As the Wicked Watch(82)
“This is off the record, too,” she said. “There are reasons other than what goes bump in the night to explain why kids keep knives in their rooms.”
“What do you mean?”
“The older boy. He’s going to be named, so I might as well tell you. Derek. Derek Harvey,” she took a breath. “He was assaulted at camp. I don’t know all the details, but his parents think it was one of the young adult counselors. He developed a form of PTSD.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“A couple years ago. His parents don’t believe he’s ever told them everything that happened.”
Then the expulsion and now this? It’s too much for any child to bear.
*
This Is a News Channel 8 Special Report
So shocking were the charges against the three boys that a national media firestorm descended on Chicago. The Windy City has been castigated for its culture of violence and has been accused of being an urban war zone. By any standard, this case was extraordinary. Blaming a crime so vicious on children was about as tone-deaf as singing a legendary Chicago blues song about heartbreak and a no-good man at a wedding. But it fed the media monster obsessed with violence in major cities that have large African American populations. Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit—the bull’s-eye shifted from one to another of them, and these tragic stories fed into media markets where people devoured them. When I first got into the business, “If it bleeds, it leads” was the watchword of newsrooms. A way to boost ratings off someone else’s pain. It sounds heartless, I know. It’s not deliberately callous but a conditioning of the mind to forget that the “blood” once ran through a person. Because you can’t have blood without a victim.
A portion of my exclusive interview with Adele Constanzo was carried by the national network. It lasted just twenty-five seconds (yes, I timed it—a habit), but it was still a dream come true. Mom was thrilled to see my coverage in Austin but disappointed that I wasn’t featured in the clip.
“That’s not how it works, Mom,” I told her. “Locally, the story is mine, but the network has its own national correspondent here, Grayson Michele. Remember? I told you I met him at a journalism conference a few years back. I’ve admired him since I was in undergrad. He reached out to me to get a handle on the story.”
For someone like Grayson to seek my advice was a confidence boost, matched only by the call I received from the network’s executive producer congratulating me on getting the scoop.
“Mom, I just pulled off one of the biggest exclusives of my career, thanks to this attorney.”
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” Mom said. “What did your boss say about it?”
“Ellen, of course, gave me kudos, but Nussbaum blew me away. Here’s this White news executive from the more conservative northern part of Illinois. You know what he said?”
“What?”
“He told me he doesn’t think the boys did it. He doesn’t believe for a second that police got it right. That’s unusual coming from someone who has nothing in common with these kids. No reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.”
In fact, Nussbaum had spent his career turning a blind eye to the constant dehumanization of Black men and boys by the media. And yet there he was, no proof, only his gut, telling me they were innocent. It reminded me of the power of the job. It’s not about making or breaking someone’s day; it’s the ability to make or break a system that can destroy someone’s life if they are innocent. It’s also about humanizing people and not being used as a weapon against the lesser-thans and the have-nots.
I felt a strange vibe, though, in the newsroom. Some of my colleagues moved robotically around me, diverting their eyes. Keith’s negative energy was noticeable. It wasn’t just the way he looked at me. His dismissive posturing was practically a snarl. If he thought I was passively waiting for the “atta girl” from him, he clearly didn’t know me at all.
Around the city, a different type of storm was brewing. Radio shows, from the morning talk hosts to the evening drive-time jocks, between playing the hits, invited Chicago’s angry and outraged citizens to call in. The outrage was bolstered by an editorial in the Sun-Times that called out police for glaring early signs of a very problematic case. Not to mention the lack of transparency at that sham of a press conference, which only fueled this combustible moment taking place yet again in this city. It was different this time, not isolated to the Black community or the neighborhood and the few streets where the boys grew up or the church they attended. The air was thick with tension everywhere. A Black child was dead. Now three Black children were charged with her murder. Chicago braced itself for social unrest, and protesters shutting down Lake Shore Drive or tony Michigan Avenue like it did when a quarter million or more marched against an anti-immigration law pending in Congress a year ago.
With tensions running high, the station signed off on my making an appearance on the highest rated urban radio show in the city. While enormously successful, the show was typical in many ways, with two hyper-opinionated guys occasionally chastised into playing nice by a bold, unapologetic alpha female who spent much of her time shooting down their borderline misogynistic comments and standing up for the women listening in. But when it was time to pivot, like now, The Get Up with Gil Show abandoned its shtick for substance, recognizing its powerful contrast with mainstream media when it came to directly impacting Black lives.