Are death and murder private affairs?

[Kindly Old Man]

No, I live in Toronto. :)

Where do you live, where people don't assist the police? The police here regularly ask the public for help, with hit and run accidents, with shootings, with missing persons cases, with murder cases. They don't always get it. People don't "diligently pitch in" to help with murder cases, but they generally cooperate. But if you don't know who's been murdered, how could you cooperate?

I must be more suspicious of authority than most of the people in this thread. I'm suspicious that unless the names of murder victims are published, they may not get justice. There is a lot of anger about missing aboriginal women in Canada, for example. The suspicion is that the police don't give a flying fig about their deaths.

 

Living in NYC, I can't recall ever having the police ask for help with a murder. Even if they did, I'm not sure how knowing someone's name is helpful to the general public. The police question people who have actual connections to the victim, where knowing the name might make a difference. As for everyone else, how does that conversation go? "Have you seen anyone suspicious around here lately?  A man was murdered down the street." "No, can't say that I have." "Well, his name was John Smith." "Oh, John Smith! You should have said that earlier, I definitely saw someone who looked like he'd murdered a John Smith yesterday."

 

The article you originally cited didn't even talk about murders, it was about car crashes and other tragic accidents, cases in which none of your overblown concerns about justice and murder investigations even matter.  What is your rationale for wanting to know the names of car crash victims?. In your OP, you were concerned about the fact that "it feels de-humanizing. You've been murdered and no one is to know. You were killed tragically in an accident and no one needs to know, you were just a bag of bones that got smashed in an accident. It's almost immoral."  Now you're on about suspicion of authority.  Maybe you're just nosy.

 

WRT things like the aboriginal women disappearing, it sounds like any names of murder victims that are withheld are being withheld at the request of the victims family. Are you trying to say that their family is somehow complicit in this big coverup that's preventing heroic Fragile Bird types from helping the police get justice? Because I suspect they probably have a clearer view of the situation than you. If they can't contact any family or anything and are not releasing names so as to sweep things under the rug I think that is bad, but the quick Google search I did makes it seem like that's not the case.

[Fragile Bird]

On the topic of missing aboriginal women in Canada.

No, the families have not requested names not be released. No, they do not want to keep their names secret for cultural reasons. In fact, they march with large pictures of their missing sisters and mothers and daughters with their names plastered on the pictures, so their names are not forgotten. The families go to the police and beg them to do investigations. The families and aboriginal groups from across the country have marched on the capital, Ottawa, demanding a Royal Commission be held on the issue of missing aboriginal women.

Here's a report from Amnesty International on the topic: http://www.amnesty.ca/blog/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-understanding-the-numbers

Aboriginal women are murdered at 4.5 times the rate other women are murdered in Canada. In Canada, 74% of non-aboriginal women are killed by family and intimate acquaintances. It's only 62% in the case of aboriginal women, meaning 'acquaintances' find it easier to kill aboriginal women than to kill non-aboriginal women. 'Acquaintances' is the term used by police for people known to the murder victim. In Canada 85% of all murder victims are killed by someone they know, the same as in the US.

The worst mass murder in Canada was committed by the Robert Pickton, a pig farmer, with his brother, in British Columbia who picked up aboriginal women in Vancouver and took them to their farm and murdered them. He was convicted of 6 murders, charged with 20 other murders which counts were stayed (which angered many of the families of those 20 women), and confessed to 49 murders in total. He was on the hunt for one more, so he could have an even 50.

The aboriginal community has always felt the murders in their community never get the attention they should, never get serious police action, never get society's attention, like the murders of non-aboriginal people.

[polishgenius]

Yeah, but the thing is, you started the topic off under the apparent premise that victim's names should never be withheld, that it shouldn't be allowed to do so. No-one's saying that names should always be withheld, or that there aren't situations where more transparency is necessary, so you using very specific examples of situations where more visibility is wanted by the families isn't really supporting your original point.

[Fragile Bird]

Living in NYC, I can't recall ever having the police ask for help with a murder. Even if they did, I'm not sure how knowing someone's name is helpful to the general public. The police question people who have actual connections to the victim, where knowing the name might make a difference. As for everyone else, how does that conversation go? "Have you seen anyone suspicious around here lately?  A man was murdered down the street." "No, can't say that I have." "Well, his name was John Smith." "Oh, John Smith! You should have said that earlier, I definitely saw someone who looked like he'd murdered a John Smith yesterday."
 
