News Seattle PI Blames the Victim
posted by on April 3 at 13:19 PM
Brandon, 25—who asked we not use his last name—was stabbed three times after he left a party on Capitol Hill early Saturday morning. A woman approached Brandon on Belmont and Olive and stabbed him in the chest and stomach, missing his heart by an inch.
The PI’s coverage of the March 30th incident insinuates that Brandon may have somehow been responsible for getting stabbed. Just check out the lede:
Seattle police have arrested a woman who, early Saturday, is believed to have repeatedly stabbed an intoxicated man on Capitol Hill and then hitched a ride with some Good Samaritans to leave the scene for her motel room across town.
Not only does the PI go out of its way to imply that Brandon was impaired, they even imply he was booted from the party.
At first, {SPD Spokesman Mark] Jamieson said, the young man did not cooperate with officers. It soon became clear that he was drunk and had been asked to leave a party.
According to another person who was at the party, Brandon wasn’t booted—he left the party around 4am to catch a cab to his girlfriend’s house in Wedgwood—and was “walking around and talking like normal, not slurring or stumbling.”
Brandon is upset by the PI’s coverage. “They made it sound like if a woman stabs a guy, the guy probably did something. It was pretty messed up,” he says.
After stabbing Brandon, the woman flagged down two people—which, again, the PI refers to as “Good Samaritans—and caught a ride to her motel on Aurora. “What was really hard, looking back on the night, is that the “Good Samaritans” saw what happened and gave her a ride and just left me,” Brandon says. The woman has since been arrested.
Brandon says he didn’t know the woman who attacked him. “I’ve never met her before,” he says. “The only thing I know…[is]…she was living in a motel off of Aurora, if that says anything about who she was.”
After being stabbed, Brandon walked around Capitol Hill—shirt soaked in blood—for at least another half-hour, he says, before he was able to collect himself and call 911.
Brandon spent five days at Harborview and is now recuperating at home. Because of his injuries, Brandon’s band—the Heat Rays—wasn’t able to play a show at the Funhouse Tuesday night. They were on the bill with Sioux City Pete and the Beggars and the band Stabbings.
he walked around capitol hill for a half hour after being stabbed?
I suppose at 4am there's really no one around and no business to go to. Maybe the shock of being stabbed made him not fully aware of where he was or what he was doing
@2
probably. and that could be why cops may have thought he was drunk. the lack of oxygen to the brain caused by blood loss pretty much causes he same affects as lack of oxygen to the brain from drinking alcohol.
K. I love you Stranger guys, you know I do. But one thing...
'Lede' does not appear in the OED. It's not a word as far as I am concerned. I know it's 'lead' (IPA: lid) with a different spelling, and that it probably comes from the print days where journalists would spell it 'lead' to avoid confusion with typographic 'leading' or something. Maybe it was also invented to avoid confusion with 'Lead' (Pb) used in the ink.
But it drives me crazy, it really does. The spelling fell out of use during the 16th century, why is it still showing up in my blogs? It's some sort of pretentious "look at me I'm a real journalist I promise" badge.
Don't see the controversy. Drunk guy gets stabbed. Doesn't sound to me like he had it coming to him.
@4: It's also the name of the news blog on the NYT website (site, of course, being a derivation of "sight").
@4: It's some sort of pretentious "look at me I'm a real journalist I promise" badge.
Dude, you're the one quoting the OED. In journalism, it is "lede".
Oh, go fuck a picnic table, @4.
Nanny-state paternalism at its finest. Pacifistic hippies who don't go around stabbing singer-guitarists are forcing the rest of us to comply with their behavior code. And the police are helping them! Stand up for your right to impose negative externalities on the rest of the population.
Bad Samaritans, more like.
What were the "good samaritans" thinking? It's not up to them to decide what happened, it's up to them to call the cops, report what they see, and maybe show some compassion to a bleeding guy. And the attitude of the cops just pisses me off. It's like if you are on Capitol Hill on the weekend you deserve whatever you get--what's that about?
@4 and 8 ... but be sure to do it in the front yard. (ps - lede is cq, jackass.)
Uhhh, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if a woman stabs a guy, the guy probably did do something.
