(Published in 24 Hours June 6, 2012)
Cops getting unfair rap
By
Leo Knight
As weeks go in the news, last week was pretty remarkable. Leading the pack is the story of Luka Magnotta, the so-called ‘Butcher of Montreal.’ Magnotta allegedly killed a male lover, Jun Lin, with an ice pick, then sexually assaulted the dismembered body and posted a video of the whole event on the Internet.
As fascinated as the media is with some of the more lurid details that have emerged in the days since a foot was received in the mail at Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa, there has been much wasted attention on an attempted warning phoned in to Toronto police by a lawyer in Montana.
After the video of the horrific killing was posted, self-appointed Internet investigators jumped on the snuff film and determined it was Magnotta, who was infamous on the Internet for a number of things, but primarily for videos of killing kittens.
While Internet sleuths unearthed much detail about Magnotta, it seems most of it, if not all, he posted himself to create a celebrity persona. But one such sleuth, grasping for his own 15 minutes of fame, made headlines himself and he was given far too much credibility by a pliant media.
The litigation lawyer called Toronto police to report the snuff film - having identified Magnotta in it - believing it was real and done in Canada. The fact that he was right speaks more to his own character and how he spends his surfing time than anything he was claiming about the police.
His call was answered, not by a seasoned veteran police officer as some in the media would have you believe, but rather by a civilian phone operator on a non-emergency line. The operator listened, suggested nowadays movie effects are very good so the film was probably not real, then advised the lawyer call Crime Stoppers.
The police in every city get volumes of crazy calls every day. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a challenge. And sooner or later, as in this case, police are going to miss one.
Newsrooms are no different. Every one I have ever been in has a “C” file for crank callers eager to report this earth-shattering event or that horrendous happening. Mostly it is all nonsense.
Criticize the police for many things sure, but this is one criticism they did not deserve.