“Cops Viciously Beat Deaf Man For Not Responding During Traffic Stop”

This headline made news. A little background:

64-year old Pearl Pearson allegedly fled the scene of an accident. Police later pulled him over in which he fully complied. Apparently he even rolled his window down in anticipation of this stop…. but what happened next baffles me.

Police allegedly beat this man, for no good reason, right then and there. First off, the link I provided is to News One, the individuals who published what I feel is hate speech. Plain and simple. News One was so desperate for a story, they felt the need to include the fact that Mr. Pearson is diabetic and disabled, . Here, just read the first line of their piece:

“Pearl Pearson, 64, a diabetic, deaf driver who resides in Oklahoma City was allegedly viciously beaten for seven minutes by police because he did not respond  during a traffic stop…”

The article then goes on to emphasize Mr. Pearsons inability to hear and use that as a tool to pry at their readers emotions. However, it states in that very same article that Mr. Pearson was fully aware he was being stopped:

“Pearl pulled over and rolled down his window, expecting an officer to ask for this identification.”

In which the article then really begins to not make sense:

“An officer struck him in the face before Pearl had the chance to do anything.  As you can see, he was struck multiple times.”

What?? Now we can either consider one of two things here: 1. Police brutality. There was absolutely no other reason aside from the cops desire to beat up on this 64 year old man.

or 2. We don’t have all the facts.

Of course one could argue both points at the same time, but let’s be real here. Let’s take a good look at who’s perpetuating this fluff;  News One whose slogan is “For Black America”, Black Youth Project, Cop Block (a publication with a “shared goal of police accountability.” These publications, if I dare call them that, all seem motivated in their own way to publish this kind of smear article. How disgusting is it to exploit a man in order to form the most sensational headline you can think of?

But let’s pull in the Huffington Post who raked a more modest: “Police Allegedly Beat Pearl Pearson For Disobeying Orders He Could Not Hear.” Now that’s a headline you can focus on while reading the article by asking yourself questions such as “Were there even orders given? Was the man incapable of acknowledging any such orders?” The latter strays a bit from the point, so let’s just focus on the aspect of him being unable to hear the orders. Okay. That’s not disputed. If this man is truly deaf, there is no way in hell he heard anything. So why even focus on that in the first place? Because he was allegedly beaten by police so that must be because he didn’t hear their orders or else they wouldn’t have hit him! 

Give me a break.

I guess I could talk myself in circles with this one. My point is, be careful when reading the news. There are always going to be people behind every word you read, and they have agendas. And their interest isn’t always in consideration of what makes quality journalism.

An article surfacing out of Oklahoma  sounds awfully different. Don’t pick sides, pick facts.