Tuesday, June 12, 2007

a hate crime committed in Indiana: where's the media?

From The Bloomington Alternative:
The simple facts in Shorty Hall's murder shout major media. Brian Williams or Katie Couric, maybe. Bill Moyers, someday. Indianapolis Star, unquestionably.

The 1998 hate-crime murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming is commonly invoked in comparison.

Thirty-five-year-old, 5-foot-4, 100-pound Aaron Hall was brutally beaten on April 12 for hours by two teens who have described the murder in chilling detail to police. Each says Hall precipitated the violence by making a homosexual suggestion.

The beatings included repeated pummelings with fists and boots and dragging Hall down a wooden staircase by his feet as "his head bounced down all of the steps," in one of the accused's words. He died naked and alone, in a field, where he had crawled after his killers dumped his body in a roadside ditch.

Police found Hall's body 10 days after his death wrapped in a tarp in the garage of Jackson County Deputy Coroner Terry Gray, whose son is one of the accused.

As far as I can find, the South Bend Tribune hasn't covered it. Like, at all. No articles whatsoever turned up when I searched "Aaron Hall" on their website. The Indy Star? No dice there, either, according to Advance Indiana's blog. They claim it's due to the fact that the Star advocated against adopting hate crimes legislation in Indiana, but did the SBT do so as well? Even freakier, too, is the fact that someone apparently from the Star keeps harassing AI on the issue. What the hell kind of unprofessionalism is going on in Indianapolis?

Read the Alternative's article; this story gets weirder and weirder the further you read.

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