It has become somewhat of a passion with me to provide the information the Lexington Herald-Leader will not. We have noted the McClatchy Company’s Mugshot Policy and how the local newspaper has honored it by declining to publish mugshots of non-white criminal suspects but doing so when the accused are white. And we noted Robert Stacy McCain’s point that journalists used to refer to the “public’s right to know,” but that such has been subjugated to political correctness, and to what the Sacramento Bee called “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.”

Mr McCain noted last Saturday that the media were, once again, seeking to avoid perpetuating stereotypes.

You might think that when 13 people are shot in downtown Austin, and the gunman is still at large, that it would be a public service to describe this murderous maniac. But you’re not “woke” enough:

Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk.

Oh, if it was a right-wing white supremacist Trump voter who had committed this atrocity, you bet the media would have no qualms identifying the suspect, “perpetuating stereotypes” or not. Because the “woke” media have made themselves utterly useless as a source of facts, we must turn to Breitbart for the relevant information:

A statement from the Austin Police Department states . . . “It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build.” . . . The shooting follows massive cuts in police funding by the Austin City Council. The council cut $150 million from the police budget . . .

Is it any wonder why people hate the “fake news” media?

The Austin American-Statesman is not a McClatchy newspaper. The Herald-Leader is:

2 more suspects arrested after death of Lexington man who was shot, set on fire

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 14, 2021 | 11:55 AM EDT | Updated 4:11 PM EDT

Two more people have been charged in connection with a Lexington homicide after the victim’s body was set on fire in a barn, according to court records.

Martae Laron Shanks and Autumn Owens, both residents in the building where 38-year-old Lazarus Parker was allegedly shot and killed, have been charged with arson, abusing a corpse and criminal mischief, according to an indictment from a Fayette County grand jury.

The grand jury alleged that Shanks and Owens either intentionally started the fire or tried to help with the fire by purchasing gasoline in Fayette County and taking it to Bourbon County to burn Parker’s body.

Shanks and Owens were both arrested in Scott County and then transferred to the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center last week, according to jail records.

Cecil T Russell (Fayette County Detention Center)

Cecil T. Russell, a co-defendant with Shanks and Owens in the case, was previously charged with murder. Russell was charged with killing Parker after a “cooperating witness” told investigators she heard Russell and Parker get into an argument before multiple gunshots rang out and someone screamed, according to an arrest warrant.

Cecil Russell’s mugshot was not published in the Herald-Leader, but I was able to find it in an Associated Press story published by WVLT-TV. The First Street Journal is dedicated to your right to know, and thus we reproduce it here.

More, I was able to open account with the Fayette County Detention Center, and get access to mugshots there, thus getting the mugshot of Mr Shanks. There are actually three mugshots of Mr Shanks in the records, dated October 16, 2015, March 4, 2021, and June 9, 2021, so it would seem that he is not unfamiliar with the jail. The record lists only the current offenses with which he is charged.

There were two mugshots for Autumn Owens, one dated March 4, 2021, and the current one June 10, 2021. It’s interesting that both of her bookings came concomitantly with Mr Shanks. As with Mr Shanks, only her current charges are listed on the jail website.

Is there something wrong with a mid-sized newspaper, part of a national newspaper chain, subjugating the public’s right to know to political correctness? I think that there is, and that’s why this website goes ahead and finds and published these mugshots. As for the claim that this “perpetuates stereotypes,” please note that one of the three suspects here is white, and that, in my previous post with mugshots, one of the convicted criminals was white, and one was black.^[1]I confess: I had originally written that post with the black offender’s mugshot first, and the white offender’s second. Since Twitter tends to pick up the first photo in an article, I … Continue reading

A further note: the Lexington homicide investigations page has not, as of this publication, been updated since May 9^th. We had previously noted this, and there have been three additional homicides in the city since that date. Someone needs to start doing his job.

Mr McCain was correct, and the credentialed media, decades ago, were correct: the public does have a right to know these things. The question is: why so small, private websites like Mr McCain’s or mine have to be the ones to