You won't have to hear about Bijan Ghaisar!

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2021

You won't have to hear from his parents: Are we able to handle the truth here in the streets of Our Town?

If we were asked to handle the truth, we almost surely could! But at present, there's a significant range of major events we're shielded from hearing about.

Just like in the good old days, when the Klan was running the South!

Consider the news report which appeared in Saturday's Washington Post. It involved one of those fatal shooting events—one of the many fatal events we aren't asked to think about. 

Back in November 2017, Bijan Ghaisar, age 25,  was shot and killed by two U.S. Park Police officers. 

The incident happened a few miles outside Washington. Since that time, the incident has been heavily covered, as a local event, by the Washington Post.

The Post has published many news reports about the incident and about the legal aftermath. The paper has published many editorials. 

The Post has heavily covered this incident. For reasons which are amazing but  are blindingly obvious, this coverage has produced zero interest within the national press.

Well over three years later, this somewhat peculiar fatal incident is still being batted around in the courts. On Saturday, the Post reported the latest court hearing. Along the way, reporter Tom Jackman quoted Ghaisar's parents:

JACKMAN (4/24/21): The family of Bijan Ghaisar, who was shot to death by two U.S. Park Police officers in 2017, watched in amazement as the prosecution of a former police officer, Minneapolis's Derek Chauvin, moved from charging to trial to conviction in 11 months for the murder of George Floyd.

“I hope that would be an example of how these cases should be handled,” Ghaisar’s mother, Kelly Ghaisar, said Friday.

[...]

“Here we are, 3 ½ years later,” Kelly Ghaisar said, “and all we have is a hearing to see if [the Park Police officers] have immunity. The judicial system, everything, has failed Bijan.”

[...]

The Ghaisars sat directly behind the officers. “My chest was so heavy, it was about to burst,” Kelly Ghaisar said. James Ghaisar, Bijan Ghaisar’s father, said, “I believe if the officers were local, with all the support we’ve received from Congress and local officials, we would have had much, much faster results. But because they’re federal officers, it’s been 1,253 days since they killed my son. This is so sad, how unbelievable this bureaucracy is.”

We don't report this to prejudge the conduct of the two officers, or to judge the conduct of the courts. We report this to tell you this:

Chris Cuomo won't be boo-hooing on TV as he listens to Bijan Ghaisar's parents discuss the glacial pace at which this case has moved. He won't be speaking with the Ghaisars at all, for reasons which seem astounding but obvious.

He won't interview the Ghaisars; he won't ever mention this case. The Ghaisars are dead to the horrible Cuomo. For Cuomo, they don't exist.

Under what circumstances was Bijan Ghaisar, a young accountant, shot and killed? Jackman has been reporting this case for years. Here's his latest capsule account of what happened:

JACKMAN (continuing directly): After Ghaisar’s Jeep Grand Cherokee was rear-ended by a Toyota Corolla on the George Washington Memorial Parkway on the evening of Nov. 17, 2017, [Officers] Vinyard and Amaya pursued him with lights and siren on down the parkway in Fairfax County. Twice Ghaisar stopped, then drove off as the officers ran at his Jeep with guns drawn, a video recorded by a Fairfax County police in-car camera shows. A Fairfax lieutenant had joined the pursuit. The Park Police do not have in-car or body-worn cameras.

At a third stop, after Ghaisar had pulled off the parkway and into the Fort Hunt neighborhood of Fairfax, the officers again emerged with guns drawn and Ghaisar again started to slowly drive off. Both officers fired five times, an FBI investigation found, and Ghaisar, 25, was killed. He was unarmed.

We don't know why he was shot and killed. Again, though, that isn't our point. Our point concerns the way the horrendous Cuomo decides who to bring on TV. Consider:

A few weeks ago, a different report in the Washington Post quoted a different set of parents.

Their son, Peyton Ham, age 16, had been shot and killed by a Maryland state trooper. He hadn't been trying to stab anyone, but it sounded like he was having a type of "mental health" event.  

As a result, he was shot and killed. Print edition headline included, Katie Mettler's news report started like this:

METTLER (4/15/21): Family ‘shattered’ after police shooting of teen

A day after their son was shot and killed by a Maryland state trooper, the parents of 16-year-old Peyton Alexander Ham said in a statement that their family is “absolutely heartbroken and shattered over this sudden, unexpected loss of life of a talented young man, filled with promise.”

Ham’s parents said the teen was “smart, gifted” and “sweet” with an “ ‘Alex P. Keaton’ type personality.”

“His love of conservative politics [was] always taking center stage to his lively debates at the family dinner table,” his family said.

A cynic would say that you definitely won't see Cuomo pretending to care about those "heartbroken" parents. As Professor Henning seemed to make clear (see below), you won't even be asked to hear this incident mentioned!

Again, we aren't saying the trooper did something wrong in this case. We're talking about the bizarre behavior of Cuomo, and of CNN in general.

Also, we're talking about something else. We're talking about the amount of truth we're asked to handle here in Our Town.

On average, just under three people per day are shot and killed by police. Mental illness is often involved. So is crazy behavior. 

Sometimes, there may be police misconduct. Other times, there isn't.

The public interest might be served if basic police procedures changed. But absent a wider discussion, wwe aren't discussing police procedures. We're discussing CNN's.

For ourselves, we tend to be slow to judge police officers. It's much easier to judge the conduct of people like Cuomo. Here's how it seems to break down:

Cuomo will speak to some grieving parents. Others need not apply!

As people like Como behave this way, Our Town isn't asked to handle the full sweep of the truth. That includes this obvious truth:

Judged by their apparent behavior, malfunctioning people like Cuomo should be frog-marched away from their current locations. It's hard to believe that anyone would behave the way they currently do, but the facts of the matter seem plain.

Judged by their apparent behavior, people like Cuomo should be kept from appearing on the TV sets of Our Town. They're determined to disappear large chunks of the truth, for reasons they need to explain.

Paul Farhi needs to ask about this. So do Margaret Sullivan and Ben Smith.

We'll believe it when we see it! For now, Cuomo speaks with and about only certain parents. In an astounding manifestation, others need not apply!

This is one of the ways the game is currently being played. For all those many brutal years, this is also the way the truth was parceled down South!

Three children disappeared: Hard to believe, but apparently true! Georgetown Law professor Kristin Henning seems to know the basic rules of this remarkable game.

Which three children got disappeared? You can just click here.