Daniel Adkins murder exposes media and race militant hypocrisy

Daniel Adkins is likely a name you haven’t heard recently, nor the name of his killer—which wouldn’t be a surprise because it hasn’t been released by either the local police or the media. And probably won’t ever, if the national media has its way. Be that as it may, lack of knowledge cannot disguise the reality of an incident that occurred earlier this month in a Phoenix neighborhood; the Arizona Republic printed a brief description of this incident:

“Daniel Adkins, 29, was walking by the Taco Bell near 51st Avenue and Baseline Road when he stepped around a blind corner into the drive-through lane. At the same time, a 22-year-old man who had pulled forward for his food almost hit Adkins with his car, according to a release from Phoenix Police Department officials. The driver stopped and exchanged words with Adkins before the two began fighting, police said. Adkins was shot once and died on scene, the release said. The driver and a female passenger said Adkins had a bat or some other type of weapon that he swung at them. Police on scene were unable to locate the bat, but witnesses told investigators that Adkins ‘swung his fist in the direction of the driver several times,' according to the release.”

A subsequent police press conference amended some of the details. Adkins was walking his Yellow Labrador named “Lady.” This time there was no mention of a fight, or that the killer actually got out of his car. “(Adkins) swung his fist towards the driver window, and at some point the driver shot him,” according to a police sergeant. Police also confirmed that Adkins was unarmed—unless you consider a dog leash with a dog at the other end a “weapon.” There are other disturbing details beyond the fact the killer and his girlfriend lied to police: Adkins’ family stated that he is developmentally disabled, cannot drive a car and still requires the care of his parents.

Nevertheless, the killer is claiming “self-defense,” and currently has not been charged with a crime—although the Phoenix police are taking great pains to reassure skeptical local media (or at least that of the Fox affiliate) that they are still investigating the case. After all, it is difficult to avoid comparisons of this case with that of Trayvon Martin. A clearly distraught Marina Reyes, Adkins’ sister, told reporters that "He (the killer) needs to be behind bars. I'll never see my brother again. If he felt that my brother was threatening him, he could have easily just rolled up the window and called the cops” and “This person is still on the loose and I don’t agree with that. So he’s saying self-defense, then where’s the weapon? Where’s the pipe? They didn’t find anything on my brother. He was just too aggressive, you don’t need to go that far.”

And one other thing: Adkins is a “white” Hispanic. His killer is black.

In the wake of George Zimmerman’s arrest on second degree murder charges--flying in the face of the knowable facts and having all the appearances of pandering to a mob mentality--the national media’s failure to recognize that most murders in this country are intraracial, a factor which should dictate that one be careful about making racial inferences in the rare instances that such murders occur outside the usual contexts, has painted it into in corner which it doesn't seem to want to acknowledge. Yes, some interracial murders are obvious; the recent Tulsa shootings which the media has already forgotten about was a racially-inspired act of vigilantism, and the murder of Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania was also racially (I’m sorry, “ethnically”) inspired. But the Trayvon Martin case isn’t so easy to pigeon-hole as we are supposed to believe; it wasn’t his race that was “suspicious” to Zimmerman, it was his actions. After all, there were blacks who were his neighbors with whom he was friends with. We can’t be so sure, on the other hand, that Martin himself did not act on a racial impulse when he attacked Zimmerman, given the gang culture he aspired to and the state of black/Hispanic “relations.”

(Just to show you how far off into the deep-end this case has gone, a man that I am acquainted with, an Algerian immigrant of the Muslim faith, told me in “confidence” that Zimmerman was a Jew. I asked him where he culled this information from, and he told me that since “Zimmerman” was a Jewish name, so he must be a Jew. I tried to explain to him that “man” was common to surnames of people of German extraction, especially immigrants who dropped the second “n” to seem more American. I also mentioned that if Zimmerman was Jewish and not Hispanic, it would be highly improbable that the media would dare to demonize him for fear of arousing the antagonism of the so-called “Jewish lobby.” Unfortunately, I don’t think I succeeded in correcting his belief.)

As for the Adkins case, why would it be so difficult to believe that his killer didn’t have a wish to inflict his own version of “justice” in the name of “self-defense?” What we do know for certain is that the national media has been curiously silent, that Lawrence O’Donnell hasn’t called out the unnamed killer or his lawyer, that the Today Show hasn’t asked for 911 tapes to “accidentally” edit, that Anderson Cooper hasn’t interviewed the witnesses that call a lie the killer’s version of events, that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are not coming to Phoenix (because they’d have to defend a cold-blooded killer, which Zimmerman was not), Barack Obama is not likening Adkins to a son he wish he had, and no one is calling this killer “the most hated man in America.” This case simply doesn’t have the racial “cred” that the media is looking for. For white liberals, sympathy for real or imagined black victimization is a test of progressive credibility; as for Hispanics, even white "liberals" find time to scapegoat them for numerous national ills, especially to divert the attention of blacks away from themselves. If you are Hispanic and have a complaint about the way you are treated in this society, you are told to either shut-up or "go home."

Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey interrupted her pandering during Wednesday's press conference announcing the charges against Zimmerman just long enough to admit that he might not receive a fair trial because of the media's failure to "tone down" its demonizing rhetoric; two-thirds of the respondents to a UK Guardian poll believe he will not. She might also have have been thinking of Jackson and Sharpton's defacto sanctioning of violent action if they didn't get their way. I find it fascinating to speculate how all of this fit into Corey's decision to bypass a grand jury investigation; it is certainly within the realm of possibility that after listening to all of the testimony, the grand jury would have found no grounds in which to charge Zimmerman with a crime. In bypassing a grand jury, the state ensured that a charge would be filed, regardless of the what the evidence actually showed. I also wonder how a charge of murder will effect people's thinking now. It is reasonable to assume that most people were expecting no more than a manslaughter charge, but a murder charge may cause more people to wonder what they would have done given similar circumstances; it might not be so different than Zimmerman's as they thought. Does the charging of Zimmerman for murder in what all the knowable evidence shows was an act of self-defense put them in danger too? Or is this something else entirely: The Hispanic as scapegoat--not exactly a new concept.

The question is that now that Zimmerman has been arrested, whether the media will be at all interested in discovering the "whole" truth, rather than just the propaganda of the Martin camp. I doubt it. As for Daniel Adkins, his killer is still running loose, and because Adkins is Hispanic and his killer is black, there is no "racial" angle for the media to exploit.