The article you originally cited didn't even talk about murders, it was about car crashes and other tragic accidents, cases in which none of your overblown concerns about justice and murder investigations even matter.  What is your rationale for wanting to know the names of car crash victims?. In your OP, you were concerned about the fact that "it feels de-humanizing. You've been murdered and no one is to know. You were killed tragically in an accident and no one needs to know, you were just a bag of bones that got smashed in an accident. It's almost immoral."  Now you're on about suspicion of authority.  Maybe you're just nosy.
 
WRT things like the aboriginal women disappearing, it sounds like any names of murder victims that are withheld are being withheld at the request of the victims family. Are you trying to say that their family is somehow complicit in this big coverup that's preventing heroic Fragile Bird types from helping the police get justice? Because I suspect they probably have a clearer view of the situation than you. If they can't contact any family or anything and are not releasing names so as to sweep things under the rug I think that is bad, but the quick Google search I did makes it seem like that's not the case.

Um, did you have a reading comprehension fail? I said the police in some provinces are not releasing the names of murder victims, and on searching the subject, I see they are also not releasing the names of car crash victims either, and linked that article, since it also mentions the issue of not releasing the names of murder victims. I also said I had mixed feelings about the latter, but I really don't understand why people wouldn't want the fact their family members were killed in a car accident to be known. And I repeat, it seems disrespectful to me. Obviously you feel differently.

As for just being nosy, you can take that comment and your other personal insults and stuff them where the sun don't shine. It's highly unlikely I will even ever read about or hear about most murder victims in other provinces in my local media, but I think the local communities in those provinces certainly have the right to know about murdered neighbours.

As for the NYC police department never asking for help, I think you've just been inattentive. We get dozens of American channels on television and I have heard appeals to the public from the police for information many times from police departments across the country, and I highly doubt the NYPD never appeals to the public for help.

[Fragile Bird]

Yeah, but the thing is, you started the topic off under the apparent premise that victim's names should never be withheld, that it shouldn't be allowed to do so. No-one's saying that names should always be withheld, or that there aren't situations where more transparency is necessary, so you using very specific examples of situations where more visibility is wanted by the families isn't really supporting your original point.

Yes, true, my premise is that the names of victims should never be withheld, though I have mixed feelings about car crashes. I don't know why you would want to keep that private (I understand not wanting to speak to the media though) and if a car accident happens on a public road shouldn't deaths be part of the public record?


Impmk2 is saying names should always be withheld, that the police should ask for information without giving the name of the victim, and that reporting murders and accidents are "murder/accident porn". Arkhangel agrees 100%. So does Which Tyler.

Kindly Old Man said that the request of families to withhold names should always be respected.

Malik Ambar said yes, names should be withheld.

Lol, Polish Genius, are we reading the same thread?

[maarsen]

Personally, I would rather live in a place where I had open access to the names of the missing and dead than rather than say, Argentina during the military junta where asking about the missing and murdered could make you one of their number. Good intentions may be behind the privacy considerations but the road to hell is paved with sincerity.

[polishgenius]

Yes, true, my premise is that the names of victims should never be withheld, though I have mixed feelings about car crashes. I don't know why you would want to keep that private (I understand not wanting to speak to the media though) and if a car accident happens on a public road shouldn't deaths be part of the public record?


Impmk2 is saying names should always be withheld, that the police should ask for information without giving the name of the victim, and that reporting murders and accidents are "murder/accident porn". Arkhangel agrees 100%. So does Which Tyler.

Kindly Old Man said that the request of families to withhold names should always be respected.

Malik Ambar said yes, names should be withheld.

Lol, Polish Genius, are we reading the same thread?

 

 

Apparently, fragilebird, we are not. All of those posts are operating under the assumption that the family don't want to release names and that it's of no benefit in finding the killer to do so. Admittedly Impmk2 is suggesting that it's never of benefit to do so when I said he didn't, but nonetheless you responding to this with a situation where the families apparently very much do want the attention has little to do with the subject you broached in the first place and that the conversation was revolving around.

[Fragile Bird]

Apparently, fragilebird, we are not. All of those posts are operating under the assumption that the family don't want to release names and that it's of no benefit in finding the killer to do so. Admittedly Impmk2 is suggesting that it's never of benefit to do so when I said he didn't, but nonetheless you responding to this with a situation where the families apparently very much do want the attention has little to do with the subject you broached in the first place and that the conversation was revolving around.

I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you are trying to say. My position is that names should not be withheld, and I have given numerous reasons why I think they should not be withheld. The response about aboriginal women was in direct response to Arkhangel's statement that aboriginal people in Australia don't want to see images of people who died. The case is very different in Canada.

What exactly have I posted that has little to do with the subject of this thread???

[polishgenius]

 The case is very different in Canada.

 

So it is. I'm sorry, you need to make clearer that you're only referring to Canada with this topic.



Eta: sorry, that was snippier than it needed to be, but the basic point is that you started off with a very, very broad point and are now trying to support it by talking about much narrower situations as if they apply to the whole general mish-mash.

[Tears of Lys]

Maybe folks don't like their late relatives' showing up in the papers because it brings opportunists out of the woodwork. I'm going to let my imagination run wild on this, so bear with me. (Although, there **was** an episode of Law & Order that dealt with this very issue. :P)

A death in the family = maybe funeral = immediate family gone for an appreciable amount of time = time enough to rob their homes = PROFIT!

A death of someone living alone = empty house = real estate agents swooping in to list it = PROFIT!

A death in the family = deadbeat relatives swooping in to claim brik-a-brack = PROFIT!

That's just in the first minute and a half. Now, maybe I just have an evil mind (all too possible) but I've seen a lot of things in my job and nothing surprises me anymore.


ETA: Just look what happened to Bilbo Baggins when his worthless relatives thought he was dead! Took all his spoons, they did, and anything else that wasn't nailed down.

[Theda Baratheon]

Not read it all yet (I'll catch up) so this might have been said, but I live in the UK where the tabloid papers are vile and prolific. People who have become news because they have been unfortunate enough to be victims, seem to be fair game, with information (often erroneous) about their private lives and their families' splashed all over the press. So should it be on a need to know basis? If it helps with police investigations, should the name be released, but otherwise, let the family grieve in peace?
I personally don't hold my body in any reverence after death, but my name, my face, and my reputation are another matter.

Totally agree to be honest. If it helps the investigation then fine, if not - respect the families wishes. Tabloids are absolutely vile and all those other horrific magazines like Take a Break and Chat which always have a smiling attractive lady on the front cover but are filled with gruesome stories...soooo creepy tbh.

[James Arryn]

I think the public have a right to know that murder was done, and even maybe some where/when/how info if it's pertinent, but I don't see why the name of the victim is necessary information for public consumption.

[Arkhangel]

On the topic of missing aboriginal women in Canada.

No, the families have not requested names not be released. No, they do not want to keep their names secret for cultural reasons. In fact, they march with large pictures of their missing sisters and mothers and daughters with their names plastered on the pictures, so their names are not forgotten. The families go to the police and beg them to do investigations. The families and aboriginal groups from across the country have marched on the capital, Ottawa, demanding a Royal Commission be held on the issue of missing aboriginal women.

Here's a report from Amnesty International on the topic: http://www.amnesty.ca/blog/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-understanding-the-numbers

Aboriginal women are murdered at 4.5 times the rate other women are murdered in Canada. In Canada, 74% of non-aboriginal women are killed by family and intimate acquaintances. It's only 62% in the case of aboriginal women, meaning 'acquaintances' find it easier to kill aboriginal women than to kill non-aboriginal women. 'Acquaintances' is the term used by police for people known to the murder victim. In Canada 85% of all murder victims are killed by someone they know, the same as in the US.

The worst mass murder in Canada was committed by the Robert Pickton, a pig farmer, with his brother, in British Columbia who picked up aboriginal women in Vancouver and took them to their farm and murdered them. He was convicted of 6 murders, charged with 20 other murders which counts were stayed (which angered many of the families of those 20 women), and confessed to 49 murders in total. He was on the hunt for one more, so he could have an even 50.

The aboriginal community has always felt the murders in their community never get the attention they should, never get serious police action, never get society's attention, like the murders of non-aboriginal people.

 

 

Yes, true, my premise is that the names of victims should never be withheld, though I have mixed feelings about car crashes. I don't know why you would want to keep that private (I understand not wanting to speak to the media though) and if a car accident happens on a public road shouldn't deaths be part of the public record?


Impmk2 is saying names should always be withheld, that the police should ask for information without giving the name of the victim, and that reporting murders and accidents are "murder/accident porn". Arkhangel agrees 100%. So does Which Tyler.

Kindly Old Man said that the request of families to withhold names should always be respected.

Malik Ambar said yes, names should be withheld.

