of experience in law enforcement and
investigations from the State of Ohio who assists families of murdered and
missing children get the cooperation, information and service they deserve from
law enforcement investigators.
Don Corbett, Columbus, Ohio
May 28, 2012
Contact number 614-565-7189 or email
donaldcorbett@gmail.com
Note: The phrase "I read it on the Internet" is included in this original post because at the time it was written, Sheriff Wright had claimed I never worked with the department and everything I know of the case "I read on the Internet." Clearly, I did NOT get my information from the Internet but from police files but if Wright was willing to make that statement, I was willing to write exactly what "I read on the Internet."
This is my third and final post on the Superbike quadruple homicides that took place in Chesnee, South Carolina in 2003. I will be discussing persons-on-interest and how the evidence in the murders supports taking a stronger look at some of them and doesn't support overfocusing on certain persons to the exclusion of better suspects.
Before I begin this discussion of what I read on the Internet concerning certain persons-of-interest, I want to state that nothing I am putting forth here is any accusation of guilt; no one has been proven to have committed these crimes and they are innocent in the eyes of the law until proven otherwise in a court of law. However, if certain people behaved in certain ways and said certain things that are concerning, then it is not unreasonable to expect that the investigators from the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department should have properly and thoroughly investigated these persons, which, from what I read on the Internet, they did not.
There are three main persons-of-interest in the Superbike murders. As in all crimes, the last person to see the victims alive, the first person to see them dead, and anyone who might have had access to the scene in between those times are the persons-of-interest and each needs to be investigated and eliminated.
I want to start with the least likely person-of-interest in these crimes which is the man in the composite the Sheriff's Department has been dogging for almost nine years, claiming straight out that he is involved in the homicides. First of all, from everything I read on the Internet, there is not one shred of evidence linking this unknown man, this customer who was not the last person in the business before the homicides, to the crimes. There is no unknown DNA or fingerprints that can be linked to anyone, so no match is ever going to pop up in CODIS linking some felon to the Superbike murders. Unless this man one day is arrested for the commission of another crime and a firearm is found on his person or in his car or apartment that matches the ballistics in these homicides, then this avenue is pretty much worthless. The only other possibility is that someone rats him out, a warrant is gotten, and the detectives find the gun at his residence. Could it happen? Sure. Not likely, but I am all for a miracle.
Problem is, the man in the composite is the least likely of the three persons-of-interest to have committed the crime. Why? First of all, it is blatantly stupid and hard to believe that this man would go to the business, spend a relatively long time chatting with the people there, sit on a motorcycle, and let all the other customers see his face if he were planning to blow everyone away that day. Furthermore, why would he leave the business and come back to kill everyone? Why not hang around until there were no customers were there or just kill a customer or two if you are psychopathic enough to blow away the others? And since you have let someone see your face, the customer who inspired the composite, why not just kill that man so you don't have a witness left behind to identify you? I find the unknown customer in the composite a red herring of a lead that, yes, should have been followed up but he would not be my top choice of focus.
Let's back up to the last person who was in the business before the murders went down. As I read on the Internet, he was a reasonable person-of-interest and he has not been entirely eliminated. The best reason to look at him was the simple fact he was there right before it all went down and, if he killed everyone and drove off, there would be no witnesses to say it was him. However, his credit card was swiped right before he left, so he would have to be a blazing idiot or extremely angry. Now, the first he was not from what I have read on the Internet; the second was possible. He was a bit annoyed with the shop that day. And, because of this, he needed to be eliminated as a suspect. As I read on the Internet, he certainly had firearms and he refused to take a polygraph. However, it seems, he might have an excellent alibi. As I read on the Internet, his truck was seen going by a convenience store in a video with a time stamp on it that was only two minutes after the last shot was fired. That shot was made at 2:52 pm and his truck was seen going by at 2:54 pm. Now, the drive from the shop to the store is 4.2 miles and supposedly takes eleven minutes according to Google. I test drove that road in a sports car and I was able to cut the time in half.
I was unable to learn from the stuff I read on the Internet whether the detectives had double-checked the accuracy of the clock associated with the video; if the time was off by a few minutes, this could disqualify the alibi of the last customer. However, the time would have to be quite a bit off because it took me around five minutes to drive like a hellion in a small sports car and I had to time leaving the parking lot just before I saw a car coming, so I could pull out in front of it and hope to get a clear road all the way to the store with no slow boat in front of me or anyone pulling on to the road and ruining my speedy run. In fact, it took me a dozen runs to get lucky enough to have no traffic impede me and get my speed down to five minutes. The last customer/person-of-interest was driving an old truck which was pulling a motorcycle, so unless the clock was seriously off (by at least five or six minutes), there is no way he could have made it down the road that quickly. However, the clock should still have been checked so that this man could have been solidly eliminated as a suspect and he wasn't.
Although this would be my second-in-line person-of-interest, I think his alibi could hold, the credit card swipe with his name makes it rather unlikely that he would then commit the homicides, and, although he was a bit annoyed, there is nothing in particular that makes me think he had enough motive to kill everyone there, starting with Beverly Guy.