Wow, cool guy. I'm gonna go out on another limb and say this guy probably did do something.
4am+Party+booze+guy+chick=stabbing on the street. Is my math correct?
(((party * booze) ^ 4am) + guy) + (chick + "aurora motel") = "lets get stabby!"
Awesome comment @8.
Poppy, did you REALLY type that shit or do you have the excuse of being possessed by some entity that destoys the commonsense portion of your brain?
a woman stabs a man, so the man MUST have deserved it because men are always the agressors and women are always the victims and women just don't do things like randomly stab people or have issues with mental health or drugs or alcohol?
no.
that's as inanely sexist as saying that a woman who gets raped in a bar after flirting all night, deserves to get raped.
and I think Brandon has every right to be judgemental about people who live in Aurora motels and randomly stab people; after all, he WAS stabbed by one.
Party2AM + Aurora motels = NOT booze.
poppy is probably voting for hillary.
OK, now I'm certainly not letting the woman off the hook here but this guys story doesn't add up.
He doesn't know her and never met her before but he knows where she lives?
He got stabbed and didn't call the police? Pretty much everyone has a cell phone these days. He wasn't looking for an open business or pay phone to use. I could let this one slide due to possible shock.
These "Good Samaritans" saw what happened and picked the woman up and took her to the motel? I can't think of too many people who would see someone stab another person without instigation, pick them up in their car and drive them around.
The whole thing just doesn't add up to me.
@11,
Yeah, and what we're they thinking letting some violent, possibly crazy, person into their car? Mind boggling.
That wasn't hyperbolic at all, Jonah.
Here, I'll give it a shot.
Seattle PI is Sexist
Brandon, 25—who asked we not use his last name—was stabbed three times after he left a party on Capitol Hill early Saturday morning. A woman approached Brandon on Belmont and Olive and stabbed him in the chest and stomach, missing his heart by an inch.
The PI’s coverage of the March 30th incident insinuates that women are crazy bitches that hate drunk men. Just check out the lede:
Not only does the PI go out of its way to imply that women are mostly whores that live in motels on Aurora, they even imply that they are poor drivers.
I didn't say he "must have deserved" anything. I'm just saying there are very few random women stabbing men -- who tend to be much bigger and stronger. There are 25x more rapes (by men) and 10x more murders (by men) than murders (by women).
My comment that this guy probably did something to provoke this is because he's pretty clearly lying and a misogynist. His account completely conflicts with what SPD says happened and doesn't make sense at all. Some bystanders "saw what happened" and just left him there? He was partying until 4am but wasn't intoxicated? He was sober and completely innocent but wandered around for a half hour until he called 911?
Also, heads up on his mom's blog comment on the PI:
If Brandon doesn't want his last name used, but doesn't mind his bands name being listed, wouldn't it take about 2 minutes to figure out what his last name is?
Sorry you got stabbed, but walking around the Belmont/Olive/Summit area at 4 in the AM is never a good idea.
The guy was guilty of carrying a concealed penis.
wow...we're quick to label someone misogynistic without a shred of proof, aren't we?
and unless he was trying to rape or kill her, he certainly doesn't deserve to be stabbed. He could have been drunk off his ass and screaming "lying cunt bitch" at her for an hour and that still wouldn't give her the right to stab him.
Please, you guys, stop using "lede" like it's a real word.
It take it this was Olive St, not Olive Way? I like to walk down Belmont Ave late at night between Pine and Howell. Fearing for your life is such a rush.
Oh, go fuck a picnic table, @27.
Dudes~!
You're just taking yer chances by going to that part of the Hill -ALONE- at 4 A.M. Sorry!
Granted I'm not from the area-but does Seattle not have pay phones?? I mean, could the guy not afford the 25 cents to call 911? Or if he DIDN'T get thrown out, couldn't he have gone back up to the party and been like," Dudes! Bleeding here!" There is something bizarre about the whole thing.
Pay phones?!?!?
25 cents?!?!?!
What are those?
Where do YOU live, Marty?
The Land that time forgot?
@32
Small town Wisconsin.
So... yes.
There aren't any working pay phones in Seattle, let alone Capitol Hill, that aren't coveredin human feces.
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