Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Did the Knoxville News Sentinel Cover Up a Black-on-White Murder?

 

War crime victim Paul Shepherd and his wife Beverley
 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

My partner-in-crime, David in TN, writes,

Back in Knoxville, Tennessee, a city you've come to know something about, a taxi cab driver named Paul Shepherd was murdered last weekend.

The Knoxville News Sentinel initially didn't give a description of the two suspects as seen by witnesses. The KNS later said it was because of a computer snafu.

The local ABC affiliate said the suspects were two black males.

The owner of the cab company said they would from now on only pick up fares in West Knoxville or downtown.

N.S.: It’s the KNS publisher’s prerogative, if he wants to charge people to read his paper, but I doubt he’ll get many paid, online subscribers to read censored crime stories, when they can get the real thing for free elsewhere.

Paul Shepherd was hired by Ross Batson, owner of Absolutely Taxi, and started driving a taxi for him on Friday. On Sunday, Paul Shepherd was dead, murdered by two black men who flagged him down on the street, in front of a plasma donation clinic.

You can donate to his wife and two children through their GoFundMe page.
 

Knoxville cab driver fatally shot shortly after being flagged down by riders in Fort Sanders
By News Sentinel staff
Posted June 30, 2014 at 4:56 a.m.
Updated June 30, 2014 at 5:02 p.m.
Knoxville News Sentinel

KNOXVILLE — Slain taxi driver Paul Shepherd texted his dispatcher Sunday afternoon to say he was picking up his second fare of the day after he was flagged down by two people outside a Fort Sanders-area plasma donation clinic.

[That‘s it, but check out the comments, where the thread Nazis deleted people with the “wrong” politics, at the drop of a hat, while letting anti-white racists rant to their hearts’ content! An article from WBIR follows the KNS comments.]
 

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  • Discuss
  • Print
    • NomDeGuerre writes:

    in response to phoenix1:

    (This comment was removed by the site staff.)

    Who's Hillary? Is she a local politician that I'm not aware of?

Leftist4Breakfast writes:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to Leftist4Breakfast:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

Who are you guys talking about? Is Ben Ghazi a South Knoxville politician or something? Does he live near Optimist Park?

WidowsSon writes:

in response to phoenix1:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

............... This is just open, blatent racism... The old republican southern strategy, you either 'one of us, or one of them', racist implications.. With blacks being less than 10% of the population, how could any politician win with just the black vote?? The open, blatent, tolerated racism, such as this, and many other rants of these 'sick puppys', the undisguised hatred, and open public acceptance, of such 'racist dogwhistles'.. Why should anyone be surprised in a town where the county mayor said his nephew couldnt play for UT, cause he didnt have 'gang tatoos' or a criminal record.. Institutionalized racism abounds..

moonpie-ellie writes:

in response to NomDeGuerre:

Who's Hillary? Is she a local politician that I'm not aware of?

They must be talking about Van Hillary. He's from TN and I didn't even know he was running again. Woohoo, Go Hillary!

Esau writes:

in response to phoenix1:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

With all due respect you're an idiot.

Esau writes:

in response to WidowsSon:

............... This is just open, blatent racism... The old republican southern strategy, you either 'one of us, or one of them', racist implications.. With blacks being less than 10% of the population, how could any politician win with just the black vote?? The open, blatent, tolerated racism, such as this, and many other rants of these 'sick puppys', the undisguised hatred, and open public acceptance, of such 'racist dogwhistles'.. Why should anyone be surprised in a town where the county mayor said his nephew couldnt play for UT, cause he didnt have 'gang tatoos' or a criminal record.. Institutionalized racism abounds..

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to phoenix1:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

Well, darn! I guess we'll never find out who that Hillary person is now.

Osotrue writes:

The second suspect sounds a lot like Richard Nixon, except I've never seen him wear an orange polo shirt, and he has a solid alibi.

phoenix1 writes:

Both suspect were black thugs. Of course KNS has a political agenda and they either never do any investigative journalism or they deliberately under report crimes by black youths. Race/sex are the PRIMARY elements of a description.

You guys can cry racism all you want but that does not change the demographic break down of most murderers and most victims. If you weren't racists, you would care about all the young black men being killed and the young black men throwing their lives away for the thug life.

