Outdated headline sparks vicious online hate campaign directed at Las Vegas newspaper
A Las Vegas newspaper is the subject of vicious attacks online for its coverage of an alleged murder of a retired police chief
NEW YORK — A Las Vegas newspaper is being viciously attacked online for its coverage of an alleged murder of a retired police chief, either because of a misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt to mislead.
The “firehose of hatred” has led the Las Vegas Review-Journal to sift through email directed at one of its reporters to protect her from the worst of it, the paper's executive editor, Glenn Cook, said on Wednesday.
On Aug. 18, four days after a 64-year-old former California police chief, Andreas Probst, was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run motorist while riding his bike in Las Vegas, Review-Journal reporter Sabrina Schnur interviewed his family for a story.
The headline: “Retired police chief killed in bike crash remembered for laugh, love of coffee.”
Then the story took a sinister turn.
Video emerged, apparently taken by a teenage passenger in the car that hit Probst, showing that it was no accident. Charges against the 17-year-old driver were upgraded to murder on Aug. 29, and judges ruled on Wednesday that the two juveniles will be tried as adults.
The video, described by Cook as a “snuff film,” began circulating online and the Review-Journal linked to an edited version of it last Saturday.
That's when the attacks against the newspaper began. Someone created a social media post about the case, showing the headline from Schnur's Aug. 18 article and suggesting the Review-Journal had covered up the murder of a retired law enforcement official.
Cook said he couldn't speak to the motivations of whoever posted the insinuations, whether or not they knew the original story was published
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