Lol, Polish Genius, are we reading the same thread?

 

 

 

 

Apparently, fragilebird, we are not. All of those posts are operating under the assumption that the family don't want to release names and that it's of no benefit in finding the killer to do so. Admittedly Impmk2 is suggesting that it's never of benefit to do so when I said he didn't, but nonetheless you responding to this with a situation where the families apparently very much do want the attention has little to do with the subject you broached in the first place and that the conversation was revolving around.

 

I am also wondering the bolded question because polishgenius is right, I and (as far as I understood) the other posters you mention are arguing that that names should not be publicised only if the family has requested that they not be and if the police feel it is not important for the investigation. If the family is fine with the name being released, so am I.

 

My comment about aboriginal people in Australia was an off the cuff example of why in some circumstances aboriginal families might request that their loved one's name not be made public and why it would be a seriously dick move to ignore that. In the cases you're talking about in the top post, clearly the families have not made such a request and the names are known so it's hard to see what relevance it has to this topic...

[Neddy's Girl]

Totally agree to be honest. If it helps the investigation then fine, if not - respect the families wishes. Tabloids are absolutely vile and all those other horrific magazines like Take a Break and Chat which always have a smiling attractive lady on the front cover but are filled with gruesome stories...soooo creepy tbh.

Ugh, Chat and Take A Break - they are just awful. Ostensibly, these are people who have agreed to share their stories, but you have to wonder how much of it is motivated by money and how much control they really have. I am fairly introverted compared to most people in this country I think, because I cannot for the life of me think why people would want to bare their souls to such ridiculous magazines. (If you've ever seen the wonderful Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish, he does a bit about the smiling lady belying the horror of the stories.)

So I think the fact that people are coming at this argument from different cultures and countries is evident on this thread. I may be wrong, but it seems the only time murder victims have anonymity in the UK is when they are children (sometimes) but even this comes out after conviction. It's sad to think that I can't imagine our press respecting families' wishes. To me, it doesn't seem to be about transparency, but sensationalism, masquerading as freedom of the press.

[Impmk2]

My post is being cited a bit so I should clarify my position:

 

I don't believe that naming the victim is necessary to the good reporting of murders, or any other crime. As other posters have mentioned, there are functioning, democratic countries where this information is routinely supressed. And I know here (in Australia) in most criminal cases involving minors the identify of the victim is withheld. That does not seem to impact on the media reporting on the various cases. A case in point is a current inquiry running here about instituational child abuse and paedophilia. There's a huge amount of media coverage, arrests, and widespread public condemenation of the organisations involved. All while protecting the privacy of the victims and their families. While press freedom is important there's a middle ground to be found between all information being fair game regardless of sensitivity, and the state exclusively dictating what can and cannot be reported in order to cover up abuses.

 

As I have previously mentioned I'm not against victims names, photos and personal information being released if the family consents. But without that consent it does smack of voyerism, tugging at heart strings purely to drive ratings, sales and profits. Not news reporting in the interest of the public good.

 

I am open to the idea that names should be released to the public if the police belive it could help with an ongoing investigation. But I'm really struggling to think of a scenario which that would be necessary. I would imagine murders in which both the family doesn't want the name released and the police thinking it would be helpful would be vanishingly small.

 

I know my position probably sounds extreme, especially to the Americans / Canadians. But the harassment or victims and familes and invasion into their lives by the media is a very real, and very widespread problem. Much of the commercial news seem to give very little thought to privacy and how their coverage might impact the victims familes. The media is not above camping out family homes for weeks, ambushing and trying to emotionally manipulate people during interviews to get that shot, or sharing intimate personal details to millions all in the drive to get ratings / paper sales / site hits.

[Fragile Bird]

First of all, what are Chat and Take a Break? Some kind of gossip magazines?

Secondly, most western countries, AFAIK, do not identify minors involved in criminal charges. The Americans, though, pass criminal laws at the state level, I believe, and the treatment of minors is not uniform across the country, but I think most states have laws that protect the identity of minors. But minors who are murdered (as well as adults) do not have any protection that I know of. The living get protected, both the victims and the accused. I don't think I have made any suggestion whatsoever that the identities of minors who are victims of crimes or accused of committing crimes be released.