Now, to my Number One person-of-interest, Noel Lee. Again, I will state that I have no proof from what I read on the Internet that there is evidence to arrest and convict this man. He is only a person-of-interest to me and, in the eyes of the Sheriff's Department, not a person-of-interest at all. How this can be mystifies me. Even if he is innocent of the crime, he should have been investigated and eliminated because he was, as I read on the Internet and you can actually read this on the Internet and even see him say so in Geraldo's video, that he was the one to discover the bodies and make the 911 call. The only reason I mention his name here is because he willingly did so with his appearance on television which means he was not attempting to keep his identity a secret.
The first reason Noel Lee must be a person-of-interest is because he was the one to discover the bodies. As we have seen in many crimes, often the perpetrator shows up on the scene to "find the bodies" because that way. he can have an excuse for being seen there in case he was indeed seen there (or his vehicle was seen there or in the area) and, if he is worried his fingerprints are there or he has blood on his clothing, he can say he touched things when he arrived or he touched the bodies in an attempt to check on their condition or do CPR. To be clear, from what I read on the Internet, Noel Lee, who discovered the bodies, did not have blood on his person or clothing and he did not touch the bodies. He only touched the phone in the business and there is no information available as to whether his fingerprints were found anywhere (supposedly only the fingerprints of the victims were found which is a bit odd considering this is a place full of customers). However, it is unlikely the killer touched anything anyway as this all went down very quickly. The only places he might have touched would have been the outside door and the swinging doors between the front showroom and the back work area. He may have been wearing gloves.
The second reason Noel Lee should be a person-of-interest is because he has no alibi that I know of (from what I read on the Internet). He phoned the business from his home phone and spoke to Beverly Guy about picking up some tickets. As I read on the Internet, that call was placed at 2:25 pm. The shootings took place around 2:50 pm with the last shot being fired at 2:52 pm. Lee placed the 911 call at 3:12.
Noel Lee's home is 11.4 miles from the shop. Again, Google states a rather slow drive with nearly thirty minutes required. Considering I halved the drive to the convenience store in my sports car, I find it highly likely Lee could drive the distance to the shop in his BMW in half that time or less considering he states, as I read on the Internet, that there were no other cars at all on the road on his way to the shop. If he left the house directly after hanging up the phone, he could have been in the store by the time the shootings went down.
From what I read on the Internet, Noel Lee's story changes from his first to his second interview and he says a number of things which are rather peculiar and raise red flags; this is another reason he should have been looked at more closely.
As I read on the Internet:
In his first interview he states: He tells Beverly Guy he is on his way to pick up the tickets, arrives at the store, and thinks his friends are playing a joke on him by lying in blood on the sidewalk in front of the store; then he stated, "I’m calling 911 and immediately went to the phone inside the
front show room on the wall and called 911. She asked me if they was anybody
down and I told her I see his mom down in the back showroom and she said is
there anybody else down? I said I don’t know. I’m not walking into the back of
this place. She said well go back outside and wait on 911 to arrive. So I
walked back out front and waited on you guys to get here." He also states he hadn't been around the business within the last two weeks.
In his second interview, two years later, he states: " For some strange reason, I decided to take a shower instead
of just throwing my clothes on and going up there." And he is talking to his girlfriend the entire time while he is driving. In fact, she tells him not to call 911 from across the street (or to use his cell phone) but tells him to go inside the business (where the killer might still be) to make the phone call. He claims she told him that "if you leave and somebody sees you leave, they are going to think you did it." So he steps over his friend's body that is blocking the door and goes in to make the 911 call. This time he claims he said something totally different to the operator, "I said I need to go see if the fourth person is here because
they were normally four people here and she said do not go into that back room because you do not
know who else is there." He also states he was at the business the previous weekend.
From what I read on the Internet, Lee states that he went inside without a gun because he wasn't thinking and thought if he could get help there quickly, he could save their lives. Yet, in his 911 call, he doesn't get around very quickly to requesting medical assistance; in fact, his whole demeanor is rather breezy. He also states that he looked to see if Brian Lucas's chest was moving up and down and he was going to give him CPR. Apparently, he never does and he says he never saw his chest move up and down during the time it took for the news helicopter to fly overhead.
There was twenty minutes from the time the last shot was fired until the 911 call leaving Noel Lee enough time to leave the scene, ditch a weapon and wash his hands (he had moonshine available in his vehicle and water is available nearby) and come back. A GSR test was listed (as I read on the Internet) but the results were not. Likewise, there was something about a polygraph but further details were not available. Lee has told others he passed one. No tickets were noted to be found inside Superbike nor on Lee (but it was not stated that his clothing or pockets or wallet or vehicle were examined). Lee states he could see the hands of Scott Ponder, yet this would have been impossible by the time he arrived as Ponder's hands were not visible due to the position he was expired in.
Lee's behavior following the murders was considered odd by a number of people who felt he showed little sadness or concern over his friend's deaths. He claims in the second interview that I read on the Internet that he is on medication to keep him from "wigging out" and he has had seizures since the stress of his first marriage and short-term memory problems which causes him to forget things. Also, I read on the Internet, a curious bit of questioning about Lee having left the scene and come back which he said he was 100% positive he didn't do and "would put his hand on a Bible" to attest to that fact. As to his statement that he "for some strange reason" decided to take a shower, statement analysis of this wording indicates deception; first of all, it is odd Lee would decide to take a shower just to go pick up some tickets and take one at that time for no reason, which is exactly why he has to say "for some strange reason;" it is behavior that doesn't make sense. The only good reason a shower would be useful at that time is to delay his arrival at the shop until after the murders go down.
One more strange statement is useful to analyze; that Lee thought his friends were playing a trick on him by pretending to be dead on the sidewalk and he saw them and told them, "Joke's over." In many crimes when a guilty party gives an odd statement in explanation of what they did or thought, what they are doing is using a previous event (because it did happen and then speaking of it is a sort of truthful thing) and moving it forward to another time or situation. My question would be, "Did someone tell Noel Lee, "Joke's over." And if so, what joke did they think it was?
A number of people state Lee had a falling out with Scott Ponder and Brian Lucas and was told not to come around the shop. Yet, he is supposedly picking up tickets that day from Scott. Just before the last customer leaves, that customer overhears Beverly Guy having a heated conversation with someone, he believes she is on the phone with because he doesn't hear another voice or see anyone else. This is exactly the time Noel Lee made his call to Guy. Twenty-five minutes later, Guy is the first one shot in the quadruple homicides.
I want to point out to those who think this might have been a professional hit: there was nothing particular professional about it. Eighteen rounds were fired to kill four people, a number of them completely missing their target. The shots were fired at relatively close range so an average person would have little trouble hitting their target (and, in spite of this, as I read on the Internet, the shooter missed Sherbert and the two escaping men a couple of times). The victims were capped in the head only after they were immobile, so this didn't require much talent either. The killer left all the shell casings on the floor which meant he left evidence. This is not a brilliant crime nor an overly skilled one. It was simply opportunistic. No one saw the killer commit the crime and he got away with it.
From what I read on the Internet, there was no follow-up on Noel
Lee, no phone records checked to see if he was on the phone with his
girlfriend during the drive to Superbike, no serious interrogation, nothing of substance that indicates the detectives considered Lee a serious person-of-interest or even attempted to eliminate him through aggressive investigation.
Noel Lee just may be an oddly behaving fellow with the bad luck to come upon his friends just as they had been shot. But in almost nine years from the very first day, obvious persons-of-interest like Lee were ignored while one questionable person-of-interest got all the attention. This is an egregious failure of the Sheriff's Department to handle the case properly, if one can call this handling the case at all.
Almost no case so mishandled from the start has a prayer of making it to prosecution. Evidence that should have been located and confiscated early on is likely long gone. For a case with no DNA or fingerprints, the loss of time may be a justice killer. All we can hope now is that by my going public with all the information I have read on the Internet, someone with information and evidence will come forward and, by the miracle all the families hope for, justice can still be served.
And, if it can't be, we need to work to make sure our law enforcement agencies receive better training, more funding, and have criminal profilers in place when the case is fresh so that egos and politics don't squash the input of these profilers or of private investigators who come in years later and find the case has been wrongly pursued. We need to insure that the families and citizens have the right to hold their police agencies accountable for their work product, that new laws are instituted - "Sunshine Laws" -laws that require cases to be reviewed by an independent panel after a specific number of years in order to ensure oversight of case handling and police honesty and professionalism.
Something needs to be done. The failure of the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department to solve a solvable crime for nearly a decade is not an anomaly in the world of criminal investigations. Cold case after cold case get shelved for similar failures and we are not doing a thing to change a system that is clearly not working.
Harkening back to the writing styles
of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson
McCullers, "Only the Truth" is a story of soul searching, a
psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and
when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated
African-American man living in the mountains of Arkansas, runs across a mysterious young woman
at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her
with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene,
unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally
good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the
neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray
is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic
killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth,
whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it
frees him from her spell.
Note: The phrase "I read it on the Internet" is included in this original post because at the time it was written, Sheriff Wright had claimed I never worked with the department and everything I know of the case "I read on the Internet." Clearly, I did NOT get my information from the Internet but from police files but if Wright was willing to make that statement, I was willing to write exactly what "I read on the Internet."
The first place any profiler or detective should start in doing an analysis of a case is with the crime scene, not with gut feelings, tips, rumors, or even suspects. The crime scene tells us exactly what happened and often, why it happened, and then who most likely made it happen.
Sometimes the department will keep secret exactly how a crime went down in hopes that when they interview a possible suspect, that person will describe the scenario and, if it matches what actually happened, the detectives will have a good clue that this person knows more than the general public as to the crime elements. However, after almost nine years and no suspect in sight, the Superbike murders would be better served getting the truth out to the public and seeing what it shakes out. For this reason, I feel the forwarding of the case will be helped by an accurate description of what occurred. Also, since Sheriff Chuck Wright and the Department have repeatedly put forth a theory that is clearly not based on any evidence I read on the Internet and has had no problem laying out their version of the order of the shootings, I will follow their lead and do so as well.
