Viewer "Sounds Off" On-line

This e-mail was sent to ABC23 through our website. The viewer was reacting to the story of the carjacker who was shot dead by police at the Air Park. Tuesday night we had reaction from the suspects family, (which as you can imagine was filled with "police didn't have to kill him", "why didn't they shoot to stop him", etc, etc) the BPD and the neighbor of the victim.

Here's what the viewer wrote:

Why is it that you, and every other TV station, feels it necessary to spend so much time and energy trying to convince your viewers that a criminal being shot by police is a good, fine, upstanding, family man who wouldn't harm a flea? You show happy family photos, and endlessly interview family members and others, showing children left behind. I heard virtually nothing about the victim this punk shot in cold blood. What about him? Oh, yeah, that wouldn't fit with the punk's angelic image you try to portray. How about just mention that his family disagrees with what happened and then report about the crime itself and how the police stopped a violent criminal from continuing to inflict harm on society.

Well, we did report on the "punk" and what he did.

I think you can understand my take on the situation by reading the last two posts on this blog, but that doesn't mean that the suspects family doesn't have a right to be heard. To be truly fair, we go after both sides of the story, even if I personally don't care for it.

As for the picture of him, I've yet to encounter the family of a suspected criminal who provides the media with a "bad" photo?! I can only think of one time, and the family called right after the show to ask for the photo back and for us to stop running it, because it made him look guilty.

As for the endless family interviews, it was one person we used, with two short sound bites that had to be translated.

We buffered that sound, with bites from the neighbor who came to the aid of Julio Diaz after he was shot trying to stop Leal from stealing his car, along with Sgt. Greg Terry.

No one is trying to set up this suspect as something "angelic".

All the sound bites and happy photo's in the world can't change what really happened.