Victim's Ex-Boyfriend Sought in Baxter Building Attack

@ laisla

Thank you for the journalism lesson, but something tells me that if the victim had been raped instead of just slashed, you would want an ethnic-specific identifier included in the news article. What makes this any different?

so why describe some and not all?

when did describing an Irish-American end and why it's still used for Chinese/Asian-Americans when both had been in this Country for as long.

Why did some press mention ghevic/milosovik vik vik as an Albanian and some didn't?

It's all about RACE.

And, I think Anna is a guy, his moniker sounds like "An American". I may be wrong.

Anna, assumptions based on people's last names don't work. There are Filipinos with hispanic last names, but they're described as asian.

Spike Lee ain't Chinese,

Barack Obama ain't Japanese,

and Shaquille O'Neal ain't Irish.

And the fact it happened in Chinatown might have led you to think "GOD DAMN. I knew they were Serbian (or Kosovans, Montenegrin, Croatians, Bosnians, Albanians) right then and there!"

The threatening phone calls and slash-attack later that evening could be a pure coincidence, but police want to speak with the 32-year-old man to determine if he had any relationship to the dead and wounded men.

If the above sentence is above any help--it's the closing sentence--it should underscore how the underlying theme of the post was how cops were searching for an Albanian guy, despite the ethnic nationalities of the attackers. The disconnect between the two is the story within the story.

Perhaps I watch and read too many crime procedurals, but I think the reaching-out-to of different ethnic crime organizations to do one's wet work is fascinating. Could this be less sophisticated? Of course. But I like that the cops are looking into the possibility, rather than rounding up a bunch of Hispanics and saying "who's gotta stupid not-hotel-robbing spree going on?" That would be Keystone coppers.

I like the added flavor of knowing what ethnic group an alleged perp belongs to just in case I run into them on the street.

The last name doesn't tell the whole story. I know black people who's last name is white and white people who's last name is black. Stop being racist.

HowBoutDemCowboys: it's just bad journalism. Why would the descriptor Hispanic be necessary? You do not need to include those details to make it news or readable. Any j-school student knows this.

First rule of Sensationalist Journalism school : Write articles that Race Bait. Second rule of sensationalist Journalism School: Deny Race Baiting.

I like Jen's spelling and grammar, it gives a soft human slant to this blog.

If the slight mistakes bother you go tell your English teacher who still thinks Shakespeare's English is what the inner city kids need to know so they can communicate with each other and the world at large.

How long has Shakespeare been in this country and he still can't speak English?

After twenty-five years with the NYPD I still cringe when people refuse to understand the issue of race or ethnicity in reporting crime. I really don't care what race, etc. a perpetrator is; it is the crime and injury to a victim that concerns me. One must identify the criminal and those characteristics are essential to doing that. Stop the nonsence re race in reporting a crime,

I find Jen Chung's occasional misspellings to be endearing.

Jen Chung's Bra, I always thought that Satirius Johnson was black until someone informed me that he was a diminutive white fellow.

Problem #1-

Jen Chung is responsible for editing. In what universe would you put Jen Chung in charge of editing? Seriously. Bizarro Fridays must be here!

race baiting is the currency that news organizations trade in. No race baiting = no internet traffic = no ad revenue. It's pretty simple. People come here to argue against and for.

EdEx, I really liked Dinkins Donuts until they started using tubby terrorists from upstate

NY to promote their products.

*eye roll*

Jen and Dave,

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply and help me understand. I didn't want to assume ill-intent without getting more information. There are unfortunately too many folks here who seem to take every opportunity to dig at a particular "race" or ethnicity, so perhaps I'm more aware of it here than I'd be when reading other publications. Either way, the context you provided is helpful.

Much appreciated!

No more racial trolling or baiting. There are some individuals here that just look for the lead in.

"Just the facts, ma'am." No racial profiling please. No last first or last names either. Nothing but,"Just the facts, ma'am." We are here to protect and serve. Our own interests that is.

Admit it Dave, you're white aren't you?

