This is sickening: the video, uncut, of when Derrion Albert was beaten to death in Chicago last week. But no, it isn't just that we are being presented with an example of mob violence which took the life of a 16 year old bystander. It's that we only know about this, have only heard of it, because someone was there with a camera phone.
There are some 30 deaths a year like this in the Chicago school system. And we never hear anything about those now, do we? It might make a report of a paragraph or two on page 22.
That's what is truly sickening about the Derrion Albert video: not that we see this, but that we do not see and do not know about the other murders.
You can see the Derrion Brown video and further reporting at that link.
Derrion Albert was beaten to death with split railroad ties on his
way to the bus stop while going home from school in Chicago last week.
A tragedy and a crime when such a 16 year old gets caught up in mob
violence.
However, what is leading to this story making
the front pages is that there is a video of Derrion Albert being beaten
to death. Taken with a cell phone camera it is this video that makes
Derrionn Albert's death different from the 30 or so that happen in
Chicago the same way each year.
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