From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 15 2002 - 12:19:02 MST
Always worth checking on the statements of politicians and particularly Mr
Rudolph Giuliani.
A careful examination of news reports and court information, including the
plea bargains entered shows that the murders referenced were motivated by
intent to rob. Marijuana had nothing to do with the actual crimes, until the
publication of the articles criticized below.
Hermit
[url]http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/2001/november/potandecstasy.htm[/url]
[quote]Bulletin Time: Fri Feb 15 12:40:54 2002
How the Press Sensationalizes Pot and Ecstasy
Jim Naureckas
In two remarkably similar front-page pieces earlier this year, both USA
Today and the New York Times went in search of the new crack.
In a May 19 article headlined "Violent Crimes Undercut Marijuana's Mellow
Image," the Times nominated marijuana to be the next drug to be associated
in the public mind with scary street crime; USA Today's May 16 lead story,
on the other hand, was "Ecstasy Drug Trade Turns Violent: The Rave Culture's
`Peace and Love' Pill Bloodies the Suburbs as Dealers Battle for Turf and
Profits."
Both stories started by linking the crack trade to their new drug-scare of
choice, whose previously benign associations were presented as ironic.
"Police officials in New York City, who spent years battling a crack scourge
that sent the murder rate soaring, say they are now seeing increasing
violence among dealers of marijuana, a drug they say no longer fits its
laid-back image," wrote the Times' Kevin Flynn. USA Today's Donna Leinwand
led with "Ecstasy, the `peace and love' drug of the rave party culture, is
igniting violent turf wars among drug dealers that authorities say resemble
the battles over crack cocaine that devastated urban areas in the 1980s."
Both stories sooner or later backed off from a direct equation between crack
and the new drug menace, and noted that there are no statistics available to
show that there's been any rise in violence associated with either pot ("New
York City does not keep statistics on marijuana-related violence") or
Ecstasy ("Few law enforcement agencies keep statistics on Ecstasy-related
violence".)
But relying heavily on law enforcement quotes and anecdotes, they still
managed to paint dire if somewhat vague pictures. USA Today's article, the
more sensational of the two, reported that "America's suburbs are being hit
with Ecstasy-related drive-by shootings, executions and assaults, as violent
international crime groups stake claims to the Ecstasy market." To back up
this alarming assertion, the story referred to exactly three killings that
had happened across the country in the previous six months — not exactly a
crime wave.
The New York Times mentioned four murders, three of which occurred in a
single incident, the killing of a pot dealer and two of her acquaintances in
a robbery above a famous New York delicatessen. "People who view marijuana
peddling as victimless have not seen the carnage left in the apartment above
the Carnegie Deli," read a quote from New York Police Commissioner Bernard
Kerik — a bit like announcing that jewelry sales are not "victimless" after
a jeweler and her customers were killed in a robbery.
No more Nietzsche.
Of course, many readers of the New York Times are familiar with marijuana,
and are unlikely to become overly alarmed about it, despite the paper's best
efforts to explain that it's a whole new drug scene. ("Times have changed,"
it quoted one police official. "None of the dealers in the Bronx are smoking
joints and discussing Nietzsche.") In what might be read as an attempt to
cover its bets, the paper's July 21 front page featured another warning
about rising drug violence — but this time pointing to Ecstasy.
Like the other stories in its genre, Fox Butterfield's "Violence Rises As
Club Drug Spreads Out Into the Streets" had frightening quotes from law
enforcement officers (one DEA agent likened raves to "violent crack houses
set to music,") but no statistics to document any "rise." And the anecdotes
it relied on were essentially the same ones that USA Today used the month
before: Three of the four murders mentioned in Butterfield's piece were also
described in the USA Today article; the killing that got the most attention
from Butterfield was also highlighted by USA Today.
Nonetheless, the New York Times credited "police records," not USA Today,
for the information on the murders. Is the Times ashamed to admit that it's
borrowing from a paper better known for its pie charts than for its
investigative reporting? Or are there really so few Ecstasy-related murders
in the country that any two journalists working independently will come up
with the same handful of incidents? Either way, it doesn't look good for the
Times.[/quote]
[url]http://www.fair.org/extra/0109/newcrack.html[/url] < - same as above
[url]http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/112001/opi_media.shtml[/url] <- again
[url]http://www.gothamgazette.com/crime/jun.01.shtml[/url] <- Devastating
article. Well worth reading.
[quote](June '01) This has been the month of marijuana. Many New Yorkers are
wondering whether their city has gotten trapped in some deadly new form of
Reefer Madness. On May 10, five people were shot--three killed and two badly
wounded--in an apartment above the Carnegie Deli in midtown. It looked
initially like a drug deal gone bad because the apartment's tenant, Jennifer
Stahl, had dealt in high-grade marijuana. (The shooting later turned out to
be more of a music deal gone bad.) The New York Times said that six pounds
of marijuana, worth roughly $10,000 per pound, were found in the apartment.
This astonishing market price reflects both the new potency of
marijuana--not your grandmother's mild weed of the sixties--and the value
produced by the federal government's 30-year war on drugs.[/quote]
[url]http://www.amw.com/site/recent_captures/carnegiekiller.html[/url] <-
about arrest and plea bargain
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/07/15/carnegie.deli.murders/[/url]
http://www.clubplanet.com/content/popup/cover190a.asp <- Surrender of Smith.
Contemporaneous statement by New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik,
[quote]If you want to sum it up in financial terms, they killed three
people, shot two, execution-style, for $2,800[/quote]
What happened?
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/38110.htm
Google search string: "Carnegie Deli Andre Smith"
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