20 year old white man killed by a “random” “punch”


Colton Ryan Gleason

Mark A. writes:

This headline, from the St. Cloud, Minnesota Times, is priceless: “St. Cloud Man Dies After Injuries From Punch.” The “punch” just came out of nowhere! Whack! Amazing—he was just walking down the street and a “punch” attacked him.

There is no actor in the headline. The headline won’t even use the words “murder” or “assault.”

LA replies:

It’s worse than that. It’s not just that the actor is omitted from the headline. The second paragraph of the article says:

The victim was walking south with a group of friends when a four-door, mid-to-full-size passenger car, which was driving north up the alley, stopped. One of the occupants got out of the car and punched Gleason.

But other than that, the article gives no description of what happened, except some vague account by a passerby who didn’t see the actual attack but just saw a crowd of people and a man lying on the ground. What about the friends of the victim? They saw the whole thing. Why aren’t they quoted describing the actual attack?

In fact, the article bizarrely states that there are no witnesses. The last paragraph says:

Police say several people may have witnessed the assault and they are looking for them to come forward with information that will lead to an arrest.

But since the victim was with a group of friends, those friends must have seen the attack.

We know, to a 99 percent certainty why the article is so vague: the attacker was a black, the victim was white.

A followup article dated September 24, about the arrest of a suspect, says:

Gleason was walking with two female friends when a car passed them in the alley at about 11:20 p.m. Several people got out of the vehicle, and one person punched Gleason, causing him to fall backward and hit his head on the ground.

Police earlier said they didn’t believe the people in the vehicle knew Gleason, and they believe the assault was random. Police are asking the public to call with any information people in the area might have seen or heard around the time of the assault.

The vehicle involved was described as a white four-door, mid- to full-sized older vehicle. The people who exited the vehicle were described as one woman and several men, all in their late teens to early 20s.

Hmm, they “were described as one woman and several men. all in their late teens to early 20s.”

Here is the initial September 22 article sent by Mark A., followed by the September 24 article. :

St. Cloud Man Dies After Injuries From Punch
September 22, 2012 4:48 PM

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (WCCO)—A 20-year-old St. Cloud man has died from injuries sustained after being punched by an unknown attacker.

According to St. Cloud Police, Colton Ryan Gleason was in an alleyway between 8th and 9th Avenues South. The victim was walking south with a group of friends when a four-door, mid-to-full-size passenger car, which was driving north up the alley, stopped. One of the occupants got out of the car and punched Gleason.

Kay Kilpatrick was coming home from studying with friends at night when she saw a group of people in the alley.

“We just saw him and was laying there and there were people around him,” Kilpatrick said. “We really didn’t think much of it, and as we were getting out we thought we saw someone on the ground. We went back inside, we came outside and there was a cop car,” Kilpatrick said.

Emergency crews brought him to St. Cloud Hospital, where he later died at approximately 9:15 p.m. Friday evening.

Investigators believe that Gleason and his attacker were not acquainted.

John Gleason says his son loved sports. Colton was a graduate of Orono High School, where he was on the soccer team and the kicker on the varsity football team. He also loved water sports, mountain biking and dancing.

Colton was in his third year of college. He last attended Minnesota State University-Mankato and worked in the family business.

Gleason says his son had a great number of friends and touched a lot of lives. The family would like to see justice for Colton.

“I remember seeing two girls that night getting into a cop car so hopefully someone saw it and can of knows a little more in detail,” Kilpatrick said.

Police say several people may have witnessed the assault and they are looking for them to come forward with information that will lead to an arrest. Call 320-251-1200 if you have any information.

Here is the later article:

St. Cloud teen in custody in fatal assault case
9:23 PM, Sep 24, 2012 |

Police have taken a 17-year-old St. Cloud boy into custody in connection with an assault Thursday that led to the death of 20-year-old Colton Ryan Gleason.

The teen was taken into custody at 4:25 p.m. Monday based on information from the public, according to a report from the St. Cloud Police Department. The department is continuing its investigation. Police Chief Blair Anderson said Monday night he could not comment further. A press conference about the case is expected Tuesday.

Earlier Monday, police said a $1,000 Crime Stoppers reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for the death.

Gleason, a Greenfield resident who was visiting St. Cloud, died after being punched in the alley in the 600 block between Eighth Avenue South and Ninth Avenue South. He died Friday night.

Gleason was walking with two female friends when a car passed them in the alley at about 11:20 p.m. Several people got out of the vehicle, and one person punched Gleason, causing him to fall backward and hit his head on the ground.

