Fort Worth police chased Angela Michelle Smith in her 1991 Oldsmobile after she hopped a curb to run a red light and hit 70 mph in a 40 mph zone. When Smith eventually stopped and an officer approached her, she backed up into the cop’s car and took off again. Then she stopped. Then she backed up again, trying to ram another police car but missing. Surprisingly (by which I mean, “not surprisingly at all”), police discovered Smith has traffic warrants for unpaid tickets. Star-T’s recap trumps DMN’s, thanks to the “What Have I Done?” mugshot. (Oh, and all of the above information is reportedly and allegedly and according to the police spokesperson.)
17 comments
Haha, that mugshot is great and yes DMN NEVER has any photos to accompany stories like the competition. And you wonder why I, and others, rarely go to their site any longer?
that mugshot is greatness. I think everyone should get a framed copy of their mugshot upon release. if I could have found mine, it definitely would have been my Christmas card photo the year that I took a 24hr stay-cation to Lew Lew. alas, I never did locate it.
I think you guys have broken your sympathy receptor. That mug shot looks like a very troubled person. And printing it seems a little racist.
Possibly, in the New North Texas Journalism, the Star-Telegram will offer its police mugshots to the Dallas News in the spirit of cooperation — just like the baseball beat.
Someone please tell how showing her photo is racist.
Really, it is prejudice against really stupid people.
Yeah, right:
So people are supposed to have sympathy for someone who has multiple warrants out for unpaid tickets and who—not once, but twice—tried to ram police officers, possibly with the intent of harming said officers?
Sorry, but I’m not drinking any of that Cactus Juice.
The only racism here is this throwaway doing 70mph in a 40.
Boo hoo.
The DMN coverage was factual and the lack of a photo gave no information to the reader about the race of the individual. The S-T coverage sort of made fun of the situation by apparently repeating the police interpretation of her intent–she was impatient–and let the reader know that she was a black woman, which feeds some people’s racism.
I looked at the photo and saw a woman who might have been impatient but was definitely distraught. Perhaps that was because she was caught, or perhaps she was having emotional troubles that led her to engage in dangerous and irrational behavior.
The photo gave all types of information to the reader. I was just surprised that the first two comments expressed entertainment at someone else’s troubles after looking at her face.
I saw those photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and saw a man who was having emotional troubles that led him to engage in dangerous and irrational behavior.
Publicnewssense,
Why do you hate white communist sympathizers?
clearly yeah, right is a racist, or, at least, a John Wiley Price supporter
This conversation is clearly going down a black hole.
The S-T readership area not only voted heavily for McCain but, according to news reports, had numerous individuals who armed themselves after Obama was elected and some wore black to protest his election. Now, while I’m sure that had nothing to do with Obama’s race (yeah,right), and I’m sure the local police are always colorblind when they enforce the law, I’m not entirely sure readers are always colorblind when the interpret the facts of a news story.
The S-T has already modified the story to add content that is slightly more favorable to the accused, including noting that she did not damage the police car that she “rammed” and only did slight damage to her own car. I look forward to a report that gives a statement from the accused to see if she was in fact impatient as the police joked, or if there were other facts of importance omitted.
Ask yourself, would you have looked at the situation differently if it had been a white woman from Northpark?
Yeah, right:
Thank you for discrediting yourself.
I feel I should comment
YR: Drinking both at night and early in the morning is a sign that you might have emotional troubles that lead you to engage in dangerous and irrational behavior. Please lay off the sauce.
This is a preposterous discussion. Because (not despite) of that, I’m compelled to weigh in.
I actually do feel sympathy when I see her mug — she’s a foool, yet her face is shows the ravages of deep pain — but she doesn’t particularly “deserve” it, and her being black doesn’t make a photograph of her racist. Can a photo be racist — or is it the photographer who’s the real racist? Am I, the viewer, racist for viewing a photo of a black person? What about viewing a black person in real life? And am I exponentially more racist if I exchange pleasantries with said real-life black person? What if I’m black myself — is it racist for me to look in the mirror, or is there some wiggle room there?
What’s even more preposterous than this discussion, you ask? Well, that’s hard to say, but I’ll try to answer it. How about this: The fact that I have to make a deliberate typo on the word foool for fear it will appear as **** (lest it damage the delicate ears of the FB administrators).