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to phoenix1:

Both suspect were black thugs. Of course KNS has a political agenda and they either never do any investigative journalism or they deliberately under report crimes by black youths. Race/sex are the PRIMARY elements of a description.

You guys can cry racism all you want but that does not change the demographic break down of most murderers and most victims. If you weren't racists, you would care about all the young black men being killed and the young black men throwing their lives away for the thug life.

I actually more or less agree with you, but you could have just said thugs and, you being you, we would have known what you meant. That being said, I do find it patronizing to minority communities to act like race isn't a necessary descriptor when the police are searching for a suspect.

phoenix1 writes:

in response to NomDeGuerre:

I actually more or less agree with you, but you could have just said thugs and, you being you, we would have known what you meant. That being said, I do find it patronizing to minority communities to act like race isn't a necessary descriptor when the police are searching for a suspect.

KNS is the worst about including minority race in suspect descriptors. Other media tell the truth so it isn't like the information isn't available.

why36knot#656113 writes:

"what difference does it make"? I will wager that the victim doesn't care whether the shooter was light green or dark yellow.

burnpile writes:

Maybe it's KPD rather than KNS that's minimizing descriptions. They were fairly detailed with the drug store perp "Authorities describe the man as white, with brown hair, a scraggly beard, about 25-30 years old, about 5 feet, 8 inches to six feet tall and weighing 180-200 pounds."

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to burnpile:

Maybe it's KPD rather than KNS that's minimizing descriptions. They were fairly detailed with the drug store perp "Authorities describe the man as white, with brown hair, a scraggly beard, about 25-30 years old, about 5 feet, 8 inches to six feet tall and weighing 180-200 pounds."

That's not the case. WATE received the same description from the police department as did KNS, and they reported the full descriptors with no omissions. There is an odd, unexplained double standard from this outlet.

http://www.wate.com/story/25899665/po...

jceubanks#627592 writes:

The city of Knoxville is fast becoming the murder capital of the south. Like it or lump it, the perps are ususually black. That does not mean the majority of black folks are bad but there seems to be a hard core that deals in dope and will shoot their own people and anybody else. Its high time the city police, engage in real law enforcement and community relations.

knoxknothead writes:

this plasma clinic more than likely has pictures of these two punks why doesn't the police post their faces so we can get them off the road an in sparkey

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to jceubanks#627592:

The city of Knoxville is fast becoming the murder capital of the south. Like it or lump it, the perps are ususually black. That does not mean the majority of black folks are bad but there seems to be a hard core that deals in dope and will shoot their own people and anybody else. Its high time the city police, engage in real law enforcement and community relations.

"The city of Knoxville is fast becoming the murder capital of the south."

This person does not get out much.

"Its high time the city police, engage in real law enforcement and community relations."

That means start rounding up black people.

jceubanks#627592 writes:

It does not mean to start rounding up black people! It means to face the situation for what it is and start working with the black community to help them work this out from the inside. There is a responsibility there. As for rounding up folks, should make no difference wheather they are black, white or blue, if they break the law, they should be rousted.

tb54hale#1444742 writes:

This is a tragedy! A father of three trying to make a living and support a family is killed by black thugs and KNS conveniently leaves any race description out. WATE did a news story! Please, think of the family at this time! Bless them and so sorry for their loss! RIP! He looks like a friendly guy.

originalintent writes:

Who gets a cab from the plasma center? That should have been a red flag. My plasma checks went to beer and ramen noodles. Cab fair would have eaten up the whole check.

phoenix1 writes:

The only time cops suppress descriptions is when they know the ID of the suspect and they don't want them to know or run until they zap them. Otherwise they are usually pretty good about the descriptions they give. I have personally seen the info given to the media and notice the omissions by KNS. It's pretty obvious. We had a discussion where one of the KNS folks tried to convince me that race wasn't an important descriptor, but as someone who has spent time chasing bad guys, that dog won't hunt. People can change cars, and clothes, but race, age, height, weight, not so easy.

chbradshaw writes:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

NomDeGuerre writes:

in response to chbradshaw:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

It's late. You're drunk. You don't know what you're talking about. I guess I'll go back to Sequoyah Hills.

ThirdCreek writes:

It's amazing how fast Ft. Sanders has become a dangerous place to live or even walk through. I feel terrible for that poor cab driver's family. He was scrapping by trying to make a living.

