A man drove his SUV through a crowd in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing and injuring dozens. News outlets have been reluctant to publish the name of the man in custody.
Summary
Five people are dead and more than 40 are injured after a suspect allegedly drove an SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
- Police have a vehicle and suspect in custody after the incident, which was captured from multiple angles by social media live streams of attendees.
- The alleged assailant broke through street barriers that cordoned off the parade route while police fired at the car in an attempt to stop it.
- Eyewitnesses say the driver hit members of the “Milwaukee Dancing Grannies” and continued on, leaving multiple people “not moving on the ground.”
- Local officials say 12 children were among the injured, who were taken to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.
- Though a suspect is apparently in custody, no mainstream outlets are reporting his identity.
- CNN’s reporting largely stuck to the same contours as most reporting, sticking to facts while being careful not to provide any names or particular descriptive wording of the suspect.
- The New York Times included the perspective of the events from several eye witnesses, giving a more emotional report of the incident than most outlets.
- Huffington Post joined a small handful of outlets in weakly attempting to tie the incident to the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, which occurred roughly 50 miles from Waukesha.
- Newsmax’s report provided little new information from what wire reports and Wisconsin outlets were reporting and also mentioned the Rittenhouse trial.
- Fox News collected the responses and reactions from Wisconsin elected officials.
- RedState was one of the few outlets to publicly name the “person of interest” in custody, piggybacking off NY Post reporter Karol Markowicz, who identified Darrell E. Brooks as the person in question, who was released on cash bail two days prior for an unrelated arrest.
Author’s Take
RedState collected a great deal of information, mostly from social media, to connect Darrell E. Brooks to the incident. Taken as a whole, it’s easy to make the judgement of Brooks’ connection to the violence. The question is whether these meet thresholds of credibility and circumstantial or anecdotal data to rise to the level at which they can be confidently included in mainstream reporting.
Taking a step back, one must consider what the reporting would be if a firearm was used instead of a vehicle. Will we hear calls from politicians to ban “fully automatic military style assault vehicles?”
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
