Around 11pm on a Monday night in September 2019, a 14-year-old boy called 911 to report sounds of gunfire upstairs in his home. It was stated that the boy gave very little information during his call. He was later taken in for questioning. He was confronted about things in his story that didn’t add up. Then he confessed to shooting five of his family members. The article stated that the victims are “the boy’s father; his stepmother,… his 6-year-old stepbrother; his 5-year-old stepsister; and his 6-month-old stepbrother”(McLaughlin 2019). The 14-year-old was “charged with five counts of murder”(McLaughlin 2019). The teen failed to mention any motives behind his actions. After the teen confessed to shooting his family members, he helped the police find the handgun he had used. He had tossed the gun on the side of the road nearby after the shootings occurred. The boy was being held in a juvenile facility but there were no updates on where he is now. Elkmont, Alabama is a small town where the incident occurred. Therefore this incident affected the whole community.
This is a very sad article. This article relates to the fifth media myth from the powerpoint. Which is “Media tends to highlight crimes committed by youths”. This crime was committed by a 14-year-old boy. This story was not only covered by CNN but CBS, New York times, USA Today, LA Times, as well as many more news websites. Many media sources wrote an article on this event. Since this crime was committed by a 14-year-old, many media sources highlighted it. This event probably wouldn’t have been covered by as many sources if the boy was older.
From this article I learned that media does actually highlight crimes committed by youths. Most of the other media myths were somewhat self explanatory. When reading the other myths I could think of examples of each. But for the fifth one about youths I couldn’t, which is why I wanted to find one on it. I found this article on the CNN website first, then I wanted to know how many other news and media sources also did this story. I just wanted to get an idea of how the media highlights crimes committed by youths. From finding that more than five other big media sources also did this story, I learned that this media myth is in fact true.
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/03/us/alabama-residence-shooting/index.html
Sociology 201 