Police earlier said they didn’t believe the people in the vehicle knew Gleason, and they believe the assault was random. Police are asking the public to call with any information people in the area might have seen or heard around the time of the assault.

The vehicle involved was described as a white four-door, mid- to full-sized older vehicle. The people who exited the vehicle were described as one woman and several men, all in their late teens to early 20s. Police believe the five to seven people in the vehicle were coming from or going to a party in the area.

Gleason was taken to St. Cloud Hospital, where he died from head trauma, Anderson said.

Gleason was protecting the women he was walking with, said his father, John Gleason. It wasn’t the first time that Colton had stepped up to help someone in need, his father said.

“He went to the defense of others one last time,” his father said Monday.

The Gleason family had urged anyone with information about what happened to Colton to call police or Crime Stoppers. With so many people in the area when the assault happened, someone has to know something that can help solve the crime, John Gleason said.

- end of initial entry -

Paul K. writes:

Not all mention of color was omitted from the article. It describes the car as white, but, mysteriously, the occupant who hit Gleason had no discernible color.

D. Bowen writes:

“The vehicle involved was described as a white four-door, mid- to full-sized older vehicle. The people who exited the vehicle were described as one woman and several men, all in their late teens to early 20s.”

Ha, nice they have the presence of mind to provide the color of the car but not the color of the attacker. Tight.

LA replies:

That really is funny. Could the reporter and editor not have been aware of that? They certainly knew they were concealing the color of the assailants. They had to be thinking, “We’re giving the color of the assailants’ car, but not the color of the assailants.” This is the conscious bad faith of today’s American journalists, which is no different in kind from that of Soviet journalists.

D. Bowen replies:

If it had been a black car I’m sure it would have been glossed over.

Paul K. writes:

D. Bowen wrote, “If it had been a black car I’m sure it would have been glossed over.”

It may be true that they wouldn’t say “a black car.” A friend of mine in education told me teachers are now taught always to precede the word “black” with a modifier. Rather than say “a black car,” they should say “a shiny black car” or “a new black car.” After all, if you say “a black car” the listener might think that you were referring to a car full of black people, and that would be racist. Yes, we actually are that crazy.

LA replies:

They might call it an African-American car.

I repeat my story of how a liberal woman was telling me about her vacation in Norway and said, with great enthusiasm, that there were “many African-Americans there.” Of course she meant that there were many blacks there, but in some quarters you’re trained not to say “black,” and the correct substitute is “African-American,” even if you’re talking about, uh, African-Norwegians.

Laurence B. writes:

Your tragi-comic post about the young man (senselessly) killed by a “random” punch and the subsequent examination of the inconsistent color-shielding in the article reminded me of the 2008 Summer Olympics in South Africa. While broadcasting one of the 800m qualifier runs, the announcers mentioned an “African-American South-African man.”

They were adding some foam to fill in the awkward broadcasting silences before the start of the race, you know, sharing little anecdotes about each athlete even though we’ll likely never see or hear of them again unless they qualify for the final race. At any rate, they had to point out that this South African was not a white South African, and so he became an “African-American South-African man.”

He didn’t qualify.

Joseph A. writes:

I experienced another example of the thoughtless substitution of “African-American” for black when I was showing a Protestant friend the wall iconography of a local Orthodox temple. When my friend noticed an icon of Saint Moses the Black, she delightedly uttered, “They have an African-American on the wall!” She was so happy to see the ethnic diversity manifested inside the temple that she did not consider her words. When I corrected her, she still did not clue in. I had to explain that Saint Moses pre-dated “African-Americans” by thirteen centuries. It took a moment for the idea to work itself into her mind. Astonishing.

Joseph A. writes:

I did an online search for the murdered young man random victim and found his mugshot from April.

He was arrested and released the same day. The listed crime: “drugs-controlled substance 5 / poss fictitious dl / minor consumption.” From what I can tell from Minnesota’s statutes, a Schedule V controlled substance is a “methamphetamine precursor drug” like Sudafed. He also had a fake ID, and he was drinking alcohol.

LA replies:

Interesting. I also sensed something a bit edgy or troublesome about him in the photo from the St. Cloud paper I posted at the beginning of this entry. However, there’s no indication so far that the assailants knew him. The police are calling it a “random” attack, the standard terminology when a black attacks or kills a white for no reason except that he’s white.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 25, 2012 02:56 PM | Send