Some of you seem to think the media should be providing wall to wall breathless coverage

[cali]

of the very sad Alabama child hostage situation.

You are wrong.

At least in this case, the media is largely behaving responsibly.

Not to mention that the authorities are not giving the media much of anything to report.

Jimmy Lee Sykes has a TV in his bunker. It is better not to broadcast shit that could set him off.

The child's life is worth more than our right to know every little detail.


Efforts to end Alabama hostage situation shrouded in secrecy

Reuters) - Efforts to free a 5-year-old boy from a gunman in an underground bunker, where the man took him after killing the boy's school bus driver, were shrouded in secrecy on Saturday as the standoff in rural Alabama dragged into a fifth straight day.

Police sources said the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team was leading negotiations aimed at securing the boy's safe release.

But FBI officials have declined to comment, referring calls to local authorities who have been extremely tight-lipped, providing few official updates on the situation.

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson, chief spokesman for local law enforcement officials in Midland City, told a brief news conference on Saturday that authorities had been in constant communication with the suspect, who was officially identified on Friday as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes.

<snip>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/03/us-usa-alabama-shooting-idUSBRE90U16L20130203

[liberal N proud]

1. If he has cable, they can control that!

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. And if he thinks they are messing with him, it isn't good

Do not get him agitated.

[intaglio]

2. Well said n/t

[rgbecker]

4. How about a few details for those of us who are media challenge?

What's the relationship between 5 year old and Jimmy Dykes? Random kid on bus? Acquaintance? Uncle? I seem to have missed this part.

I did seem to get the idea there was a little tif between Dykes and bus driver....was it about kid or turning bus in driveway?

Thanks for your help on this.

[cali]

5. From what I know, there is no relationship between the child and the perp

He was a convenient target.

[Whovian]

6. If we ignore it maybe it will go away.

[cali]

7. did you grasp any of what I wrote? That was rhetorical.

Clearly you do not.

Furthermore, to fallaciously claim as YOU do, that the media and others are ignoring it is utter bullshit. Unsurprisingly, honey.

[Whovian]

8. Please don't call me "honey."

On further retrospection, please just don't call me.

[cali]

9. please don't do so much shit stirring here.

You've been repeatedly called out for it, but you can't stop yourself.

[Whovian]

10. I'm not pro gun so that equates to "shit stirring" to you?

Is everyone with differing opinions from you a "shit stirrer?"

[pipoman]

17. Why not?

Everyone with differing opinions from you are rethug/shills of the NRA sent here to suck the brains out of everyone's heads. In the context of DU, a "shit stirrer" could be defined as one who repeatedly posts flamebait and has over, say, 10 (and that is being generous) hidden posts in 90 days.

[Katashi_itto]

21. Whoa, just looked at his record...wow..

[cherokeeprogressive]

30. Irony you can cut with a knife...

[stonecutter357]

16. honey.

now what UMADTHO!

[randome]

12. And if the media broadcasts everything that happens, maybe the hostage will 'go away'.

[timdog44]

15. Not likely.

The stuff we should really know is redacted or blacklisted. And the few things that it is better for us not to know, the MSM goes hog wild on.

[randome]

26. All too true.

I meant that with a media circus and with the gunman possibly having access to it, his hostage might 'go away' by being shot.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. Yes ...

By all means, let's get the media all over this; allowing them to report on exactly what L/E, i.e., the negotiators/rescuers, are doing and planning. And for those media types want to one-up all the other media ... let's let them get close enough that they can speculate exactly when SWAT will storm the bunker (because we know that the media won't just pull "facts" out their butts, hoping to be first) ... Yeah, that what that little boy needs.

[RandiFan1290]

11. another vanity post

[cali]

22. lol. vanity post? sorry you're thinking of another site

that refers to ops that way.

[RandiFan1290]

28. Everyone likes their own brand, don't they? nt

[bettyellen]

37. True that!

[FSogol]

14. I agree. The media is being responsible for once. n/t

[pipoman]

18. Not so sure it is the media

as much as it is the refusal of law enforcement to feed the media..

[FSogol]

19. Probably true. n/t

[Bluenorthwest]

20. I agree.

I could not even open the thread that claimed this was being ignored while that murdered sniper is being covered. The child is alive, if that difference evades some people I have to wonder what drives their priorities.

[Buzz Clik]

23. +1

[warrior1]

24. I read earlier

that this guy has a tv and made they are trying to keep the story out of the news to protect the child.

[BlueStreak]

25. With the trillion dollars we spend every year on military toys, don't you think

somewhere there ought to be a gas that we could inject into that air supply line to knock the man unconscious so they could simply break in and carry him off?

What do we get for the trillion dollars we spend every year? Are we safer? We can't even deal with something as simple as a guy locking himself in a room?

