Thoughts on Annie Le: The Cops, The Media and Tunnel Vision

I live in New Haven and I write about criminal justice, so I couldn't help but follow news of the murder of Yale student Annie Le over the last week. This is a terrible, tragic crime and my deepest sympathies go to Le's family, fiance and friends at this unimaginably difficult time.

The intense media coverage of the case and today's arrest of lab technician Raymond Clark III in connection with the murder bring a few thoughts to mind:

One springs from a comment made yesterday by New Haven Police Chief James Lewis before Clark was arrested:

“We’re also making sure that there’s not other potential suspects and so we’re avoiding the issue of tunnel vision and looking at everyone who had access to that building and could have been there during that time. That’s part of the reason that we’ve slowly narrowed this down,” said Lewis.

That was refreshing statement to hear from the man at the helm of such a high-profile investigation. It's easy to develop tunnel vision during such a high-profile media frenzy and focus on one suspect due to circumstantial evidence or even a hunch. While police focus exclusively on the wrong guy, the real perpetrator could get far away.

It appears Clark was a suspect immediately after the body was found, but police didn't bow to pressure from the media and the community to make an arrest before they had evidence. They haven't discussed Clark's alleged connection to the crime yet, so maybe I'm jumping to conclusions by giving the cops credit here, but a mere utterance of 'tunnel vision' from the chief means the department kept in mind that Clark shouldn't be convicted before he's in court.

The intense media coverage of this case is also worth noting. The media focuses on sensational stories, with as much drama as possible - because that's what we, the news consumers, demand. Le's story is heartwrenching and dramatic - her body was found on what would have been her wedding day. It's hard to ignore a tragic story like this, and we shouldn't ignore it. But the front-page national frenzy around this case shouldn't obscure the other cases just because they lack the drama.

Another college student, 20-year-old Samantha Michelle Nance, was found stabbed to death in her Dallas apartment on Friday. Until CNN picked up her story for a short piece yesterday, her death had received almost no coverage outside of Texas. Nance was a third-year art student focusing on animation. She was buried today.

Both of these are tragic murders, and I don't mean to belittle these horrible events by comparing media coverage. But Le's case makes clear that the media moves like pack toward the most sensational crime of the day, while tragic crimes happen all the time outside of the spotlight. Those other victims deserve our attention, too, and the mainstream media's singular focus and mob mentality can lead us to miss injustices and important stories.