 OVERSIZED, PSYCHOTIC, BULLY REPEATEDLY SLAMS SMALLER MAN'S HEAD INTO THE FLOOR UNTIL HE IS DEAD, THEN REPEATEDLY LIES ABOUT IT, THEN IN AN EFFORT TO ESCAPE A CONVICTION, CO-OPTS HIS MINOR SON TO COMMIT PERJURY ON HIS BEHALF, AND WINDS UP AVOIDING A CONVICTION COMMENSURATE WITH HIS BRUTAL, SENSELESS, CRIME by Judith Haney USNEWSLINK/January 13, 2002 Is it just me, or did the sappy
headlines last week about "Hockey Dad", "Gentle Giant", "Hockey
Father", grate on anyone else's nerves like it did mine? Sometimes news organizations for their own various reasons decide to downplay a story. They decide to soften a story's content with an appealing edge in an effort to broaden appeal and readership. And what is ultimately written may or may not pertain to the facts. So it was with the story about the brutal killing of Michael Costin. Instead of writing about the harshness and cruelty of the punishment meted out by Junta to his smaller victim who weighed half as much as he did, American news outlets turned this violent story into a sociological theme about society's ills and the flaws and failings of sports-minded parents. Whatever happened to calling a brute a brute, or a killer a killer? What is all this sappy redefinition of rageful, revengeful, homicidal acts all about? If news editors think that reducing the 'heat' of a story is what reporting is all about, they may need to find a less stressful line of work. Because most, if not all the time, news is 'bad news'. It's full of horror and man's inhumanity to man. And ethical reporters and editors have a DUTY to tell it like it is, not gloss it over with platitudes and pronouncements about society's ills.
The facts of the case show that Thomas Junta refused to stop beating Michael Costin until Costin was unconscious. The facts of the case show that Junta killed Costin in cold blood in front of his son, and Costin's son, and 10 other children, as well as several other onlookers. The facts show that after he beat Costin into a state of unconsciousness, Junta simply walked out of the hockey rink and drove home. He later said he thought the man he had just killed was simply lying down on the floor with his eyes closed. The facts show that Junta was a crazed killer at the time he beat his victim to death. He wasn't a dad, a gentle giant, a father, or anything else, he was a killer who decided to give another man a brutal, deadly, beating. Junta had no regard for the consequences of his actions, he simply carried out his crazed desire to beat Costin to a state of unconsciousness. That's what happened, and for "most" of the nation's news outlets to redefine this crime as something other than what it was provided no service, whatsoever, to the public. The puny conviction Junta received on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter will allow this killer to get out of prison in five years - OR LESS! This outcome really yanks my chain because in my opinion this horrible excuse for a human being, a real creep in every sense of the word, should be locked up, off the streets, for the rest of his homicidal, life. And, to my friends over at the Associated Press - how's that for telling the plain and simple facts absent any embellishment about "motivations", about this particularly heinous story? |