Beavolfan writes:

in response to why36knot#656113:

"what difference does it make"? I will wager that the victim doesn't care whether the shooter was light green or dark yellow.

The victim is dead. Murdered by someone who has no respect for life. How clever of you to discern the victim doesn't care what the perp looked like. However, the rest of us care a great deal so we can be on the lookout and cautious for our own safety and that of our family.

southernbelle79 writes:

This crime isn't about race, it is about drug addiction and guns. A white man in TN, the most violent state in the nation, is much more likely to be killed by a white man than a black man. A black man is more likely to be killed be a black man. Why don't we get outraged by those crimes?

I wish we would attack the real problems: lack of education, lack of jobs, easy access to highly addicting but expensive drugs and easy access to guns. And stop blaming and distrusting everyone whose skin is a bit darker than ours.

DonJacobs (staff) writes:

in response to phoenix1:

Both suspect were black thugs. Of course KNS has a political agenda and they either never do any investigative journalism or they deliberately under report crimes by black youths. Race/sex are the PRIMARY elements of a description.

You guys can cry racism all you want but that does not change the demographic break down of most murderers and most victims. If you weren't racists, you would care about all the young black men being killed and the young black men throwing their lives away for the thug life.

Commenters, In this particular case, we did write the full description provided by KPD, including the ethnicity of the perps, but our computer system inexplicably coded out the two paragraphs describing both suspects as black and the specific description of the first suspect. (Those of you who get the print product will see those two paragraphs in your morning paper because an editor caught the coding problem for print, but no one corrected coding for online publication). My apologies. But wanted all you folks trying to pin motivations and secret agendas on the News Sentinel for withholding ethnicity to understand this particular story isn't one to use to highlight your arguments; this one was a computer snafu that omitted information that we didn't catch online until Tuesday morning. Sorry about the loss of information to our readers. Don Jacobs

boxerdog writes:

Oh dear GOD! You people need a life...... A MAN lost his life. A family is with out a Father, Son, Brother, etc.... Can you not pay respect and leave your political, racist, ignorant comments off here. My sympathy to the Shepard Family. My prayers are with you.

FedUpinTN writes:

Seems to me murders are going way up in the City of Knoxville. We have more and more people in free housing including those on welfare, homeless, etc. Are we just attracting more deviants? This is ridiculous! There is no shame in murder and they think they won't get caught. Yet, they get FREE public defenders and are alive while another family is devistated. It's time the laws change and punishment becomes swift like the Law initially stated. Don't wait 2, 3, 5 years. Get them and get it over. Enough. Knoxville is still a scruffy town and it is going to be in comepetition w/other cities of it's size w/the number of shootings and murders. Time to PUNISH the people who committ these crimes.

ThirdCreek writes:

in response to FedUpinTN:

Seems to me murders are going way up in the City of Knoxville. We have more and more people in free housing including those on welfare, homeless, etc. Are we just attracting more deviants? This is ridiculous! There is no shame in murder and they think they won't get caught. Yet, they get FREE public defenders and are alive while another family is devistated. It's time the laws change and punishment becomes swift like the Law initially stated. Don't wait 2, 3, 5 years. Get them and get it over. Enough. Knoxville is still a scruffy town and it is going to be in comepetition w/other cities of it's size w/the number of shootings and murders. Time to PUNISH the people who committ these crimes.

I looked it up and Knoxville does have much higher crime rates than the national average. Folks had some unkind things to say about Knoxville in the comments on this site after the stats.

http://www.bestplaces.net/crime/city/...

But the murder rate is relatively flat since 2000 once you average it out per this site.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-...

Slats writes:

Would this be a hate crime if races were reversed? Where are Jessie and Al? Seems like maybe we have a double standard and it is not restricted to Knoxville!

phoenix1 writes:

in response to DonJacobs:

Commenters, In this particular case, we did write the full description provided by KPD, including the ethnicity of the perps, but our computer system inexplicably coded out the two paragraphs describing both suspects as black and the specific description of the first suspect. (Those of you who get the print product will see those two paragraphs in your morning paper because an editor caught the coding problem for print, but no one corrected coding for online publication). My apologies. But wanted all you folks trying to pin motivations and secret agendas on the News Sentinel for withholding ethnicity to understand this particular story isn't one to use to highlight your arguments; this one was a computer snafu that omitted information that we didn't catch online until Tuesday morning. Sorry about the loss of information to our readers. Don Jacobs

We have discussed this before and this is not the only example where KNS omits black race and other media report it. I am glad if you are now trying harder.

