Eagle: 101 Clark Street Shooting Victim Recovering, Clarifies Its Position on I.D.

By on August 3, 2010 2:56 pm in crime

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that the condition of 28 year old gunned down at 101 Clark Street on Sunday is improving. Two .40 caliber bullets lodged in his spine were removed. During surgery, his spleen was also removed and the paper adds that it’s possible he will also lose his left lung which had collapsed.

As for keeping the victim’s identity private, that paper says it’s a matter of security:

Brooklyn Eagle: Despite readers’ criticisms and pleas, the Brooklyn Eagle, though confirming the victim’s identity on Monday, will not publish those details until they are made public by the police. Police said that as long as the perpetrators remain at large, they will not release the victim’s name for his safety.

“It would be a danger to his life,” a police spokesperson said Tuesday.

While it is clear that his attackers know who the victim is and where he lived, it is not clear if they knew his actual name.

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  • ML

    Every reputable newspaper has a policy regarding publishing victims’ names, and typically the policy is to publish the names of crime victims as an integral element of the story.

    They also typically will withhold names of sex crimes and other crimes that may humiliate the victim. They will also not ID someone if it is likely to endanger the life of the victim. If the police request a name be withheld, they will certainly give it great consideration.

    The question is, in this case, will publishing this name LIKELY endanger the victim? He’s certainly in danger without his name being published. Someone went looking for him, apparently knows where he lives, and shot him in the back. But since he was shot in front of his home, apparently by someone who knows who he is and was gunning for him in particular, and the gunman knew where to find him (his home!), withholding his name for safety reasons is obviously ridiculous.

    The Eagle independently confirmed his identity. But the police haven’t released the name. In this case, the Eagle’s decision to not publish an integral part of the story which they have confirmed, makes it the “official” newspaper and house organ for the scrubbed crime news the police have chosen to share with the public. There’s a reason I never look at the Eagle. They are a newspaper that wouldn’t even print something that is common knowledge enough around this insular neighborhood that a neighbor told it to me in passing. What a lame newspaper. A 10-year-old who asks lots of questions could have unearthed the name they withheld.

  • Obama?

    This brouhaha over withholding the victim’s name & photographs reminds me of when the Bush/Cheney regime banned the media from publishing photos of veterans’ coffins returning home from Afghanistan & Iraq.