Friday, July 20, 2012

Tradegy in Colorado

All our prayers go out the victims of the recent theater shooting in Colorado, and their families.  It's impossible to get our heads around what motivates people to commit such senseless acts of violence against the innocent.

Many will no doubt try to use this tragedy for the advancement of their own political agendas or to further promote their personal beliefs, either pro- or anti-gun.  Now is not the time.  We've already seen at least one incidence of political grandstanding by the ABCNews' anchor, Brian Williams, when he/they put out the name of an area resident who happened to share the name of the alleged shooter, reporting that the individual had ties to the Tea Party Patriots.  They retracted their statement and apologized for their "error" when it was pointed out that the man they named was many years older than the 20-something alleged assailant and had no connection to the event.

We should all let the investigation run it's course before reporting any unverified "facts" in a rush to be the first to "break the new developments" in the chase for ratings.  It's unknown at this point what this person's political affiliations were (if any) and whether they factored into his decision to commit his alleged crime. Until he makes a statement, either to the police or at his court hearing, it's impossible to know what his motivations were and gross negligence on the part of the news media to pontificate on their projections of what they believe was going through his head at the time of the crime.

Just as in the Zimmerman/Trayvon situation in Florida, excess speculation by those with a national platform, powered by emotions and political agendas, could easily lead to further "errors of judgement" & possible additional tragic consequences.

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