[cali]

27. there evidently isn't. Any gas that would knock the guy out

could potentially kill the child.

And no, a situation like this is NOT simple to solve- unless you're willing to kill the child to get the bad guy.

[BlueStreak]

31. And we know that, how?

We spend $8000 PER TAXPAYER every year to fund the development of new and innovative ways to win at war. Some of this money is spent on non-lethal weapons. Why is it that we have an unlimited amount of money to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we can't use any of those resources when it would actually help Americans?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/exposed-the-military-s-freakiest-non-lethal-weapon-ideas/28512

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,322588,00.html

[cali]

33. well, first of all it makes scientific sense

regarding body weight and substances that induce unconsciousness. Obviously it takes less of any substance to knock out a 40 pound child than to knock out a 150 pound adult.


I certainly agree with you about our crazy military spending but honestly, do you actually believe that if the authorities had a safe non-lethal way to knock out the perp and the child that they wouldn't use it?

[BlueStreak]

34. Yes, I absolutely believe that

Not because the government is evil or uncaring, but because it is inept and compartmentalized.

Gas is not the only option. This guy has to sleep sometime. There are small robots that possibly could be inserted through that air pipe that might be used to disable the guy, kill him, or at least assess the surroundings. And they may be using something like that.

My point is that WE TAXPAYERS pay billions of dollars every year to develop these capabilities. I'd like to think some of those resources could actually be used to help people here, rather than being used to occupy other countries.

[randome]

40. We don't pay billions of dollars a year to Alabama law enforcement.

Neither do we pay it to the FBI. Sometimes you have to let the experts take care of things their way. Not everything is about money, you know.

[BlueStreak]

41. That is my point exactly.

We dump all that money into "defense" but it is actually used to exploit and occupy other nations. It is used for empire-building, and unlike the great empires of the past, this is mostly for the benefit of private people and companies, not for the government at large.

Where do Americans benefit from that?

We have weapons that can vanquish people all of the world by the millions, but we can't even get some guy out of a hole in the ground? That is insane.

[HappyMe]

29. It's not that simple.

This is a delicate situation. You can't just start pumping gas into that bunker because it would probably kill the child.
The people on site know what they are doing. I'm not going to second guess them.

[SayWut]

32. For starters, the guy is a survilaist type.

Odds are pretty good that he at least has a gas mask or two down in that bunker.

If any kind of incapacitating agent, or 'sleeping gas' were used, he would most likely notice something was amiss before the gas took full effect (unusual symptoms, difference in body weight/mass of the child would cause the kid to pass out or exhibit symptoms first).

Then, there's this little problem

"Moscow theater hostage crisis

"The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by some 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya.[1] They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The siege was officially led by Movsar Barayev. After a two-and-a-half day siege, Russian Spetsnaz forces pumped an unknown chemical agent (thought to be fentanyl, or 3-methylfentanyl) into the building's ventilation system and raided it.[1]

During the raid, up to 50 of the attackers were killed by Russian forces, about 117 hostages have died due to adverse reaction to the gas (including nine foreigners). All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants.[2][3] The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed, but Moscow insisted it had little room for maneuver, as they were faced with the prospect of 50 heavily armed rebels prepared to kill themselves and their hostages.[4] Physicians in Moscow condemned the refusal to disclose the identity of the gas that prevented them from saving more lives. However, some reports said the drug naloxone was successfully used to save some hostages"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

Even if we possess a less lethal substance, using it could potentially worsen the situation.
If I were the one in charge of the situation, and given the possible consequences, I would not want to be the one making a decision that could easily backfire.

[jeff47]

39. We abandoned chemical weapon research and development a while ago

For what should be obvious reasons.

As such, there is no magic gas to knock out the bad guys.

[BlueStreak]

43. No we didn't. That is simply not true.

We [font size="5"]may[/font] have stopped producing gases that are banned under international treaties, but we are very definitely into all sorts of substances and devices beyond bombs and bullets. We spend BILLIONS a year on this stuff.

http://www.ndu.edu/press/nonlethal-weapons.html

[jeff47]

44. And your examples has one rather old chemical.

Tear gas....oooooooooooo.

And it's in one picture. The word "chemical" doesn't appear in the text.

The rest of the examples in that article are things like tazers, dazzlers and rubber bullets. Which really don't work as a gas pumped into an underground bunker.

[BlueStreak]

45. They don't volunteer this information

There are lots of project underway involving various "non-lethal" chemicals. I have certain knowledge of that.

[jeff47]

47. No, you don't.

Because if you did, that statement would get someone's clearance yanked.

