Comments on A Story About a Story

Remember, kids:

It's all fun and games until you kill someone.

WebVirginX knows Cerissa or is Cerissa herself. You might get some protestations of innocent until proven guilty from a stranger, but only someone who knows/is her would try to deny the fact of the bitch driving the wrong way down an interstate highway.

I would add that her intoxication is an equally obvious fact, not something that has to be ascertained by experts or mooted in court. In this case it's the legal proceeding that is a mere formality. The only sense in which she is presumed innocent is in the hyperbolic sense we apply in the courts. No citizen outside of the context is under any obligation whatsoever to presume this person's innocence. I have no idea why people always claim that this is generally the case. The only persons under any moral obligation to suspend judgment are the jurors, and in this case that is really just a formal excercise in suspending judgement.
What's bizarre about the response you got is that the writer seems to presume that only an agent is in fact comptetent to determine the truth about one's actions. I had presumed that sort of facile subjectivism only existed among teenage undergraduates. Also if it were true it would undermine the legal system, so I really hope this doxastically retarded writer never actually sits on a jury.

Ya did good, Schmader. Damn good. Unts!

Kudos to kinaidos. Esp. about the claim only an agent can determine his or her own truth.

Reminds me of druggy days years ago....also the entire perceptual framework of Pres. Bush re torture, the constitution, reality, etc.

We legally are allowed to presume anything we want, subject to laws of defamation if we speak what we think and if we are sitting as jurors in a courtroom.

Aw, I just engaged in the totally morbid practice of looking up dead teens on myspace, and Bawny sounded awesome. What kind of rad 18 year old loves Zach Galifianakis? It shouldn't be sadder when someone who dies is cool and funny, but it is.

"Bawny' ?!

What kind of name is that?

Oh, Schmader. It is with tears in my eyes that I respond to this. That poor mother. I can picture her at home, so sad and grieving her daughter's death, using whatever tools there are available to find any shred of additional information about the girl they lost.

And then, taking the time to thank you for giving that grieving family a little tiny piece of justice. Admitting that it might be "unkind and lacking in grace" to feel some sort of peace from your rightful words.

Good work, Dave. You were correct in your assessment of the drunk driving killer. More importantly, you were very human with your words.

Jesus Christ, I haven't cried in months and this story just breaks my fucking heart. My sincere condolences to the family and friends that lost their girl. What a sad and tragic story.

See, I'm so upset I typed "mother" instead of "woman." Don't jump all over me, Slog police. I got confused. This is a sad story.

Thanks, Kerri, and yeah, sad and tragic is right. It's awful--and my "doomed to roast in a hell of her own making" crack wasn't meant to just twist the knife in Christensen. Even if she cleans up and serves her time and does everything right for the rest of her life, she's still a killer. Can you imagine if your regrettable wild years (we've all got 'em) included manslaughter/murder? What a fucking nightmare, for everyone...

Ugh. Poor [NAME REDACTED]. Now Google Images will forever link her with Dee Snider, Linda Blair and Britney Spears.

[This comment was edited--the e-mail author's name was removed-- to avoid the situation Doug describes above. Carry on.]

@ 6, your post made me check out her page. People are still leaving comments for her. I don't know but I just don't see myself doing that if one of my friends died suddenly.

Good post, David. Touching comment, Kerri.

Re: #10: Having said that, I'd like to point out that none of my regrettably wild adventures come anywhere near driving while blackout-drunk the wrong way down the freeway.

David, Have you reviewed the statements by the Stranger's editorial board in justifying their continued endorsement of Venus Velasquez after her DUI? Seems like they leaned pretty heavily on innocent-until-proven and alleged to rationalize their support of somebody they wanted to see elected.

Maybe their perspective on this would be enlightening.

2 glasses of wine is now in comparrison with driving while blackout-drunk the wrong way down the freeway. Please make a note of it.

I'm only comparing calling things "facts" with calling them "allegations", not the degree of the crime. I guess we'll have to go to video tape. You'll have to give me a minute.

So... I got to wonder, when we play fast and loose with assuming guilt, where do you think it's appropriate to draw the line?

Of course, I'll otherwise not comment since I have a great deal of bias on this subject, so to speak.

I don't think there's any "fast and loose" playing involved in assuming the guilt of a woman tracked by state troopers as she drove the wrong way down the freeway.

But having said that, I now better understand your question. Can we always just assume the eyewitness testimony of police officers is automatically fact? (Though, in this particular case, there was also the eyewitness testimony of drivers/bystanders who called 911 to report Christensen's wrong-way death trip as it was happening, and maybe even some dash-cam footage of her arrest...)

Schmader can speak for me on this one. A DUI is a DUI but everything changes when someone dies.

Also, this chick had several opportunities to learn the DUI lesson. It's not like this was her first.

packratt - you have a point, just don't try to make it with this case.

David -- "Can we always just assume the eyewitness testimony of police officers is automatically fact?"

Good gawd no.

