That’s because it does not fit the liberal narrative, such as this:
The same major media outlets sometimes emphasize the demographics of violent offenders when they accord with leftist narratives. Over the past year, for instance, the New York Times has run headlines like:
- “White Man Accused of Brandishing Gun at Black Teenagers in a McDonald’s Is Arrested.”
- “White Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Shooting Black Men After Hurricane Katrina.”
But this story doesn’t fit the narrative, so they don’t tell it:
Amidst an intense national debate over illegal immigration and crime, major media outlets are reporting on a grisly, high-profile murder while failing to reveal that the killer is an unauthorized immigrant.
On Monday, May 6th, Esdras Marroquin Gomez, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, pled guilty to the murder of philanthropist and community volunteer Lois Colley. Gomez killed Colley on her 300-acre horse farm in Westchester County, NY by beating her head with a fire extinguisher. Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino Jr. described the “murder scene” as “horrendous” and said that Colley was slain in the “most brutal fashion.”
Colley, who was 83 years old, was married for 65 years to Eugene Colley, a successful entrepreneur. The couple owned a small bakery in the 1960s, which they converted to a McDonalds. Over time, the Colleys built one of the largest McDonalds franchise firms in the country, with about 100 locations.
The Westchester Journal News profiled Lois Colley as a devoted family woman, equestrian enthusiast, and supporter of “numerous local causes.” Many journalists are calling her a “socialite,” but her husband says: “She was not a socialite. She was a farmer, a gardener.”
Due to the prominence of the Colleys and the gory nature of the crime, numerous media outlets are covering Gomez’s guilty plea and details of the murder. However, many of their articles exclude the fact that Gomez is an illegal immigrant, despite the relevance of this to current policy disputes about illegal immigration and violence.
That includes, for example, reports by the New York Times, the Daily Beast, NBC New York, Telemundo, the Associated Press, and scores of outlets that are running the Associated Press piece, such as ABC News, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and dozens of smaller, local publications.
Some of the articles also create an impression that Gomez was in the U.S. legally by mentioning that he was seeking workers’ compensation for an alleged injury that occurred on Colley’s farm. Yet, contrary to the notion that such benefits are only available to people who legally live in the U.S., the Journal News reveals that unauthorized immigrants are “entitled to file a workers’ compensation claim in New York.”