11th Homicide of 2006 and What Goes Unreported

Dien Kien Huynh

Two days ago 55 year old Dien Kien Huynh died of injuries sustained when a group of three African American youths beat and robbed him as he was returning home from work.

This, according to the Tacoma News Tribune is the eleventh homicide of the year for the city of Tacoma. The fact that two of those homicides were not even reported in the media is funny to me but not really all  that surprising. After working in police records it becomes something of a mystery how the media decides what they want to put in the paper and what they don't. The things that go unreported are frequently the worst things.

I used to type up the Child Protective Services reports. There were usually enough of them that I'd spend one day a month doing just those. That works out to something like one or two a day really. But you won't read anywhere about the fifteen year old girl who was taken from her father's lakeside cabin because he was whoring her out to neighbors to pay his mortgage. Or the three year old they found sleeping on a 'pillow' that was actually a large bag of cocaine. These aren't things I made up. Those are two reports I actually wrote up.

On the days when I wrote up the CPS reports I would come home late and drunk. Sometimes I wouldn't work the next day. It's the one part of the job I don't miss even a little. When I think about how much typing up those reports bothered me, I try  not to think about how much it must bother the cops who have to deal with that stuff.

People think shows like CSI are hard hitting or dark. They aren't. And really I'm glad they aren't.

-Jack