The Things You Never See

Megan and Jenna,

One lesson that’s hard to teach to kids, or adults for that matter, is how to see the unseen. Now what the heck does that mean? See the unseen. Well, one of the problems in our society is that everything is geared towards an end goal. Usually the end goal is profit. So, in the case of the media, instead of reporting on news situations around the world in an objective manner, we are instead shown the situation with a spin placed on it. The more spin, the more glamour. Glamour equals ratings which equals profit. Another type of spin is not directly related to profit. Instead, it is related to an agenda. An agenda in the media is where you have a particular opinion on what you want people to believe, and so you spin your story in such a way as to convince your audience of its’ truth. That is why you have to see the unseen. The unseen is the part of the story which isn’t glamorous, nor does it have an agenda, yet it is crucial to the underlying story.

It will be easier to understand all this nonsensical rambling coming out of your father if I give you some examples. A few come to mind. But, this one incident plays prominently in my consciousness. I’ll try to write about another one in a later letter.

The Los Angeles Riots

In 1992, a lot of racial tension existed in Los Angeles between the police department, and the black youths of the city. That tension probably still exists as you are reading this letter. It will probably always exist. Then, one incident caused the flame to ignite into a raging riot. The incident involved a black man who was seen in a video being beaten severely by police. What we were shown over and over by the media was the short 15-20 second clip of the police, towering over Rodney King, beating him with their night sticks. He was defenseless against the onslaught as he lay helpless on the ground. This clip was played around the world and rage grew from the horror of what we had seen.

Months later, the police officers were brought to trial and charged with a host of crimes against Mr. King. The whole country, in fact, the whole world, knew that the officers were guilty and should go to jail. I can vividly remember being at home on the afternoon that the verdicts were read. I was watching CNN. When they started to read the verdicts, I almost changed the channel because I knew they’d be convicted. It was pointless to believe otherwise. To my shock, and the shock of millions of other Americans, the verdict came back ‘not guilty’. Stunned, I sat up on the couch, my jaw hanging open. Not long after that, riots broke out all over LA as thousands of enraged people went to buildings and looted, vandalized, and burned them to the ground. Innocent people were beaten and murdered. Hundreds of arson fires were set. Fire fighters were shot at as they tried to extinguish flames. The city was burning with no end in sight.

Right after the verdicts were read, I sat on the couch and continued to watch as CNN brought out expert witnesses from the trial who attempted to explain how a jury could have come to a not guilty verdict. For the first time I was shown the entire Rodney King video. Not just the 81 seconds of apparent brutality. The video showed how Mr. King had been involved in a high speed chase, evading police. He had attacked multiple police officers over and over after the chase as they tried to hand cuff him. The video also showed, in frame-by-frame clarity, how the officers had followed exact police procedure in the apprehension of a suspect. Police procedures call for the officer to begin an arrest using the lowest level of force necessary. The elevation of force as listed in the procedure manual is 1) Verbal commands, 2) Pepper spray, 3) Taser guns, 4) Striking with night stick, 5) Use of firearms.

That night, the officers started with verbal commands. Then they went to pepper spray. Then, taser guns. At each phase of their encounter, they were trying to subdue Mr. King with the lowest level of violence that they could. When one method didn’t work, they followed their exact, written, police procedures and advanced to the next level. After two officers shot Mr. King with taser darts and repeatedly administered the electric impulses to subdue him, he ripped the taser darts out of his chest and attacked them again, ignoring all commands to stay on the ground (a single taser is strong enough to bring a full grown horse to the ground, yet, like the pepper spray, the tasers did not affect King). The next step was the night sticks. They would hit him several times until he would go to the ground, and then they would wait, yelling at him to stay down so they could hand cuff him. You could see all the officers stop hitting him while one officer would place his hand on his hand cuffs, hoping King would finally obey and stay down. Instead, Mr. King would continue to get up and lunge at the officers. Time and time again this happened.

It is an absolute miracle that they didn’t shoot him to death that night. You see, the police were in the most dangerous situation that they face. They had a hostile suspect on their hands. If, as a lot of people argue, the police had jumped on King, and tackled him to the ground, the results could have been disastrous. Experience is what wrote the police procedure manuals and experience tells these officers that if they wrestle with King, he could grab a hold of one of their guns and begin firing wildly at the other officers in the surrounding circle. These officers would be shot at and would have no way to fire back for fear of hitting one of the other officers in the pile on top of King.

It took a lot of patient experience that night to avoid his death. But, the media took the full length video, chopped it down to just the portions that made it appear as if an innocent man was being beaten to death by racist cops, and showed it to the world. How dare they.

Now, to be objective about the situation, there was still some guilt on the part of the officers because racist comments were recorded in their police text messaging system after the arrest. Racism did, and still does exist. The point of this diatribe is to get you to understand that you literally can’t believe everything you see. Ask yourself, what am I missing? What are they not showing me here? Hopefully, in your lives, you’ll be able to see the unseen. But, I’m sorry to say, you’ll likely just see what the media wants you to see.

‘Your dad