A friend sent me the bizarre news about the naked man shot to death while he was chewing off a homelessman's face and said "Sound like demons?" linking to Mark 5. Yeah, so I'm guessing your average reporter knows next to nothing about demons, but I was curious to see how it would play out in the media.
Play out it did, and media outlets generally provided explanations of various drugs and quoted pundits using the drug hooks for their own purposes.
Then the Associated Press interviewed the attacker's girlfriend, who has a few things to say about religion.
Yovonka Bryant said Rudy Eugene never showed any signs of violence during their four-month relationship. They often read the Bible and the Quran together, and often watched a religious television program in the mornings.
Bryant, who was questioned by police after the attack but is not under investigation, described Eugene as a Christian who wanted to know more about the Muslim faith.
"He would never leave without it, his Bible, and his Quran was always by his side," Bryant said. Eugene would place the Bible on top of the Quran on the passenger seat of his car, she said. "He was just figuring out the Quran. He just really picked up the Quran and was trying to actually get into it as he was into the Bible."
As a reporter, what would do with that information? It's hard to know how deeply a four-month old girlfriend would actually know about her significant other's actual faith, but let's go on to read more.
His girlfriend said she thought someone may have slipped Eugene a drug, but she did not say why she thought that.
Bryant, a single mother of three, said she never saw Eugene drink and only once saw him smoke marijuana at a party.
Court records show Eugene had several arrests on marijuana-related charges. His brother has said Eugene sometimes smoked marijuana but didn't drink much or use hard drugs.
Bryant, a billing specialist for a certified public accountant, hired celebrity attorney Gloria Allred to arrange a news conference "because she thinks it is important that the public know the truth about Rudy Eugene and her relationship with him," Allred said.
OK, so if his girlfriend says she saw him smoke marijuana once, but he's been arrested on several related charges, how does that go together? And if she thinks someone slipped him a drug but she did not say why she thought that, did a reporter follow up and ask? Why is she hiring all these people? Something feels wrong here, a story that feels too incomplete to file.
By itself, the story feels a little bit weak. It feels like it needs further voices or explanation from authorities instead of standing alone with the new updates about what the girlfriend says. Here's where I ask GetReligion readers to weigh in. What do you make of all of this?
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