What KNS should be doing is some investigative reporting on the REAL gang problem in Knoxville and the scourge of black gang violence that is killing our black youth and putting others in jail and ruining their lives. There are 1500 gang members and probably another 1500 that are associates or don't yet have enough points to be certified. Most shootings and robberies here are gang related. The Chief plays word games to downplay the gang element by saying the shooting wasn't a gang war, even though the shooter and the victim were rival gang members.

There IS a story here and the mayor and KPD ARE NOT providing priority and adequate resources to the fight against gangs.

Call and set up an interview with Tom Walker from the gang unit and let him tell you just how bad it is. He is a straight shooter and doesn't sugarcoat it. We have gang members in every high school in the area as well as most middle schools. We should be pulling any certified gang member out of regular school and putting them in the alternative school to prevent the spread of their disease. We should also have more surveillance of known gang members. You don't get on the certified gang list unless you are a criminal and have serious gang affiliation.

Fall_guy writes:

in response to phoenix1:

Both suspect were black thugs. Of course KNS has a political agenda and they either never do any investigative journalism or they deliberately under report crimes by black youths. Race/sex are the PRIMARY elements of a description.

You guys can cry racism all you want but that does not change the demographic break down of most murderers and most victims. If you weren't racists, you would care about all the young black men being killed and the young black men throwing their lives away for the thug life.

They cried racism yesterday when I posted a comment about crack pies at the White House. That says a great deal about the raaaaacism accusers.

Fall_guy writes:

in response to chbradshaw:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

Those people can pretty much say whatever they want, no matter how insulting. I've often wondered if those user names belonged to writers at the KNS.

Could the KNS please explain post removal policy? Why are some allowed to name call, accuse people of racism, and be all-around horse's behinds, while some reader's posts get removed for no good reason at all?

moonpie-ellie writes:

in response to chbradshaw:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

This is a horrible thing to have happened and I feel terrible for the family.

There were barely any details given when it was first put on here so I was only responding to Phoenix's nasty comment about Hillary (which for some reason you failed to mention).

Not only does KNS leave out the race often, which is really weird (computer glitch, really?) but they also love to put up something that's hardly a story and then later update with the full story, making the first commentors look completely uncaring. They do it time and time again.

My condolences to this family.

DonJacobs (staff) writes:

in response to phoenix1:

We have discussed this before and this is not the only example where KNS omits black race and other media report it. I am glad if you are now trying harder.

What KNS should be doing is some investigative reporting on the REAL gang problem in Knoxville and the scourge of black gang violence that is killing our black youth and putting others in jail and ruining their lives. There are 1500 gang members and probably another 1500 that are associates or don't yet have enough points to be certified. Most shootings and robberies here are gang related. The Chief plays word games to downplay the gang element by saying the shooting wasn't a gang war, even though the shooter and the victim were rival gang members.

There IS a story here and the mayor and KPD ARE NOT providing priority and adequate resources to the fight against gangs.

Call and set up an interview with Tom Walker from the gang unit and let him tell you just how bad it is. He is a straight shooter and doesn't sugarcoat it. We have gang members in every high school in the area as well as most middle schools. We should be pulling any certified gang member out of regular school and putting them in the alternative school to prevent the spread of their disease. We should also have more surveillance of known gang members. You don't get on the certified gang list unless you are a criminal and have serious gang affiliation.

Phoenix, You misunderstood my post. We have not altered our policy regarding reporting of ethnicity of suspects. In this case, the descriptions were complete to the point we reported those specifics. We continue to withhold partial descriptions of suspects, such as a black male, with no other specifics of height, weight, age, hair, facial hair, identifying tats, etc.

We discussed this before: If I say a car ran into a house, what comes to your mind? Each person will envision their own picture, ranging from a Smart car to a caddy. You know it's not a pickup truck, commercial rig or SUV, but I haven't really given you enough information to formulate a picture. Same thing with white male suspect; you know it's not a woman, and some form of Caucasian (subject to the mental filter of witnesses describing the suspect, which means male could be a light-skinned black or a hispanic), but I haven't provided enough data to formulate a picture.

I know you disagree with our policy, but wanted you to be clear on it.

Regarding the gang stuff: We couldn't agree more. Regards, Don Jacobs

phoenix1 writes:

in response to DonJacobs:

Phoenix, You misunderstood my post. We have not altered our policy regarding reporting of ethnicity of suspects. In this case, the descriptions were complete to the point we reported those specifics. We continue to withhold partial descriptions of suspects, such as a black male, with no other specifics of height, weight, age, hair, facial hair, identifying tats, etc.

We discussed this before: If I say a car ran into a house, what comes to your mind? Each person will envision their own picture, ranging from a Smart car to a caddy. You know it's not a pickup truck, commercial rig or SUV, but I haven't really given you enough information to formulate a picture. Same thing with white male suspect; you know it's not a woman, and some form of Caucasian (subject to the mental filter of witnesses describing the suspect, which means male could be a light-skinned black or a hispanic), but I haven't provided enough data to formulate a picture.

I know you disagree with our policy, but wanted you to be clear on it.

Regarding the gang stuff: We couldn't agree more. Regards, Don Jacobs

Don, you have the luxury of never having to try to find some POS criminal. There is no LEO organization that I could find that agrees with your policy.

If a car ran into your house the color is more important than the make/model since most cars look alike these days.

In an area where blacks are a small minority of the population and a large percentage of offenders, it is a huge clue to know the race along with other identifying information. Maybe you should go out and do some ride-alongs with patrol officers and see what they actually do.

The PC attitude of not reporting race because you think that if you say a black male that cops will be beating down every black male in the city is ridiculous. The descriptions in KNS are for the public and we often get tips from the public who recognize someone from a photo or mannerisms or even a basic description.

I look forward to your investigative articles about knoxville's gang problem.

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Friends remember Sunday shooting victim

A man is dead and police are still looking for the suspects following a weekend shooting. Friends are mourning the loss of Paul Sheperd [sic]. 6-30-14

By Jeff Mondlock

7:01 p.m. EDT June 30, 2014

WBIR

the Shepherd family friends are putting together a way to help the family get along.

A man is dead and police are still looking for the suspects following a weekend shooting.

Police responded to the scene in south Knoxville Sunday afternoon. They found a taxi cab with the victim inside. The victim, Paul Shepherd, died at the hospital. Witnesses told police they saw two men running from the crime scene.

Shepherd just took a job as a taxi driver with Absolutely Taxi and just two days later, tragedy struck him and his family.

Now, the Shepherd family friends are putting together a way to help the family get along.

Shepherd and his family moved away from one Knoxville neighborhood about two years ago, but left an impression on Evelyn Johnson, who lived across the street. She used to take his children to church every Sunday.

One neighbor said he spoke to Shepherd minutes before that fateful trip.

"He just got done talking to him about three thirty Sunday. He said I got to go. I have a call," said Johnson.

Shepherd joined the Absolutely Taxi crew on Friday. Owner Ross Batson is at a loss of words about what happened to his newest hire.

"There are not words for what happened yesterday. It's just completely wrong," said Batson.

Shepherd's car still sits in Batson's driveway, where he runs his business out of.

In keeping in touch with Shepherd's family, Batson found out about a fundraiser. It was created by a long-time friend of Shepherd's wife, Beverley. Batson promoted it from his business' Facebook page.

"We are trying to raise up money for his wife and two kids he has left behind. They are living with his family, And I am pretty sure they need some money to get out of the hole they are in, and now with this unexpected thing that happened, they need more. So we are trying to raise more money up. We have done well in the past few hours, but it needs to keep going," said Batson.

This site raised close to a thousand dollars in just 24 hours.

This incident has done more than take a life, it has changed the way Batson thinks about his company.

"The whole time in business I have always heard about the crazy cab driver. And I always want my customers to feel good. We will take care of you and get you home. But now I am more worried about the customers than the drivers," said Batson.

A life lost, and all friends can say is that he was a great person, caught in a bad situation.

"I am just sad it happened to a nice guy. Usually this happens to nice people," said Johnson.

If you would like to make a donation going toward the family, you can donate through their GoFundMe page.

at

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMonday, July 7, 2014 at 11:02:00 AM EDT

    After about a week, no one has been apprehended. It may never be solved.

    David In TN

    ReplyDelete
  2. UtahMonday, October 24, 2016 at 3:10:00 AM EDT

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete