Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay now and Des Moines in between.
BAY AREA TV COVERAGE: Frankly, I watched little. I tuned in later on in the evening, around 7 and flipped through the various channels and it was about what I expected, with a few notable exceptions.
A highlight: KRON's Sara Stinson was live at the HMB sub-station where she offered a chilling, intensely personal story: before doing her live shot, Stinson told viewers she noticed a friend's dad was there on scene and asked the dad, "what are you doing here?" The dad informed Stinson that two of the dead in Half Moon Bay were family victims. Stinson carried on but you could see she was quite shaken up. It was a powerful report especially when she tossed it back to Ken Wayne and Pam Moore.
*A lowlight: The station that tells us they "want to build a better Bay Area" abruptly cut coverage at 7 so they could air Jeopardy. Real community service. I know ABC makes a fortune on Jeopardy but this was so out of line and pathetic, I'm at a loss for words. I'll be diplomatic: it was a BAD move. End of story. It also diminished what was a relatively good performance by Circle7's anchors and reporters.*Raj Mathai and Jessica Aguirre anchored NBC Bay Area's HMB coverage past the 7 PM hour and were slightly OK, nothingh of significance, just OK. Raj's tendency to inflate his own image by asking way too many questions is evident. He could just anchor and let the facts tell the story. Aguirre doesn't do the greatest ad-libbing but she's not alone. On the other hand, Terry McSweeney was his usual spot-on and quite solid from the scene.
*KPIX (CBS News Bay Area) : didn't watch much so I'll take the fifth here.
*QUESTION NO ONE ASKED dept.: Anyone besides me found it odd, peculiar, that on virtually consecutive days, two older Asian men shooters (allegedly) mass-murdered? In LA and Half Moon Bay.
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy but two men with virtually no criminal record who did what they did? Was it all just too bizarre for you as it was for me? Just a thought.
Either way, nobody asked.
I agree. I wonder if Chinese New Year should be added to the query?
ReplyDeleteCultural immersion on foreign soil. Things can go bad quickly. It doesn't take much under certain circumstances. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me one bit.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I had to dodge quite a few mopeds on the streets of San Jose this past week. I know they're all over in your home country but it is not legal to block traffic driving 15 mph on a moped here in the Bay Area.
Delete11:09 You make it sounds like Asians just got here recently. They have been part of and add to this country for many, many years.
DeleteIt was Asian and Hispanic. The doors have been flung open and one ethnicity is going to cross the other. Actions/Consequences. Don't even get me started on the bullshit concept of "social engineering".
DeleteI've been a fan of Stinson since she arrived on the scene. Wife material.
ReplyDeleteOMG! Your bar is pretty low.......
DeleteShe is a beautiful woman. You're too superficial. And if you are or were to ever get a wife it would show by wife #3.
DeleteI wouldn't have asked either. Stupid question. If two white men had done it would you ask then?
ReplyDeleteAs far as a connection, I don't there there is one. The shooter and victims in Monterey Park were all Taiwanese (as that part of the Valley is predominantly Taiwanese). I bet the shooter and the Asian victims at the 'shroom farm were Cantonese (the predominant Chinese subculture here in northern California. And both shootings took place right after Lunar New Year festivities (or what most Whites call "Chinese New Year"). This is a time of great reflection for Cantonese/Mandarin/Taiwanese/Vietnamese/Singaporean/Laotian/South Korean communities--a time of washing away the old year and welcoming the New Year. It can be stressful for those who don't aren't successful, don't have a plan, and feel hopelessly lost.
ReplyDelete2 older Asian men commit mass shootings/murders within 48 hours of each other in the same state, very strange, they don't fit the profile.
ReplyDeleteCertainly these 2 shooters don't fit the profile of a mass shooter. They are older, asian and turned on their own community. However, I tend to think it is just a coincidence. They didn't know eachother. The shooter in LA use to go dancing at one of the places where he shot people, the HMB shooter use to work at one of the places, perhaps both, not sure. Just sounds like they over time developed a hatred towards the people, they either socialized with or worked with. Never the less very sad. One is dead the other in custody, but the families are left with a big void.
ReplyDeleteThey need the BAU on the job. Hotch and Rossi would have that solved quick, and JJ could get in some surfing.
DeleteThat's what happens when you smoke and eat the stuff they were growing. Just me saying.....
ReplyDeleteYep You are spot on.
DeleteIt’s coincidental though there’s a chance that these incident might be an ominous foreshadowing / first steps toward Asians joining the ranks of the ‘typical’ mass shooter…or at least doing them enough that we aren’t surprised anymore. I’m not suggesting they will do them with the frequency of whites, but there may come a point where the fact a shooter is Asian isn’t newsworthy in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteOr, these two mass shootings could prove to be anomalies and an awful coincidence. Hopefully this turns out to be the case.
No shit it's a coincidence.
DeleteI think the HMB shooter is a copy cat.
ReplyDeleteI also thought Heather and Alex did a great job. I tuned in around 630 and they were amazing, like a national news broadcast, then as it got closer to 7 they joined the two together, 6 and 7 while waiting for the sheriffs news conference. Heather was really, really good. Smart, confident, aware of the situation. Could have not been better and Alex was good too but Heather carried the day. Bravo channel 2.
ReplyDeleteAgree about channel 2 2:45 PM. It was well done.
DeletePersonal to KGO & NBC Bay Area: Putting a music bed under your teaser for a mass murder story is seldom a good idea
ReplyDeleteHas anyone in local media examined the reality of animus between some Vietnamese and Chinese? Has any local or national reporter today covering presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom's press statements about congress and guns, dared to ask him what anything he's proposed could have stopped a killer with no criminal history and a legally purchased gun?
ReplyDeleteI know this from experience and I've heard it directly from Chinese and Japanese friends. Chinese don't like Koreans or Japanese. Koreans think they're superior to everyone. Japanese are like old white guys now and love everyone and listen to Metallica. All of them think of the Vietnamese as being "the armpit of Asia". N
DeleteMr Rich, the Lunar New Year is a HUGE deal for many folks: family dinners, red envelopes exchanged, the house cleaned up, all to start the New Year right. It is a festive time. But if you are alone, and depressed, it can be torturous. (Much like “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my mind.”) There is a lot of build up, with hopes for a good year at the fore-front. We all want a happy, ,healthy, thriving, peaceful, family -community - country -world.
ReplyDeleteWhen things are bleak, and sad, and life feels like a raw deal, some folks want to blame others for their plight. I am not saying this as an excuse for what happened, just saying that old resentments are often brought up over holidays like Thanksgiving. Or Lunar New Year, or Valentine’s Day or…
This stuff is happening far too often. At one time it was once every 5 years, then once a year, then every 5 months, now it is 3 times a week. Soon it will be EVERY day and then 3 times a day. I do not know the answer, does anyone? Maybe we need to celebrate everyone’s contribution so folks do not feel so alienated?!
At 5pm ktvu displayed and read the names of the 11 Asian Monterey Park victims without having another Sum Ting Wong or Ho Lee Fuk incident.
ReplyDeleteThis is considered a success for ktvu. Clearly the bar couldn’t be any lower.
Tonight to their credit, KPIX did the shooting story, then filled the news with other regular/important news. Circle 7 sucked. It was the same over and over to fill air time. It's always a horrible thing when there is a shooting. Sadly, our Gov. Newsom was typical.. on and on and on...he needs to tailor his comments for executive brevity and not just be political.
ReplyDeleteRaj is embarassing. How can everything be about him? How can he talk in a way that makes 7 murders sound like he was there or part of reporters on the ground at shootings. NBC must be deseperate or Raj knows where bodies are buried that he still has a job there??
ReplyDeleteHow did the video guy end up 2-3 cars away from the suspect when he was pulled out of his car?
ReplyDeleteI also found that odd. That videographer just happened to be crouched down, set up behind a random car, three cars away from where the gunman was sitting his car, aiming his camera toward a parking lot where absolutely nothing was going on. Like when media outlets are waiting for a press conference to start with the camera trained on the empty podium…and then the speaker appears and begins to speak.
DeleteThe portion of the video that we’ve all seen begins when police approach the vehicle and the suspect comes out of the vehicle for the takedown arrest.
But the raw, uncut footage begins about 3.5 minutes before anything occurred. There were no police in the lot. Nothing whatsoever going on. That’s 3.5 minutes of the camera trained on that exact spot, recording nothing at all.
Then boom, the police enter the shot, which is already perfectly framed, and make the arrest.
The only explanation is the videographer was tipped off by police that the arrest was about to take place there. Otherwise, we’re expected to believe that in a mass shooting event with two active crime scenes, the videographer chose to set up and record an empty parking lot, three cars away from where the arrest occurred 3.5 minutes after he hit the start button.
The reason the cameras were there was because the location of the arrest was a sherrif sub-station. The video crews were set up at that location because it was expected that further press conferences would be occuring there once the crime scenes were released.
DeleteThe suspect had parked in a spot in the lot prior to the arrival of the press. The suspect van was noticed by a deputy that was walking through the lot, and then the arrest occured.
What would the videographer & police that tipped him off done if the suspect came out of the car guns blazing...this one doesn't smell right?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing everyone was surprised the shooter was even there.
Delete7 cutting away wasn't a bad move at all. They'd already done hours of coverage and there weren't any new details coming out. I actually watched Jeopardy & Wheel that night because I was tired of the other stations just repeating themselves.
ReplyDeleteEach days version of Jeopardy and Wheel are available on YouTube with little commercial interruption.
ReplyDelete