To get an overview of the crime scene and Department's conclusions, you can view location of the scene and description of how they say it went down with this television offering by Geraldo Rivera.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department (SPSO) is adamant from what I read on the Internet that the shooter came in the back bay door of the business shot Chris Sherbert first as he was cleaning up a motorcycle, then went through the swinging door into the shop and encountered Beverly Guy leaving the bathroom or the office and shot her, and then shot Brian Lucas and Scott Ponder as they tried to escape out the front door. As I read on the Internet, seventeen rounds were fired requiring a changing of clips. The Department has never explained or at least I never read it on the Internet just when the shooter did this in the midst of shooting the three in the front room and there is no explanation, if he had to change clips at that point, why the two men didn't escape further while he was doing so. They have never explained when the shooter shot them in the bodies and when he shot them in the head. They never explained why, if the shooter mixed his ammunition with eleven silver casings and seven brass (as I read on the Internet) and he shot the victims from the back of the store to the front, each of the victims (except Guy) ended up with a bullet in the head that had a brass casing (as I also read on the Internet).
I believe the Department's refusal to explain (as I read on the Internet) that oddity lies with their need to develop a scenario that matches their theory that the unknown guy in the composite first went after the employee cleaning up the bike he was supposed to buy and then went after everyone else. Not that this makes great sense because if you come in the back way and start the shooting there, you are unaware of who is out front and by the time you get there, other customers may have come in. Besides, your anger should be with Scott Ponder and he should be the most important target and normally a killer would choose him to start with. Perhaps the thinking is that the perpetrator didn't want his vehicle seen so he parked in the back and came in that way and then went back that way to his vehicle. Nothing wrong with this theory and, in fact, it still could be true if the guy walked past Christ Sherbert to the front, did his shootings, and then return to get Sherbert. But, the detectives, from what I read on the Internet refuse to even allow for this possibility and I think this stubbornness lies in their desire to make Sherbert the first victim of the guy in the composite and, in doing so, choose to ignore the ballistics evidence. But it is terribly important as it shows exactly what the shooter did and why as you will see.
From what I read on the Internet, I propose this scenario of how the shootings went down:
The behaviors of the victims clearly indicate Beverly Guy was shot
first. If the killer had been intent on shooting Ponder or Lucas first and
pulled out a gun in the front room, he would likely have shot the men where
they stood considering how close the shooter was to these two men. However, the
killer shot them only after they were in motion, running toward the front door
in order to escape. Something clearly set them off and this would be the
shooting of Guy. Once that shot (nickel casings) was fired directly
at Guy’s head (she turned away) and then chest, the shooter being face to face with her, the men made a break
for it. The next shot hit Brian Lucas in the backside causing him to
collapse in the door, with Scott Ponder leaping over him; then the shots to Ponder’s
back took him down to the ground (all nickel casings). He changed clips to the brass magazine.
At this point the shooter knew there was one
more person he needed to deal with and he turned and went back through the
swinging doors into the work area. There was music on in both the front and back so
it is questionable as to whether Sherbert actually knew the others had been
shot down. It is possible he did hear the shots but by the time he realized
what was going on, the shooter had already entered the back of the shop. The
shooter fired as soon as he came through the swinging door approximately from
the area of three bikes to the left of Brass Casings 21 and 22. The trajectory is in perfect
line with the back storage room where the bullets went through the boxes. The
shooter’s position would be in the general area where the crescent wrench with
the black handle was found should Sherbert have thrown it at the shooter in a
desperate attempt to stop him. This evidence is proof that Sherbert did see him
coming and that the shooter was coming at him from the swinging doors. He was
the final victim, not the first victim. Sherbert likely was ducking behind the
motorcycle he was working on as soon as he saw the killer coming toward him
with a gun.
He then moved in on
Sherbert who had no way to stand up from behind the motorcycle and run out the
bay door without getting shot. The shooter came up over him and shot him in the back and chest and then capped him with a shot to the head.
The shooter then returned to the front of the business to
finish off his victims. He shot Lucas once in the
head. It is during this time (or while the shooter was in the back) I believe
Ponder, still alive but knowing he was not going to make it, dialed 33 on his
phone and pressed send, attempting to reach his wife with a final goodbye and,
perhaps, an attempt to identify the shooter to her. Ponder appears to have
pushed himself up on his knees with his left arm and dialed his phone with his
free right hand and pressed the send button at 2:52. This was likely very
within a minute or seconds before the shooter capped him in the head. I do not agree with the theory I read on the Internet that Ponder
dialed the phone number while running in a panic over his friend and through
the glass front door. I have attempted to recreate this scenario and found it
impossible to hit the three buttons on the phone while in this kind of motion.
The shots in the head of all four victims apparently ended their lives within
seconds as there is no evidence of movement after the last four shots were
fired.
At 3:12 PM, the emergency phone call to 911 comes in from
Noel Lee.
This scenario is very important in determining suspects. The scenario shows exactly when the shootings occurred and the time it took for them to go down and what the likely motive was. I will be discussing motives and persons-of-interest based on this scenario an all I have read on the Internet in my next blog post.
Harkening back to the writing styles
of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson
McCullers, "Only the Truth" is a story of soul searching, a
psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and
when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated
African-American man living in the mountains of Arkansas, runs across a mysterious young woman
at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her
with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene,
unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally
good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the
neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray
is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic
killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth,
whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it
frees him from her spell.
Note: The phrase "I read it on the Internet" is included in this original post because at the time it was written, Sheriff Wright had claimed I never worked with the department and everything I know of the case "I read on the Internet." Clearly, I did NOT get my information from the Internet but from police files but if Wright was willing to make that statement, I was willing to write exactly what "I read on the Internet."
Almost nine years has gone by since four people were brutally gunned down at Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, South Carolina in 2003. And in all those years, the only thing the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department will tell the family and community as to what they are looking at is one man who was seen in the business prior to the homicides that no one knows who he is. This is their one and only suspect in the murders. And, yes, I can call him their one and only suspect because Sheriff Chuck Wright clearly stated this to the press when he said, "This fellow will tell us exactly what happened in the shop that day."
Now, since Sheriff Chuck Wright surely always tells the truth and is always straight with the citizens of his county, what does that statement tell you? You don't need to be a profiler or statement analyst to interpret those words. Sheriff Wright is telling us the man in the composite was involved in the homicides either as the shooter or a co-conspirator. And because he is telling us this, then by default, he is eliminating the person I believe all the evidence that I read on the Internet points to.
And why does Sheriff Wright know that the man in the composite is involved in the crime? Is it because he has any evidence supporting his involvement? Absolutely not. From all the evidence that I read on the Internet, there was not one witness to the crime to say that the man in the composite was involved nor were any statements about this man in the composite made that would indicate anyone saw him elsewhere tossing a gun or speeding off in a car and no one has heard a man of this description talking about involvement in the crime. In fact, the only time the man in the composite was seen or heard was in the store that day and the only one to say about anything about him is the man who gave the description for the composite (which after eight years he decided should be changed because it wasn't quite right). And what was this suspicious man doing? Looking at a motorcycle, trying to decide if he was going to buy it. What a crime.
So, what makes this man the one and only suspect for Sheriff Chuck Wright? I read on the Internet that if the man had no involvement in the crime, he would have come forward and admitted he was the one in Superbike that day shopping for a motorcycle because folks in South Carolina, unlike other places in the country, would always come forward if they were innocent, even if they had a criminal record and distrusted cops. And, because this man never gave the police a call, it means he is involved in the crime.
Also, I read on the Internet, it was terribly suspicious that the owner didn't have his name written down on the paperwork, like the man was hiding his identity. Did the Sheriff ever consider that perhaps this customer was being giving the hard sell?
"Hey, why don't I get the paperwork started and the bike cleaned up for you and then you can come back and sign everything?"
And, then, either the guy realized he couldn't afford the bike and decided not to come back and buy it or he heard about the murders and had no reason to come back. Once he saw his face being shown on television as a person of suspicion, he decided (wisely in my opinion considering the Sheriff is claiming he is involved in the crime without a shred of evidence and I know this because I read about it on the Internet), to pretend he never entered Superbike Motorsports that day.
MOST IMPORTANT: What if that guy left Superbike, went down the street to buy a soda, came back and
saw the killer leaving the crime scene? Now, he will never come
forward. Thank you, Sheriff Wright, for impeding the investigation by totally scaring off a possibly excellent witness.
Now, to analyzing motive: why would this man in the composite check out the place, leave, and come back a short time later and blow everyone away? What was the motive? From what I read on the Internet, the motive the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department has assigned to this crime is price gouging. Yes, supposedly some guy got cheated out of some money, perhaps via an Internet transaction with the shop, and decided to kill everyone there over the issue. Now, I also read on the Internet that there was no evidence of anyone angrily communicating with owner or anyone else in the shop in the days, weeks, or even months prior to the murder about being ripped off as on would expect if someone's anger was escalating to the point of a coldbloodedly murdering everyone in the business. Also, one would expect someone furious about being cheated out of money to steal his money back from the business or take something else of worth but, from what I read on the Internet, nothing was taken from inside the business.
So where did Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department come up with this idea of price gouging as a motive? I read on the Internet it seems like they just thought that could be a possible reason for the murders. The only other motive that Iread on the Internet they seemed to have considered is something to do with drugs although I also have read on the Internet that there is no evidence that drugs had a thing to do with these murders. The detectives may be open to receiving all sorts of tips and leads concerning price gouging, drug dealing, and any other sort of possible motive leading to homicide (as they should), and they may follow them up (as they should), but, I can tell you from what I read on the Internet, that there is only one person-of-interest with a solid motive and to whom the evidence points (as I have determined by reading stuff on the Internet) and he is not the man in the composite. Note: I am not saying that the man in the composite could not be involved in the crime or shouldn't be investigated. I am simply saying there is no evidence linking that man in the composite to the crime and he should not be considered the top person-of-interest nor identified as a perpetrator as the Sheriff has done.
And while the person-of interest I am alluding to may not be guilty of the crimes, he certainly should be investigated and eventually charged if sufficient evidence supports charges or he should be eliminated as a suspect if the investigation determines he is not involved in the murders. I can tell you without question having read the information on the Internet that this man was never properly investigated nor eliminated; he has no alibi for the time of the murders, he was deceptive in his interviews, he had the opportunity and a credible motive.
If nothing else, I can tell you from what I have read on the Internet, he is a far stronger suspect than that man in the composite that Sheriff Chuck Young keeps using as his fall guy for a poorly handled and failed investigation.
Harkening back to the writing styles
of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson
McCullers, "Only the Truth" is a story of soul searching, a
psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and
when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated
African-American man living in the mountains of Arkansas, runs across a mysterious young woman
at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her
with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene,
unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally
good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the
neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray
is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic
killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth,
whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it
frees him from her spell.
Eight years ago on November 6, 2003 four people were gunned down in cold blood in Chesnee, South Carolina in the middle of an ordinary work day at the Superbike Motorsports, a shop that sold motorcycles. The murdered were the owner, Scott Ponder, his mother Beverly Guy, his best friend and right hand business man Brian Lucas, and a new employee who was cleaning up bikes in the back, Chris Sherbert. Someone came into the business shot them all dead in the middle of the day when there were no witnesses in the building to identify the shooter.
Zero progress has been made in solving this crime. Why? In my opinion, not because it is unsolvable or difficult to solve or because that one person won't come forward and identify himself (the man police claim is the key to the crime, in fact, the man they claim is involved in the crime, the man they have been showing a composite of, albeit now an altered composite, for year upon year). It won't be solved because the police refuse to believe the evidence in front of them or refuse to investigate it for some reason. I know because I spent a week in Spartanburg County, South Carolina working with the Sheriff's department, going through the files, analyzing every photo and bit of evidence, and running an experiment to test how long it took to drive from the shop to a convenience store that would help rule in or rule out one suspect. I have read all the interviews.
After I left, the police told the family I was just a celebrity whose profile wasn't worth anything. Yet, they refuse to show that profile to the family and tell them what is wrong with it. They won't reveal any of what I said because it is damning to their reputation, their analysis and handling of the investigation. I can't tell you what I came up with, what the evidence shows, because I signed a contract that states I will not release the specifics of the evidence. And because of this I have remained quiet for years hoping that they would move forward with the profile analysis and investigate properly. However, ever since AMW rolled into town and harped yet again on that composite of some unknown custom/person-of-interest again, I have just been steaming. What a bloody sham.
I can't tell you what the evidence is but I can tell you this. None of the four murder victims were involved in any drug operation. The motive for the crime wasn't some kind of drug deal gone bad. There is no reason to believe drugs were ever at the business nor hidden in motorcycles coming in and out of the business, so this isn't a falling out over drugs.
Nothing was taken from the business, so this wasn't a robbery. Nothing was damaged in the business, so this wasn't retaliation. The police got the order of the shooting wrong because they misunderstood the ballistics; the guy in the back, Chris Sherbert, was not shot first. The way the shooting went down shows me that the murders were personal and the was a specific reason the four were shot in the order in which they were shot. Also, because nothing was touched in the shop shows me that the murders were not about money. This was the crime of a psychopath who had a falling out with certain people at the business.
Is there someone who fits this description who should be known to the police? You bet there is. Not only is he known but he was interviewed twice and his statements are off-the-wall for bizarre and deceptive. Did he have an alibi for the time of the crime? No. Could he have committed the crime? Yes. When I showed the police exactly what was peculiar about his statements, where he was clearly lying, exactly how he could have committed the crime and why, what was their response? They just said they didn't think it was him.
What did they tell the family? They told him they had investigated the man thoroughly. That is a blatant untruth because I know from the files that the man's cock-and-bull story was never followed up. Why? I have no idea. Why not now? Probably because it would make them look bad to suddenly change course and state they ignored someone who should have been investigated right in the beginning.
Scared schmuck who is NEVER coming forward
I rarely speak out against a police department after I work with them but I am to the point of disgust with being slandered by them to the family and their refusal to come clean with their failure to solve this case in eight years and why. I hope some media outlet and the family finally get fed up with this smoke-and-mirrors game being played by the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department and get to the bottom of this crime in which the motive is still a mystery.Like hell it is. If you follow the evidence and the obvious person-of-interest it becomes clear as day. If you keep trying to pin the crime on some poor scared schmuck who Sheriff Wright claims should not be worried about identifying himself in spite of the fact he states, "This fellow will tell us exactly what happened in the shop that day," you won't get very far.
Actually, all Sheriff Wright has to do to solve this crime is follow the evidence. Heck, he could even watch Geraldo's videotaped interview and get a pretty good start.
Harkening back to the writing styles
of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson
McCullers, "Only the Truth" is a story of soul searching, a
psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and
when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated
African-American man living in the mountains of Arkansas, runs across a mysterious young woman
at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her
with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene,
unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally
good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the
neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray
is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic
killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth,
whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it
frees him from her spell.
And, clearly, those 195 new leads culled from a years worth of work by the MET's 37-man team should indeed inspire the Portuguese police to reopen the case and get to work following up these valuable clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source) which surely will result in the recovery of a living Madeleine McCann who can then be united with her long-suffering parents whose own five-year-long investigation using private detectives and reportedly spending millions in donated money has been a miserable failure.
But, now it is hoped that 195 new clues unearthed by the stellar British law enforcement agency previously overlooked by the bumbling Portuguese police will now be further investigated by this incompetent bunch of tossers.
A Sampling of the New Clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source)
1. A Spanish woman saw a blonde child
2. An Italian woman saw a blond child
3. A Portuguese man saw a blond child
4. A British couple saw a blond child
5. A French couple saw a blond child
6. A Spanish woman heard a rumor
7. An Italian woman heard a rumor
8. A Portuguese man heard a rumor
9. A British couple heard a rumor
10. A French couple heard a rumor
11. A Spanish woman saw a creepy man
12. An Italian woman saw a creepy man
13. A Portuguese man saw a creepy man
14. A British couple saw a creepy man
15. A French couple saw a creepy man
16. A Spanish woman saw a creepy woman
17. An Italian woman saw a creepy woman
18. A Portuguese man saw a creepy woman
19. A British couple saw a creepy woman
20. A French couple saw a creepy woman
I am hoping the readers of this blog will see that there is much hope now that the case of missing Madeleine McCann will be reopened, quickly solved, and the child returned home to her family.
(Blogs and Websites who want to encourage people of all races to care for each other, to raise their children with understanding and love for all, to teach them to be good citizens, and to keep them as safe as possible - feel free to repost this article on
your site as long as it is the full article and there is a link back to
The Daily Profiler and the links included within remain operable)
I woke up this morning to this article in USA today and it just really ticked me off. As everyone knows, I have spent a great deal of the last weeks doing commentary on the Trayvon Martin case, trying to keep focus on the evidence and not jump to conclusions on guilt. I urged people to remain calm when analyzing the case, to realize that we do not yet know all the facts. We do not know if Zimmerman is a racist or racially profiled Trayvon. What I concluded was that Zimmerman clearly profiled a young man as "up to no good" when had no proof of that as Trayvon was not in the act of committing a crime. It appears Zimmerman continued to pursue Trayvon against police dispatcher advice. Zimmerman moved aggressively towards Trayvon while carrying a firearm. If at that point, a fight ensued, regardless of who started it, Trayvon would be the one standing his ground and Zimmerman has no right to pull a gun out and shoot a man because he is losing a fistfight. Only if Zimmerman turned away from Trayvon and walked away from him, was followed and assaulted, would Zimmerman's claim of self-defense be valid.
But, now to what has gotten my goat this morning. Here are some statements from this article that pissed me off.
Years before the killing of Trayvon Martin grabbed the nation’s
attention, the teen’s father warned him that his race could make him a
target of violence.
The advice Tracy Martin gave his black son, that people veiled by
racism and prejudices might see him as suspicious or violent, is a
common and continuous warning in many black families, parents and
experts say. In the aftermath of Trayvon’s death, more families are
having “the talk,” teaching sons to be aware of their race, avoid
confrontations with authority figures, and to remain calm in situations
even if their rights are violated.
“I’ve always let him know we as African Americans get stereotyped,”
Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father told USA TODAY three weeks after his
son’s death. “I told him that society is cruel.”
and these statements from others to back up Mr. Martin's comments:
Reggie Bridges, a father of two young black boys, sees the Trayvon
Martin case as an example of the type of racial profiling he has warned
his sons about for years. “You stand out from the norm,” Bridges, of Silver Spring, Md., said
he often tells his children. “I try to heighten their awareness of
what’s going on in the world.”
Dionne Bensonsmith, 40, of Claremont, Calif., started talking to her
first son, Jonah, now 8, about race when he was 5 and 6. The youngster
had already started saying “all police aren’t your friends” and pointing
out that officers stopped a lot of black people in their small Iowa
city, she said. “I had the talk of how police target people around race,” said
Bensonsmith, a professor at Scripps College. “I said if that ever
happens to you, you have to remain respectful, you have to remain very
calm.”
She and many parents see “the talk” as evolving lessons on racial
consciousness that will cover more topics as children grow. But there
are challenges to teaching kids to live within racial injustices.
“It’s really heartbreaking,” said Bensonsmith, who also has another
son, Akim Shklyaro, 2. “Sometimes I get really pissed off. Sometimes I
don’t want to do it. I feel like I’m crushing some sort of potential in
him.”
And, finally, this statement from a white parent of biracial children:
When Steve Baker, who is white, decided to talk to his two half-black
sons, now 25 and 20, he admits he struggled to understand their place
in society. He relied on his black wife, Pamela, and friends he made
through an interracial family group to learn about what his sons may
encounter.
“There are certainly instances where they were identified by simply
what they look like and perceived as a threat and ran into negative
behavior based on that,” said Baker, a university administrator who
lives in Minneapolis. “There’s real danger for young men of color in our
society. … As a white person, I didn’t grow up having to think about
that.”
Okay. I guess I completely failed my two biracial children and my one black son. I never gave them the race talk. I never "relied" on my black husband to lecture my children on the realities of being nonwhite in America and I think he forgot to get around to giving them that speech. Neither of us bothered to warn our children about all the racism that was coming their way, of the racial profiling they were going to experience, of the negative encounters with police that were going to be unavoidable. We failed to prepare them at all.
Guess what? They never experienced any major racism nor have they had bad encounters with the police. They grew up with friends of all races and cultural backgrounds and dated people of all races as did, it seems, many of their friends. If they encountered racism, they understood that some people have issues; they didn't live with a chip on their shoulder assuming everyone was judging them based on race. And they didn't see everything around them as race based. Maybe they got that from me.
I once was driving across the Canadian border with my kids (no husband with me) and the border guard looked in my car and seeing nonwhite children, asked me, "Are they yours?" I gave him a mock shocked look and said, "Oh my God, I always thought they were." He cracked up and rolled his eyes and waved me through. I could have gotten mad over pretty much nothing. Was he accusing me of ferrying illegals into the country? I guess I could have looked at it that way. I could have gotten mad that just because my children weren't white, he was making assumptions that they couldn't be mine and that I was committing a crime. I could have become enraged at "racial profiling." I could have started border marches with other white parents with children of color to end racism from the border patrol. Oh, please, it was just a guy who profiled a situation that he could have been right about and I was not so sensitive I couldn't recognize that.
Likewise, at the park, when occasionally people of all colors asked me when if I was babysitting those three kids with me. I didn't get mad; I just said they were my kids and we had a nice conversation.
Once a church lady wouldn't let my black son out the door in spite of the fact he kept insisting that the approaching white lady was really his mother. We had a good laugh about that at the dinner table later with us replaying the incident, "But that is my mother! Please let me go! Let me go!!!". I didn't give him a speech about how horrible the woman was and how he was going to have to suffer forever because his mother was of a different race than him.
If everyone would stop overplaying the race card when it is unnecessary, we could get rid of a lot of racism from people of all backgrounds. Just because someone is ignorant of the fact Jamaica is not in Africa, does not mean they are a racist. Just because someone thinks country music is redneck and rap music is ghetto doesn't mean they are racist. Being overly sensitive about every designation and choice of label makes you a fanatic.
Finally, I did do what every parent should do with their children. I gave them lectures about their behavior and how society would perceive them. I taught them dressing like thugs would get them profiled as thugs in all neighborhoods and by all police officers regardless of the profiler's racial background. I taught my daughter that dressing like a ho would get her called a ho by all races and by both sexes. I told them them they had a responsibility to follow safety rules if and when the police stopped them because the police were scared of everyone they stopped because anyone could pull a weapon out in a flash and kill them. I taught them how using polite language and not reacting with nasty language to any situation would prevent misconceptions and bad altercations from occurring. In other words, I taught my children that they, yes, they had a responsibility to look and act like upstanding ladies and gentlemen when they went out of their homes and moved among other citizens. It is something all parents should teach their children regardless of their own race or their children's races.
I don't know exactly how Trayvon Martin was acting the evening he was profiled by George Zimmerman. I don't know if he was walking like a thug or talking like a thug. I am not saying that Trayvon deserves anything that happened to him (unless he truly attacked George Zimmerman from behind). What Zimmerman did in pursuing Trayvon was wrong since he was not a police officer and it was not his duty to approach anyone who was not in the act of committing a crime. But, hoodie or no hoodie, the perception people will get of your son or daughter, black or white or Asian or whatever, is the image he or she projects to others when in public. I really don't care if Trayvon was sporting a gold grill on his teeth and acting gangsta on his Facebook page; I don't care if he tweeted questionable crap to his friends. But, if he took that attitude and presentation to the streets, then that is what people on the streets see. Maybe some folks will only see a kid being a kid but others will see exactly what the presentation presents; a thug they should be wary of and race will have little to do with it.
When children leave the house, they should be dressed and act in a manner that does not bring suspicion or disrespect on them. This is a simple rule. We all have to watch our behavior and conduct in public locations. I don't know the people out there or what might upset them, so upstanding behavior is the requirement and one should have respect for whatever local culture one is in. My daughter and I wore hijab in Egypt and covered our arms and legs. We had no problems. We didn't run around half naked and then whine we were harassed. Conversely, wearing a burqa in America makes people here very uncomfortable and you can't blame Americans for not feeling warm and fuzzy when they see a woman dressed in such an attire. You don't walk into a bar in the south and tell them they are backwards and that the north is a much better place if you don't want to start a brawl. You should never say, "You people," if you don't want to draw a line between you and whomever you are conversing with. Commonsense, respect for others, and and not being a self-centered, arrogant fool make the world safer for everyone.
Parents should give their children "the talk," but they shouldn't give them the "race talk" unless they want their children to view the world as "us" and "them" and continue this whole foolish "people just can't get along" type of thinking.
What all children need to learn from their parents is that "we" need to do our part in caring for each other and there is no other group than "we."
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
My new mystery novel, Only the Truth with African-American protagonist, Sweet Billy Ray, is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. and Smashwords for just $2.99. If you are tired of all the talk about racial problems, Only the Truth is a story of love, faith, and compassion and nothing to do with racial problems at all; just a man, a simple and lonely man, who loves his girl, Charlene (who just happens to be white). But, Charlene, the mysterious drifter he has lived with and loved for two years, has just gone and shot the neighbor and he doesn't know what he to do about her. Love her still? Run like hell? Only the Truth is the story of a man who is willing to search for truth, only the truth, whether it helps him save his lady from a death sentence or sets him free from her spell.
"Killing for Sport is the most valuable insight into the minds of serial killers that you will ever read. While other profilers tend to conceal the clear facts behind complex technical language and psychobabble. Pat Brown actually tells it like it is."