Yeah, I want to apologize because I had edited Dave's post and I edited out the Albanian national part, wanting to place it elsewhere in the post, but forgot to when I found another detail (how Gjeli filed the complaint when Vacaj allegedly slapped her at a club). So that is my fault.

Dave Hogarty,

If there's really "editing", then how do you explain those famous Jen Chung typos?

Why are the black olives in a can, and the green olives in a jar?

As the author of the post, I'd like to add my two cents to Anna's initial comment. The first draft of my post included a descriptor of the ex-b/f as an Albanian national. There was an intended thread of the post regarding the disconnect between the attackers and the man being sought for questioning, specifically their race and/or nationalities.

Many posts get edited (many of mine heavily, necessarily, and helpfully) by one or more persons, without communication about the intended purpose of certain facts and phrases. Sometimes that can lead to misleading assumptions about the message the author is trying to convey. This generally happens b/c we're publishing on the fly, and specifically b/c I write in a long-winded manner where wholesale slashing is usually warranted.

I can assure you that such thematic changes are unintentional. As an editor myself, I can tell you that it is easy to slash sentences that seem superfluous and accidentally change the tone of an article.

Sometimes this is just how things happen. I can attest that there is no race-baiting here. If anything, that type of thing leads to more and larger headaches than anyone cares to deal with. Thank you for your observation though. It's something I'll make an effort to keep more in mind in the future.

This is just one way modern boyfriends demonstrate true love.

Thank you, twooh! I tend to do that when I see sentences like this: "The unnecessary use of descriptors makes one wonder if there is race-baiting in crime posts at Gothamist."

It's one thing to be race-blind. It's another to completely ignore differences.

ARealGothamite,

As Ben Grimm would say, "HAW! HAW!"

I don't know. It seems like an awfully strange coincidence if the boyfriend isn't involved.

edEx, living up to his Gawker fame.

And what does she mean by "white or Russian". These are not racist ID's, but descriptive. The slashed detective might have been Hispanic as well.

HowBoutDemCowboys,

Nice over exaggeration.

Anna_Merkin you're a Willie Randolf and David Dinkins fan aren't you?

So Anna, should the story have been a bit more like this?

One person attacked another person, shots were fired, one person died, another person did not, authority people are searching for one person's ex-person.

Peter - thanks for the clarification.

It's fairly obvious that two men with the last names "Martinez" and "Morales" are probably Hispanic. Regardless, does the racial identity of the two perps matter any more than the racial identity of the ex-boyfriend in question (presumed to be white of Russian or possibly Serbian heritage) or of the receptionist (not mentioned)?

The ex-boyfriend's been mentioned elsewhere as being Albanian, and based on her name the woman probably is too. This might actually be significant given that both attackers were Hispanic. Albanians tend to have a strong sense of group identity and it may be out of character for one of them two hire a couple "outside the tribe" hitmen.

The unnecessary use of descriptors makes one wonder if there is race-baiting in crime posts at Gothamist.

"When two Hispanic men entered the Baxter St. building in Chinatown and almost immediately attacked Carrano (his wound is pictured) and Gjeli under the pretense of robbing a hotel, Carrano killed Eugene Morales with two shots to the chest and wounded Andres Martinez with shots to his chest and arm."

It's fairly obvious that two men with the last names "Martinez" and "Morales" are probably Hispanic. Regardless, does the racial identity of the two perps matter any more than the racial identity of the ex-boyfriend in question (presumed to be white of Russian or possibly Serbian heritage) or of the receptionist (not mentioned)?

I hate to raise race or gender issues when they don't seem to exist, but this is an example of how the choice of words can help reinforce racial prejudices, or at least stoke trolling.

If I'm completely off base on this, I'm willing to concede that, but I don't think I am. Are there others who read Gothamist and see examples of this?

My god! In the Baxter Building? Really?

Right under the Fantastic Four's nose? They must have been in the Negative Zone or Latveria.

But there real question is: where was H.E.R.B.I.E?