Why isn't it news when a dead body is found?

[Liberty Belle]

Have we become so dehumanized that when an illegal migrant dies on a freezing cold night and is found, unidentified, on the side of a road that law enforcement doesn't bother to notify media of the death and help families learn the fate of their lost loved one? When I learned of this in our community, I felt compelled to pen this editorial?


Why isn't it news when a dead body is found?

April 28, 2010 (Deerhorn Valley) – Five days after a man’s dead body was found by motorists on Deerhorn Valley Road following a night of freezing temperatures, San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore has not bothered to issue a press release. Neither has the County Medical Examiner. The Sheriff’s office has not returned a call from ECM requesting information on the man, who carried no identification.

Why aren’t local authorities interested in getting public help to identify the deceased stranger?

Full story:
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/3198

[RKP5637]

1. I sadly think our society has become significantly dehumanized and

insensitive. I think we as a society are exposed to so much violence, cruelty and additionally basically criminal behavior by wall street, banks and many corporations and the like that peoples good senses of sensitivity have often disappeared.

[aquart]

2. You think dead bodies are uncommon?

They're not.

[Liberty Belle]

9. We used to get reports on dead bodies here - not anymore.

At the very least though, I think they should have to report them if the body is not identified.

[GreenStormCloud]

3. For the same reason that it isn't news when the sun rises.

It is too commonplace to be news. Homeless people also die every day, and it isn't news for them either. Every day there are John/Jane Doe corpses.

[gristy]

4. Is it just me? Or is "dead body" redundant?

It never sounds right to me. I think before the internets and people who published had editors, it was just "a man's body was found". Think about it. If a live man's body was found, one would just say a man was found.

[lonestarnot]

6. Somebody could have found a live body on the side of the road, and

that would be someone that would eventually be dead too. :shrug:

[bobbolink]

5. Same with homeless people. A big so what.

We are one sick fucking society.

[tmyers09]

14. Messed up, isn't it?

People have so dehumanized the perceived "other", those not "like them", that they don't even perceive them as fellow human beings, with families, hearts, souls, hopes, and dreams.

[bobbolink]

15. Except that the "Other" who is Latino, gay, etc, garners the sympathy of "progressives"

the "Other" whho is homeless can talk a short walk off a long pier.

[Contrary1]

7. I volunteer with an organization called The Doe Network

We try to help law enforcement by matching unidentified bodies with those reported missing. You would not believe how many bodies go unidentified. We are talking thousands.

In San Diego County alone, we have 23 unidentified "Hispanic" bodies listed. I'm sure there are many more that we don't even know about. A big part of the problem is that no one reports these people as missing.

Many have come across the border in search of a better life. Their families most likely have no idea as to whether or not they made it here safely, or where their final destination was.

Many others have had no contact with their families in years. Some are homeless, others just want to forget their past. There are a lot of suicides, where the person has gotten rid of any identification. There was even a case where one man had used some sort of acid on his fingers to prevent an ID through fingerprints.

Most law enforcement agencies have little funds allocated for this purpose. It is very sad.

If you should happen to come across a picture or description of this poor man, please PM me. I will see what I can do.

http://doenetwork.org/

[Book Lover]

8. Thank you for this work (nm)

[Liberty Belle]

10. Thank you for caring. I will ask the eyewitnesses who saw the body.

[cliffordu]

11. Happens to hundreds, if not thousands of the homeless every year

nobody gives a shit.

[SoCalDem]

12. It's hard to identify people who are known to no one local

This person probably has family, but that family is somewhere else, and they will no doubt wonder why he has not called or written. After a time, they will just assume that something bad happened to him, or perhaps he met someone and decided to abandon his family elsewhere, or any number of scenarios they will concoct, to avoid the obvious..he's dead.
Even if they know that, if they are a poor peasant family in some godforsaken dusty little village, they would have no way of knowing exactly where he was headed or where he died. If they did find out, they probably have no money to bring his body home.

It;s all very much like the seafarers from a few hundreds of years ago. Many times they left port, and were never seen again. Did they jump ship and "go native"? or did they become ill, and get dumped overboard.. or maybe the ship sank.

People who have to leave their "place" to earn a living somewhere else, run the risk of never making it back home..

People who do not know the dead person, can only try to find their family, and in the end, bury them in as dignified a way as possible:(

[MajorChode]

13. I have personally found two dead bodies and in neither one was the information passed to the media

It's actually a fairly common occurrence for an anonymous dead body to be found and it's probably the exception, rather than the rule that the media is notified by the police.

I found a guy that had shot himself right outside my hanger at the airport a couple of years ago. About 10 years ago I found a body on the side of the road in a remote area near where I was working.

Homeless people routinely are found dead by the police. They keep them in the morgue for a few days and if nobody claims the body, most cities unceremoniously dump the body in a hole and never mark the grave.

Sad, but just a true fact of life in our society.

[Greyhound]

16. Because 6,000 - 7,000 people die every day in the U.S., n/t?

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. Mosts deaths, murders or otherwise, aren't news in Los Angeles - has to be special in someway

college student, young white female, wealthy, wealthy neighborhood, something unusual about the death, celebrity.