[BlueStreak]

48. Nonsense. Much of this is openly discussed

In addition, I have some knowledge of DoD budgets that I won't go into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-lethal_weapon

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED01Ak02.html

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/jnlwdpdf/XM1063.pdf

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/jnlwdpdf/feachemical.pdf

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97648&page=1

http://cns.miis.edu/stories/070608.htm

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-04/shoot-not-kill

[jeff47]

49. You keep bringing in links to tear gas, claiming it's proof of a massive chemical weapons effort.

It's almost like you don't have any understanding of the subject.

That would explain your "openly discussed" comment, since tear gas is indeed openly discussed.....and hasn't been considered "new" in decades.

[BlueStreak]

50. I said the DoD has lots of non-lethal weapons projects underway

And some of them are chemical based. I also said I didn't have any knowledge of projects underway involving chemicals that would violate treaties, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were. That leaves all sorts of other chemicals and compounds that are not illegal in any sense. For example, one class of chemical weapons simply makes really foul odors. Another class of chemical weapons makes things really slippery so you can't stand and fight. Another class of chemical weapons makes things sticky so you can't easily operate any weapons of your own. There are lots of projects underway.

I did not ever claim that we had an odorless gas that could knock out the hostage-taker. I simply said it seems like with all the money we spend on projects of this nature, there ought to be something that could help in this current situation.

I'm sorry if this doesn't meet your pre-conceived, narrow definition of "chemical weapons", but there you go.

[IcyPeas]

42. he may possibly have gas masks in his bunker if he is a survivalist /eom

[liberal_at_heart]

35. I agree. The child's life is more important than our need to know everything right now.

the police are working very hard to end this situation in such a way that the child is unharmed. As long as they are working to save the boy why do we need to know every little detail about what is going on? Let the experts do their job and when they do save him then put it on the air and we can celebrate. Until then we don't need to know.

[OnyxCollie]

36. Terrorism, Law Enforcement, and the Mass Media: Perspectives, Problems, Proposals

Extensive coverage of ongoing terrorist attacks provides the opportunity for terrorists to obtain publicity for their cause and rivet society's attention to their exercise of power in open defiance of the government and law. Ongoing terrorist attacks are also the occasion of greatest conflict between the interests of law enforcement authorities and those of the media. The media perform several important functions, among which is controlling rumors by disseminating accurate information to the public of dangers present at the site. While the importance of the media in this capacity cannot be ignored, experience has shown that contemporaneous coverage of a terrorist attack consistently gives rise to three general areas of conflict between police and media.

The first area of conflict includes media dissemination of information tactically useful to the terrorist. For example, terrorists have equipped themselves with radio and television receivers which allow them to listen to news broadcasts when barricaded with hostages within a building. Thus the media may serve as the intelligence arm of the terrorist when it broadcasts the latest operational activities of the police, the presence of hidden persons who could become hostages, escaping hostages, the bargaining strategy of police negotiators, or any deceptions planned by law enforcement officials.111 Not only is the dissemination of such information critically helpful to the terrorist in determining possible escape routes or repelling impending police assaults, but it jeopardizes the lives of hostages, law enforcement personnel, and innocent citizens. During the October, 1977, hijacking of a Lufthansa jet, the media directly contributed to the death of a hostage when they broadcast that the pilot was passing intelligence information to the police through his normal radio transmissions. The terrorists had access to the radio news reports and executed the captain.112

In March, 1977, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a zealot bent upon avenging the murder of his children by Black Muslims, led the takeover of three Washington, D.C., buildings by the small Hanafi Muslim sect. A local television reporter outside the besieged B'nai B'rith building filmed a basket being lifted by rope to the fifth floor, where eleven people had evaded capture and had barricaded themselves in a room. Although apparently initially ignorant of their presence, fellow Hanafis monitoring the news reports outside probably informed the gunmen of the television reporter's scoop.113 Fortunately, the gunmen did not break through the door, and police later freed the potential hostages after a tense, nine-hour ordeal.114 Similar problems may arise in the context of newspaper reporting. Since some incidents may last for many hours, even days, newspaper accounts can also communicate tactical information to the perpetrators. The release of such information only endangers more lives and contributes little, if anything, to the public interest. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that in the absence of self-control, the media should be compelled to refrain from publishing information potentially helpful to the terrorists until the police are able to free the hostages from danger.

Bassiouni, M. (1981). Terrorism, law enforcement, and the mass media: Perspectives, problems, proposals. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 72 (1), pp. 28, 29.

[liberal_at_heart]

38. exactly

[RudynJack]

46. Agree

Not sure what kind of coverage people want.

"Here I am, outside the bunker. Nothing has happened."

5 minutes later:

"Here I am, outside the bunker. Nothing has happened again."

[Skittles]

51. I AGREE