The Occupy protests are still going on without any signs of slowing down in the near future, but like always, the only real mainstream media coverage it's getting is over the bad apples that draw attention away from the cause in general. This time, the suits at Fox News and other assorted media have their girdles in a bunch over a tweet broadcasted by a user named smackema1.
Apparently, smackema1 broadcasted a tweet regarding the Occupy protests that read:
'we wont make a difference if we dont kill a cop or 2'.
Yes, this is a hateful tweet and it's probably a sentiment that a few people feel silently without vocalizing or even daring to type it. However, the media is attacking this as if it speaks for the entire movement, which it absolutely does not. This smackema1 character only has like 160 followers. There are high school girls in Nebraska who have more followers than that! This isn't some big time leader of a group. It's just some jerk who expressed violent rhetoric and now everyone is jumping on it like it's the theme of the entire Occupy movement.
And that's just BS.
Violent rhetoric is never acceptable, regardless of whether it's the political arena or any topic in general. When people like this make comments like the one made above, it makes a lot of people look bad and that's unacceptable—especially when the only things being covered in general about the movement are the negatives.
Nonetheless, it's still easy to understand why someone becomes so emotional that they would dare make such hate-filled, dangerous comments. It's hard to keep your composure and remain reserved when you see things like "Mace Cop" and other atrocities being committed by some of the police in the protests. It's important to keep in mind that not all cops are like these jerks who mace and taze and tackle even the peaceful protestors. There are cops who actually support the movement and many are just doing their jobs. Hateful and violent threats aren't necessary, and neither is sensationalizing a threat made by someone who is as popular as any joe blow nobody with a Twitter account.
Crime analyst and profiler Chelsea Hoffman can be found on The Huffington Post, Chelsea Hoffman: Case to Case and many other outlets. Follow @TheRealChelseaH on Twitter or click here to contact Chelsea directly.





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