It seems to me that Australia and the UK have a particularly intrusive press when it comes to reporting murders, with the US press not being far behind. I remember there was a UK murder case where some reporter broke into the victim's cell phone message system and kept checking messages left by their parents, which gave their parents hope they were still alive. Pretty ugly. And in the US there always has to be some tragic event that gets heavy coverage. If there's a plane crash or an explosion or a hurricane or some political scandal, murders get ignored, but if there's nothing else somebody's death is going to get their attention. At the moment it's people getting shot by the police that grabs the attention.

In Canada we really only have one tabloid chain in English and one or two in French, and they get a bit goofy sometimes, but for the most part the reporting of murders isn't sensationalised unless the details are unusual. For example, a fellow was selling his truck and went out with someone for a test drive and never came back. Coverage was intense while the police were trying to find the truck and it's owner. He was, of course, murdered by the fellow who took the truck out for the test drive. But the coverage was widespread because the police asked for the public's help (how strange that must sound to a New Yorker), with people being asked everyday if they had seen either the truck or the driver, and information from people who had seen the truck was published to see if it would trigger the memories of someone out there. It was a smaller city and the truck had been driven out into the countryside. Not quite as small as Mayberry. People in a wide area of southern Ontario were definitely checking sideroads and farmer's fields for the truck whenever they were out, not searching for it, but keeping their eyes out for anything unusual.

Otherwise coverage may last for two or three days, another day or two if the murderer is caught, and then some coverage of the trial. The faces of victims are not plastered on the front pages of the press, and if that happens regularly in the country you live in I can understand the antipathy towards reporting someone's murder.

[Fragile Bird]

I just realized, after re-reading the thread, that the major fixation has been on families who request names not be released. In my OP I said some names of victims hadn't been released at the request of families. But my question was triggered by the fact that the RCMP in several provinces made unilateral decisions not to release the names of murder victims because they decided it was a privacy issue, not because families asked for privacy. It's why I included the quote in the OP from the New Brunswick lawyer. Releasing the name of murder victims has not been a privacy issue in Canada, no legal commissions or authorities have identified complaints by the families of victims that information has been released, no legislation has been passed.

And the article I linked, which was complained about up thread because it's about car crashes not murders, also says the RCMP have unilaterally decided to extend this policy to not releasing the name of car crash victims either.  There have been no reports to my knowledge from people in this jurisdiction complaining about the names of car crash victims being released.  Every now and then an accident is reported and you hear that names have been withheld at the request of the family.

 

So try to focus on this aspect instead.  Have the police where you live unilaterally decided not to release the names of murder victims and car crash victims?  Although that may be moot, considering the responses so far that have said it's none of anyone's damn business.  You know my opinion.

 

[Silverstar]

I guess I don't really understand why anyone WANTS to know the names of victims, unless it's in some way going to help get justice for them? If I know the person, I'll find out in some other way anyhow, and if I don't, then what difference does it really make for me anyway? If the family wants the public to know more about their deceased family member, that's one thing, but otherwise, it just feels a bit morbid.

I'm saying this having witnessed what turned out to be a horrific traffic fatality in London a week ago. All I wanted to know was whether the guy had survived. I didn't need to know the details of who he was and what his life was like. Personally, I'd hate to think that the only thing the public at large ever knew about me was the fact that I'd died in some horrific way, and if my name was published in the press along with the details of my death, that IS the only thing people would remember. That, and all the judgements they'd start making who I was and whether I possibly deserved it and whether I was at fault, because people can't help themselves.

[Arkhangel]

The only article I found on that just sounds like a bunch of town busybodies arguing for their right to stick their beak into someone else's tragedy. It quotes a mother whose sons died in a car crash saying she would theoretically be upset if her children's names hadn't been released, but they were released so it's not making a particularly relevant point, and it has a member of the media saying that the local community "need to know who has been involved, what family members might need their support and it's unfortunate that information isn't made available in a timely manner."

 

I mean, if you're not close enough to the family to be told when someone has died, they don't need your 'support'. Buzz off, vultures.

[Neddy's Girl]

First of all, what are Chat and Take a Break? Some kind of gossip magazines

They are "women's" magazines where about a quarter of the content is face cream, crosswords, and hunk of the month, and the rest is, as Theda points out, gruesome stories. (Mainly) women sell real-life tales to these mags (I won't paraphrase some of the headlines that are printed in bright pink writing, but they're usually pretty horrendous things that have happened to them or their families). They get paid a couple of grand, and the stories get rewritten into a shocking narrative. As I said, in theory, people are approving of their personal lives being invaded, but I think they were brought up to illustrate just how gross the vast majority of our printed media is over here.