Saturday 24 October 2009

Mail doesn't want violent criminals deported to 'where they came from' shock

The Mail's latest attempt to blame violent films, video games and Facebook for anything and everything comes in the story Vietnam veteran killed boss in Reservoir Dogs-style attack after slipping into UK despite string of convictions.

As he's 53, it's doubtful he was a Vietnam vet as the last US combat troops left 37 years ago, when he was around 16.

But Reservoir Dogs? Did he dress in white shirt with black suit and tie and chop someone's ear off while singing early 70s pop songs? Did he change his name to a colour and shoot someone during a diamond heist?

Well, no:

Russell Carter, 53, held the men at gunpoint in their office and forced them to transfer cash to his bank account.

He tied up three of the hostages, then took company director Kingsley Monk into another room where he brutally attacked him with a metal pipe before strangling him with his own tie.

OK, so one hostage was tied up in Reservoir Dogs, but other than that, none of that happened in the film. But wait:

In a scene recalling Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film Reservoir Dogs, Carter then drenched the remaining hostages in petrol, spread more around the office and set it alight before fleeing.

Of course, while one hostage was doused in petrol, no one was actually set on fire in an office in the film.

The Sun also refers to it as a:

Reservoir Dogs style slaughter

eventhough the one man who died was killed in ways which are nowhere to be seen in the film.

So why try and blame the film, rather than the fact that Carter was a nasty, violent man who:

was convicted of armed robbery in California in 1979 and again in 1985 when he was jailed for 20 years.

California? So he was one of those violent foreigners who come to this country to commit their crimes?

Well, not really. He was born in Britain and held dual citizenship.

Imagine the Daily Mail, in America, in 1985. After Carter's second conviction for armed robbery they would be demanding this person be deported 'back to where he came from'. Britain.

And yet, Carter's crime is the fault of...America:

It emerged that British-born Carter had a record of armed violence in the U.S. but immigration officials were not warned when he returned to this country ten years ago.

The comments include:

And another loony is let into Britain
- Despair, Kent, 23/10/2009 14:59

And:

Maybe Nick Griffin has a point,keep importing criminal scum like this and what do you expect??
- Tel em straight, Zefat Israel, 23/10/2009 16:57

Importing? He's British-born! And then:

Send him back to USA let him serve his sentence there. Why the hell should we keep him?
- Richard, Torrevieja, Spain, 23/10/2009 17:01

Which contains an interesting use of the word 'we' for someone living in Spain.

And over at The Sun:

Let him serve it back in the States.
posted by: VigilanteMan

Hmm. So whereas the Mail and Sun and their readers are all too keen to demand the deportation of criminals back to their country of origin, if they are British, they shouldn't return to Britain. To quote one Mail comment:

What he did was horrific and absolutely the US authorities should have informed the UK police of any criminal activitites or time served in prison, but you can't argue that he shouldn't have been allowed back to the UK and then argue in the same breath that immigrant criminals should be deported.
- C Martin, Auckland, New Zealand, 24/10/2009 2:14

Quite right.

2 comments:

  1. another piece of evidence to show how short-sighted and easily led-on people are by poor newspaper articles.

    but on a completely unrelated note, resevoir dogs is a great film.

    ReplyDelete
  2. don't these expats living in spain have ANY sense of irony at all???

    ReplyDelete

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