One of the suspects placed a gun to his head, demanding money and property. Another stabbed him in his lower back, then a third sprayed him with Mace. Police say in charging documents that Laws was streaming video of the attack to Facebook.
The victim was stabbed again, in the right arm, before the suspects fled with his iPhone, his North Face backpack and $60 in cash.
Police spokesman T.J. Smith said a citizen tip helped lead police to the suspects, and suggested the Facebook posts were helpful to investigators.
"Criminals do some crazy things," Smith said. "They record themselves committing crimes, and we thank them for it. We encourage the criminals to continue to record your acts, and encourage citizens to continue to send us information when you find the criminal wrongdoing on camera and on social media."
Via Drudge http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-stabbing-arrests-20160916-story.html
4 comments:
Define irony.
there are a couple of definitions.
As you know, irony occurs or is created when the stated or intended meaning of words and actions differ sharply from actual results or of reality.
In this case then, the crime was recorded, but why? and the recording uploaded for public viewing, but why?
A crime that must be kept secret and measures must be taken to keep it secret, but the criminals did the opposite. Why?
Because they're stupid, that's why.
And that stupidity created irony. Their inability to foresee created irony.
But we're substituting stupidity for psychopathy. They recorded and uploaded for public view to immortalize their youthful indiscretion. For fun. To satisfy their narcissistic urges. To have proof of their power over another. For street cred. To have something to watch for continuing replaying and amusement, to have something to laugh at later and repeatedly. To compensate for their perceived and real shortcomings. To show others how fierce they are. As proof of their awesomeness. To show and prove their animal nature. To show themselves being top predator. The story may have a racial element that is not shown in the report. To show one's race dominate over another. To have proof of their rape-equivalency. To satisfy their need to see again how they literally stuck it to the man. To frighten others with their psychopathy..
I'm guessing here. What do I look like, a psychologist over here?
So the irony in the literary sense, O'Henry would love this, is all of that becomes the means for their own prosecution.
*audience applauds* And the audience is left wondering, man, how does the author think these things up? He's outrageously perverse.
But O'Henry will usually have a double irony. Ironies between two parties, or leapfrogging ironies. It always goes further.
For example, the policeman saying thank you for the stupidity can be set up in the story earlier as antithetical to all that. The cop can be described as basing his investigations on the presumption of cleverness of criminals and pursuing them clever and not as stupid. Psychotic, yes, but not stupid. So all his efforts fall short because he is not looking for stupidity. All his assumptions are incorrect, thus proving himself rather thick. Further, he may have an issue with Facebook. He might be described as considering hating on Facebook for it being so useless. Maybe even dangerous. O'Henry might even have dialogue of the cop suggesting Facebook be banned outright for bringing out the worst in people, for it compromising privacy and profiting from that compromise. He might even consider Facebook not just useless, not just damaging, but actually evil in itself. The cop can be described as despising Zuckerberg for rapaciousness and for interfering with culture, and for being too politically active. So then the double irony between two parties is interwoven in O'Henry's inimical style. Did I just now say inimical? I meant to say widely copied.
Pokemon Go player mugged while live streaming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z6YPVsohzQ
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