A 2-year-old Milwaukee toddler ran into a Milwaukee street on Sunday night and was fatally struck by a van, which remained at the scene. There, the 41-year-old driver was fatally shot, as was, mysteriously, a 15-year-old.
Also horrible (as you probably noticed if you clicked the link already)?
The lede that Tom Kertscher and Pete Sullivan of the Journal Sentinel chose to write under their brave bylines (H/T @JustMe277). It reads:
Had Archie Brown Jr. committed a hit-and-run, he and a 15-year-old boy likely would still be alive.
I also screengrabbed it for posterity’s sake.
Yes. They used this story as an opportunity to give a potential hit-and-run driver the justification they need to take off and leave somebody (for) dead in the street.
HELL NO I’M NOT GOING TO STOP. I MIGHT GET SHOT.
Tom Kertscher and Pete Sullivan made a heinously poor decision, and they owe the public an apology for it.
But in the spirit of their creative genius, here are a few variations of their lede!
Had Paul Walker not appeared in the Fast and Furious series, he and Roger Rodas would likely still be alive.
Had Abraham Lincoln not gone to see Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865, he would likely have lived longer.
Had the RMS Titanic taken a different course across the Atlantic, 1,500 people would have still been alive for years after that trip.
Had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor, atomic bombs would not have likely killed millions of people.
Had John F. Kennedy skipped that trip to Dallas in Nov. 1963, he could still be alive today.
Had Tom Kertscher and Pete Sullivan taken even a moment to think about what they were writing on deadline, they would still be worthy my respect.
Anyway, here’s a link to 6,475 examples of the heartache caused by people who fled hit-and-run scenes to successfully elude capture. And here’s one link about the time someone fled after nearly killing me, a case study in what the Journal Sentinel folks encouraged others to do.
