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Police Using YouTube to Catch Killers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-can-it-not-do dept.

Accommodate Students writes "The BBC is reporting on Greater Manchester police's attempts to use YouTube to catch the killers of the 15 year old, Jessie James. The video features a message from Jessie's mother Barbara Reid and sister Rosemary. BBC radio news has said this is the first time the police force have used YouTube in this way to catch criminals." Update: 10/08 07:40 GMT by Z : Sorry, misunderstood the situation. Thanks for the clarification.

17 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Slow news day? by Spazntwich · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why are editors publishing stories to they front page they themselves consider unimportant?

    1. Re:Slow news day? by EVil+Lawyer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you've missed the point. The story about YouTube is separate from the story about the murder. The YouTube angle is News for Nerds, and makes sense to be posted on slashdot. The question from the editor was more like "why is this murder case important enough to garner so much media attention, such that the police would go to the extent of using YouTube to try to catch the criminals?" That's not a commentary on the relevance or importance of the YouTube story.

  2. More apropos to ask... by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ...why we in the States would not consider it noteworthy.

    rj

  3. Noteworthy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's nothing *special* about it. Murder is still considered noteworthy in itself here in Britain...

    1. Re:Noteworthy... by rsidd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And in the rest of the world. Here in Chennai (India), burglaries are reported in the newspaper.

    2. Re:Noteworthy... by slick_rick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is all relative, so it really depends on where you live. If you live in Southern California, they might not even bother mentioning any murders save for the really sensational ones... But you are talking about a metro area (SoCal) with more people (24 million) then all of Australia(20 million)... I doubt Australias national news news reports on Perths murders (except for the really sensational ones), but I could be wrong.

      If you live in a smaller metro like here in Grand Rapids/Western MI a metro of about .75 million, all murders definitely make the news (as do the followups on who, what, when, and what the sentence was).

      It is all about scale my friend.

      --
      apt-get install redhat please god - Me (take it easy, I love Debian)
    3. Re:Noteworthy... by Zone-MR · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's not that...

      In any country with > 60M people, it's sadly inevitable that murders will happen on almost a weekly basis. However in many countries you'll rarely see murder covered prominently on the national news. This isn't because they don't consider murder important. This isn't because murder never happens there, or happens so often that the public no longer cares....

      Looking at the UK news you'll regularly see headlines about mothers mutillating their babies, creepy guys raping 6 year old kids, and grandmothers being stabbed to death. Looking at the news, you'd get the impression that the country is full of the worst kind of criminal scum imaginable.

      The reality is different - crime rates aren't much different than elsewhere. People don't consider murder more or less 'noteworthy'. The media is simply more concerned with feeding us sensational stories than it's concerned with feeding us actual NEWS. I consider major international events, economic problems, and our continuing loss of civil liberties to be noteworthy - they affect the entire country, and the decisions we make now will affect generations to come.

      The problem is the average citizen couldn't care less - they prefer to watch the "child forced to watch parents get mutillated after burglary" stories not for their informational value or noteworthiness - but because of their sensational value. The fact is most people are shallow. Real news is boring. Murder/crime is ENTERTAINMENT!

      "Some kind of pictures on the sense o'clock news
      Miles of yellow tape --- silhouetted chalklines
      Tough-talking hood boys in pro-team logo knock-offs
      Conform to uniforms of some corporate entity
      Don't change that station
      It's Gangster Nation
      Now crime's in syndication on TV

      What a show --- vertigo
      Video vertigo
      Test for echo"

        -- Test for Echo, Rush
  4. It's important because... by lxt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The simple fact that a 15 year old boy getting shot gets such media attention in Britain (when compared to similar events in America) is noteworthy. Sure, the USA is a far larger country, but even at a State level you don't really see the same kind of news reporting when it comes to these kind of shootings.

    1. Re:It's important because... by Shivetya · · Score: 2, Insightful

      you obviously don't watch local news.

      --
      * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  5. In some places, murder is still news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Other than the obvious and regrettably tragedy of the situation, why is this case noteworthy?

    Well, in some countries, like the UK, there aren't so many murders everyday throughout the year that the populace has lost all sense of empathy when a human life is taken. All it takes is for there to be an unusual circumstance and it will become big news.

    I guess in some other countries, where bizzare murders and school/work shootings happen all the time and people are bored of it, people would rather hear about Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt.

    1. Re:In some places, murder is still news by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Although it serves as a model example of flamebait, your post doesn't answer the question. The UK has averaged close to 3 murders a day for the last several years. 95% of those murders don't make headlines in the UK. So, Other than the obvious and regrettably tragedy of the situation, why is this case noteworthy?

      Dan East

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    2. Re:In some places, murder is still news by RossumsChild · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The entire US is not devoid of empathy, and I find your implication otherwise offensive. UK Population: 60 Million. US population: 295 Million. (Granted those are the CIA #s so they're likely wrong ;) In short: there are more of us to go around, so country-wide news can't focus the same way it can in a (much) smaller country. Even if we have exactly the same per-capita murder rate (last I saw was USA:UK 4.2:3.3), we would have five times the number of events to try and report. As it is, factoring in difference in rates AND the population issue, for ever 3 murders you have to report, we have roughly 20.

  6. very simple by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A large percentage of murder has a motive, and the killer and victim know each other. This case is particularly heinous for these reasons:

    1. The victim apparently didn't know the killers
    2. He was apparently chosen solely based on race
    3. The killers are still at large, and there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't do this again

    People don't think too much when drug dealers are killing each other, because most of us don't hang out with that crowd and aren't really affected by it. That's why a killing like this brings in much more attention.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
    1. Re:very simple by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      2. He was apparently chosen solely based on race.

      And from where did you glean this information?

      I've read every related article on the BBC and not one mentions anywhere that this killing was race and or hate driven.

      If you would read the articles at the BBC yourself you would see that the police and everyone else is calling this a gang related black on black crime.

      Are you trying to foment racial hatred towards whites?

      Post links to the articles citing that this was race/hate related please.

    2. Re:very simple by ctid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're confusing two murders, probably because the Slashdot editor has got himself confused. The Anthony Walker murder happened in Liverpool and was a racist murder - he was waiting at a bus-stop with his white girlfriend and his cousin and some white kids took exception and murdered him with an ice-pick. The killers are not still at large, although they were on the run for a little while afterwards. The Jesse James murder happened in Manchester (a completely different city, 35 miles from Liverpool). It wasn't a random shooting, but it seems to have been a case of mistaken identity; the murderers intended to murder a particular person and just got the wrong one. It's most likely that Jesse James (who is black) was murdered by another young black person. In this case, the perpetrators are still at large and the police fear that people who know who did it are too scared to come forward and testify against the killers.

      --
      Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
  7. Re:Pick all that apply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You would not consider it newsworthy in the States because it's not a middle class caucasian girl and is not being shown around the clock on CNN.

    (This is not flamebait. Think about it for a second)

  8. Is Zonk an idiot? by Stalyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is apparently related to the hatespeak-related jailing we discussed on Saturday.

    Jesse James != Anthony Walker. The only way they are related is that both murder victims are black.

    Other than the obvious and regrettably tragedy of the situation, why is this case noteworthy?

    What did Stalin say, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"? So how this particular case different than the thousands of others who die regularly? I dont know but that sure is a shitty way to look at the world.

    --
    The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend