The liberal media often likes to focus on the “victim” in a story more than the actual crime. The case of Banko Brown is no different. Recently, major news outlets have tried to make this deceased, violent shoplifter a “pillar of the San Francisco community for ‘helping black transgender youth’.”
Rather than condemning the shoplifting itself, CBS spent part of their Wednesday report whining that Walgreens security guard Michael Earl Wayne Anthony “misgendered” Brown, who was biologically female.
In this case, justice for shoplifting an estimated $15 worth of snacks became about “justice” for a person’s gender identification.
Leading into the segment, anchor Norah O’Donnell touted the “[p]rotests today in San Francisco following the district attorney’s decision to not file charges in the shooting death of a suspected shoplifter by a Walgreens security guard.”
Despite CBS acknowledging that the District Attorney determined it to be an act of self-defense, CBS correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti still suggested it was an act of murder.
Vigliotti: The death of 24-year-old Banko Brown is the latest incident in a city blinded by images of shoplifting and petty theft. Protesters called the shooting death murder.
Throughout the report, Vigliotti unscientifically kept referring to Brown with he/him pronouns when she was biologically female.
Vigliotti told viewers that “[p]olice recovered snacks, totaling less than $15” from the bag Brown was trying to escape from the store with. And according to Vigliotti, ‘misgendering’ was Anthony’s other major transgression. But what about Brown’s actual crime?
Despite playing the soundbite of Anthony telling police in the interview that Brown was threatening to stab him, Vigliotti claimed, without evidence, that he reneged on that description.
Vigliotti concluded the video portion of the report speaking with Banko’s father, Terry Brown, who was demanding Anthony be put in prison for killing his “son”.
No one should condone shoplifting, let alone commit violent acts. Brown was wrong to do what she did, but her mistake should not curtail the basic right of self-defense at Walgreens.
The facts of the case do not support the claims of CBS’s take that Anthony ‘reneged’ on his statements to police or that he was wrong for ‘misgendering’ Brown.
It’s time for major news networks to start looking at more than just a person’s gender identification and start focusing on the crime itself; as this case displays, when the facts are properly understood, the real victim lies elsewhere.
