Heinous Crimes High on Friday

 

The Tom Green County Jail is full of the city’s riff-raff today, after police spent a busy Friday arresting locals for heinous crimes.

There were 43 inmates booked into the county jail over the last 24 hours, and of those, five were arrested on assault charges. The type of assault extends from the comparatively ‘moderate’ to downright despicable, including among them one count of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, one aggravated sexual assault to a child, and three assault causing bodily injury charges. An additional inmate was booked for terroristic threats of a family member.

Alcohol-related arrests were also high on Friday, with five DWI’s and three public intoxication charges. Drugs followed close behind, with three arrest for possession of pot, four in possession of another controlled substance, and two paraphernalia charges.

Thefts, burglaries and fraud account for six total arrests, theft making up the lion’s share at four, the other two at one each.

There were 29 inmates released on Friday. 

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Comments

Is heinous really the right word to use based purely on a series of booking reports? Especially considering the range that each charge can cover. And again, these are charges that may not in fact be true or the persons charged guilty. Booked into jail is not a conviction and not a statement of fact. Headlines grab page views and drive traffic for a while but over used trigger words just numb the audience. What do you do when the real heinous acts are uncovered. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
live, Sun, 12/29/2013 - 21:08

Is it sensationalism to headline aggravated sexual assult of a child + terroristic threats to a member of one's own family "heinous?" Or is aggravated sexual assault of children at the same low level as getting popped for smoking a joint?  How should we headline it, Jim?

You headline by what you know to be true. The charges on the booking report may not be accurate at all. They are not proof or even evidence that a crime happened. Might have been an aggravated sexual assault or it might have been a false report for a messy divorce/child custody or revenge. No way to know from the booking report. If you were reporting on a trial, heinous fits. The only thing a booking report truly shows is that someone went to jail.
live, Mon, 12/30/2013 - 08:06

Now I know what it's like to be a city councilman and to be lectured often by The Great Jim Turner

The headline is accurate. We know that the police said that they arrested someone for aggravated sexual assault. This is a crime report. Nothing more, or less. The headline reflects the facts.

Gus is correct. These are allegations of a heinous crime. Someone has been accused of a heinous crime. The fact that someone was arrested and/or possibly charged doesn't even mean that a particular crime actually happened. They will have an arrest report but to call it a crime until more information is available is premature. The headline states a conclusion that the facts listed in the article, including an arrest, don't support.That's basic to our judicial system where we depend on the availability of the jury box to determine guilt or innocence. Presumed innocence is not just empty rhetoric.
No matter if they are guilty of the crime or not, the crime itself is heinous. So the headline is correct.
"Alleged" or "accused" would make the headline more accurate. Or this lede rewrite: The Tom Green County Jail is full of the city’s alleged riff-raff today, after police spent a busy Friday arresting locals accused of heinous crimes.
You write whatever headline you think appropriate. I'm just glad you have made the news available without a paid subscription.

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