Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Hey Chronicle: He Communicated With a Baseball Bat!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5682409.html
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In this story the chronicle takes the case of a young man who was in jail and who is deaf. Reporter Terri Langford addresses the issues of communicating with deaf people inside the Harris County jail. Okay, fine, no problem. Langford left out one, teeny, tiny little factoid in this story.
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"Christopher Fuentes' hands fly in front of him, recalling his recent stay inside the Harris County Jail after a violent Super Bowl Sunday fight with his brother landed him there."
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What reporter Langford didn't elaborate on was that Mr. Fuentes took a base ball bat and almost beat his brother to death. The two got into an argument (because Mr. Fuentes wanted something and was told no by his mother) and started fighting. At the scene, police were told the brother did pick up a knife, but never got to use it. The brother was knocked on the floor and trying to defend himself, but Mr. Fuentes kept beating him, and beating him, and beating him. The house was a bloody mess. So, reserve your sympathy for this guy. The alleged "knife wound" was news to everyone since nobody said the knife got used.
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"As a teen, Fuentes was diagnosed as bipolar and received services and medication ...." I think because of this Mr. Fuentes has been made to feel that his actions are not his fault, it's his 'condition.' His mother told officers this on the scene and was trying to convince the officers that he wasn't responsible for this. She was overheard by one officer saying she was going to try to downplay this to help her son. Looks like that is exactly what she did.

1 comment:

Lee Ann said...

Have a great week Jason!
~xo
Lee Ann