Urban legnd comes to life in Fort Worth

Factual Questions
1

We’ve all heard the UL about the deaf couple/youth/person being shot and killed by gangsters who mistook the sign language as flashing of gang signs (which can be construed as a hostile act).

There are some cases on record where something resembling this has actually happened - most of the cites are available at the AFU archive at http://www.urbanlegends.com/

The scary thing is that this happened just recently in nearby Fort Worth (I am in Dallas). Unlike the typical UL, this article is filled with juicy details, uncluding the name of the victim, the location of the crime, and the name of the Fort Worth Police officer who made the statement to the paper (the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, BTW).

See http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:HOMEPAGE4/1:HOMEPAGE40613100.html for details.

Anyway, I’m wondering, given the details in this article, if this is a case the legend actually coming to life, or an assumption on the part of those working the incident (police and press, of course, but also this time the cousin of the victim as well) that the motive for the shooting was in fact miscommunication and not something more sinister that the victim and his cousin don’t want to discuss with outsiders.

It’s obvious that the cousin believes the sign language was the motive - he said so through an interpreter - but as you can see from the quotes attributed to Sgt. Jones, the police are also invesigating whether the victim was somehow connected to the gangsters prior to the incident.

What do you think?

Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer
http://members.aol.com/psiekier/

2

Wow… I’d like to say I saw this coming, but there was a twist to this case that I don’t think anyone expected, me included!

Tonight’s news lead off by saying the police had made a surprising arrest in the case. The subject of the arrest was, in fact, the deaf cousin!

The gun, found near the scene, came from the victim’s home.

I found it interesting that there was no mention of all of the popular UL (to me, obviously the source of the cousin’s alibi), that police are “still searching for a motive”, and that they are wondering if the story was fabricated to cover up a gun-related accident or if there actually was hostility between the two youths involved.

I don’t know about you all, but my curiosity is already satisfied.

Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer
http://members.aol.com/psiekier/

3

Maybe what happened is that the deaf person’s cousin was walking down the street, flashing the appropriate gang sign for the neighborhood, when he chanced upon the deaf cousin who interpreted his gang sign as an unforgivable statement in American Sign Language.

Hey, it could happen!