The same media outlets that couldn’t wait to hype the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri are tiptoeing very delicately around the beating of Iraq veteran Ralph Weems in Mississippi. Weems is a white man severely beaten last Saturday night, allegedly by a mob of black men upset about the Brown shooting. Working from a phone interview conducted by Weems’ friend with the Associated Press, the UK Daily Mail has the most detailed account of the incident:
David Knighten of West Point told AP earlier by phone that he and Weems had gone to a Waffle House early Saturday.
He said a black man waved him over outside the restaurant and told him politely that people were upset by the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and it wasn’t a safe place for whites.
When he went in, he said, Weems was inside and was arguing with around seven black men.
They left after an argument that brought police, Knighten said.
[Police chief Tim] Brinkley said a Waffle House employee told officers who answered a 1am disturbance call that a patron was creating a disturbance and upsetting other patrons.
After he was asked to leave, employees also asked the other patrons to leave, Brinkley said.
Knighten said he showed those officers his .45-caliber handgun and his concealed carry permit.
On the way to Weems’ house, Knighten said, they went into a Huddle House restaurant with a nearly vacant parking lot.
However, he said, they apparently had been followed by a group of more than 20 black men.
Knighten, who said he had served with the Air Force in Afghanistan, said he came out of the restroom to find Weems surrounded.
‘I was trying to defuse the situation,’ he said.
After some shoving, he said, the security guard told everyone to leave.
Knighten said some people blocked him from leaving with Weems.
When he got out, he said, Weems was down and people were kicking him.
Knighten said others attacked him, adding ‘I do remember racial slurs being yelled from the crowd.’
Knighten says he has broken bones in his face, a cut over his left eye and a blood clot in his right eye.
On Saturday he wrote on Facebook, ‘All my injuries were minor fractures and lacerations. I just wish I could have reached him sooner. Please keep your thoughts and prayers on Ralph.’
Police did not arrive on the scene until after the crowd had left, he said.
Police said they were called to the Huddle House about 2am.
Punch line:
‘This does not appear to be a hate crime,’ Brinkley said in a police press release Sunday.
‘We are investigating this as an aggravated assault. It’s very early in this investigation but thus far the evidence and statements suggest that a verbal altercation turned physical and somebody got hurt.’
Brinkley added that the final determination on hate-crimes charges would be left up to the grand jury. It seems as if there is an abundance of both eyewitness testimony and security camera footage from both the Waffle House and Huddle House, so it won’t be necessary to speculate on what happened (and we’ve all seen how much damage idle speculation and false mythology did in Ferguson.) One arrest has been made, and others are reportedly pending.
One wonders how an incident that began with a racist blockade of a restaurant, and ended with a beating that required brain surgery, can be breezily dismissed as utterly lacking in “hate crime” potential, even if we grant that Weems began or escalated verbal hostilities inside the Waffle House. Presumably we’ll be told that Weems’ Huddle House beating was entirely a result of hard feelings from the Waffle House argument, and was not directly caused by racial animosity. One wonders how well that narrative would sell if Weems was a black veteran pursued and assaulted by a mob of whites, after they told him the Waffle House was off-limits to black people, but he insisted on going inside anyway.
If you can handle a safari into the left-wing fever swamps, check out how the lunatics who write and read Crooks and Liars are coping with this severe racial narrative violation:
Poor Ralph Weems IV. Just minding his own business, him and his concealed weapon, when he’s warned not to go into the local Waffle House, because the black folks inside are all worked up over Ferguson. He goes in anyway (probably because after serving as a Marine in Iraq, he sees himself as an ambassador of good will — or maybe he had an overwhelming craving for the old chopped n’ cheddared). Anyway, just as he was warned, the residents inside aren’t in a good mood. So he leaves to go to a Huddle House instead, but he and his Air Force buddy are inexplicably followed by more than 20 people who surround him — just him — and kick the hell out of him, putting him in the hospital.
I’m sure he’s not drunk while any of this happens, and so I’m certain he didn’t do or say anything to instigate this (because God knows, the cops won’t come to the rescue of white victims, so he was probably on his best behavior). It’s just that you know how black people get (savages, can’t control themselves, always attacking white people for no dang reason, etc.), and so they did.
Go into a public restaurant after being warned that white people aren’t welcome, and you deserve what you get. The comments to the Crooks and Liars post are almost equally mind-blowing, ranging from those who join the author in pretending this incident couldn’t have happened because it runs so contrary to the Narrative, to those who just think it shouldn’t be reported on because it violates the Narrative, to fever dreams about the mythical epidemic of white people randomly attacking blacks for no reason from coast to coast. They also fretted about conservative websites, specifically including Breitbart, picking up on the story, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.
To reiterate, this is a criminal investigation with quite a bit of evidence to sort through, so no one should jump to any conclusions, nor should the word of a single eyewitness be taken as gospel (another lesson that should be learned from Ferguson.) Also as with Ferguson, the people involved in this story are not mere puppets to mighty Narratives about racial unrest or social justice – they are individual human beings responsible for their own actions. But for the record, racist mobs do not have the right to shut down restaurants, no matter how upset they are about news stories, and people who get into verbal altercations do not deserve to be hunted down and beaten, no matter what they said. Unfortunately, we are currently vexed with a sizable group of people who don’t understand one or both of those essential points.
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