In this case yes, absolutely. But in other cases (e.g., drug busts in the dark of night at Third and Pike) no. Cops lie. All the time.

It's not murder if you're too drunk to remember it.

I read that somewhere.

Probably here. Now.

Never mind.

I do see your point, to a degree.

What assumptions are safe for us to make without saying they are assumptions but are fact instead?

Does there have to be criteria or is it just "common sense"? (objective vs subjective)

I'm not arguing this specific case, I know little about it... From what I do know it is "my opinion" as well that the person did cause the death of an innocent person in an apparently wantonly reckless fashion because there appears to be tangible physical evidence involved.

But... I do recall a case not too long ago where mere allegations were almost enough to send a certain someone to prison. Would have been enough if it weren't for exculpatory physical evidence popping up after it was withheld for two months by prosecutors.

As I said though, just personal biases on my part. Otherwise I agree with your position and hope the family of the victim was comforted by your words.

@24,

I do recall a case not too long ago where mere allegations were almost enough to send a certain someone to prison.

You often bring up this point, understandable considering what happened to you, but how much evidence do you think prosecutors need in order to convict someone? Most juries would accept the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses who supposedly saw an attack and then caught the alleged attacker. In your case, all those witnesses would have been mistaken, but does this mean that eyewitness testimony is never to be trusted? You do realize that it would be impossible to secure any convictions under this standard.

I've read the story of what happened to you and, in terms of how you were treated by the authorities, two things stand out to me: your mistreatment while in jail and the prosecutor's attempts to continue criminal proceedings even after exculpatory evidence came out. But I will say that your very arrest never struck me (either in The Stranger article or in your own account) as an inappropriate action on the part of the police. A crowd of eyewitnesses told the police that you were the attacker. Should the cops have ignored them? Should they have let an alleged attacker go until additional evidence was uncovered (assuming that there was additional evidence to be found)?

great post, k.

but that's why, packratt, you shouldn't use this particular case to demonstrate your point. not only do you seem insensitive to the victim's family, but sometimes -- sometimes -- the police and witnesses and evidence all agree and just happen to be true as well.

i understand that now, because of your experience, you filter everything through your lens: witness can be wrong, police can lie. but choose cases where that seems more likely, and where you don't have to worry about coming across as someone who is not sympathizing with a story about a victim's family member finding comfort.

@25

Never said the police were not correct to arrest me in that case, but they were incorrect in the way they treated me and in the fact it was ok with them that the same people that gave them flawed testimony were also the same people who brutally attacked me outside of the venue.

But, that isn't where that story fits in here. It's the question of when an allegation is sufficient enough in certitude to state as fact... or more precicely, when is it ok to presume guilt instead of presuming innocence and what criteria do we use when drawing that line.

As I said, I don't disagree with where Dave drew his line in this case, maybe not even with why he drew it if I did know why. But I am curious, for my own personal curiosity's sake, on where he feels it's ok to draw that line and why.

In this case, I just have questions without already having an answer already in mind. If you get my drift?

@26

Point taken... and for the third time, I agree with David in this case, but I do admit to having an unfortunate tendency to belabor philisophical questions.

If that comes across as uncaring, I do apologise. As I said in the first place, I really do hope his words brought that family some degree of comfort and closure.

A good reporter, and columnist, never assumes. You are dead wrong to take the word of police as a conviction - that's the job of courts, not newspapers. And claiming you have less responsibilty to print an establishable truth because you're a columnist is a cop out. When you're throwing in your opinion, you need to do even more reporting to establish the facts; it's clear you didn't do that.

Your paper is regularly filled with reports of people claiming police brutality and other allegations of official wrongdoing, and reporters typically write a balanced piece because they don't in fact know which side is telling the truth. What you say may eventually prove to be the case in this incident, but you have already handed in your half-baked verdict. If I am ever falsely accused and need a responsible, accurate and fair-minded writer to help me, I know where not to go.

@29

To be fair to The Stranger staff, what they print tends to be much more balanced and professional than what they put in SLOG.

...and when I was falsely accused they did a balanced report on my story when nobody else even bothered. I shudder to think about where I would be if they hadn't, likely the jail staff would have continued to intentionally deny me access to medical care and I would have died in KCCF while prosecutors held on to the evidence that cleared my name.

That is the power of the press, the independent press, and I know that The Stranger has saved at least one innocent life and has given at least one family more comfort and peace than you could ever imagine.

David, hope you understand, by asking what I did I never meant to sound as if I was questioning your judgement. I was just curious because I ask myself where I should draw the line when I put up posts about police misconduct.

We have a memorial website for Bawny at www.bawnymcquistin.com It has a slideshow that was shown at her memorial. We will continue to add more pictures to her photo gallery and we have more comments to add to her memory book. Thank you everyone for caring about what happened to her.

We have a memorial website for Bawny at www.bawnymcquistin.com It has a slideshow that was shown at her memorial. We will continue to add more pictures to her photo gallery and we have more comments to add to her memory book. Thank you everyone for caring about what happened to her.