Grieving mother reacts to hurtful user comments
I received this e-mail today:"Dear Mr. Altman,
I have been reading the emails between you, my brother, and my mother. I am the mother of the boy who was killed.
You asked if there was anything you could do to help....
There are several very cruel and actually evil comments on the blog under your article. As the moderator, if you could remove some of them which seemed to express joy in my son's death, and even comments about how he looked (in the connotation of deserving to be dead), etc. (with captions like LOL)
Some of those comments are devastating to me, my husband, and Jakob's brother and my heart was racing for hours after seeing some of them.Mrs. Weathermon is talking about user comments that appeared under a story I wrote the other day about the death of her son, Jakob. Jakob, 20, of Long Beach was killed last week when a big rig truck ran him over as he rode his bicycle near Carson.
If you are unsure which comments they are, I would be happy to cut and paste
and send them to you in email.
Thanks very much.
Heidi Weathermon
the mother."
I'm not a big fan of user comments because many people out there seem to take joy in writing crude, rude and hateful remarks.
I'm also not a moderator of them. I just reported and wrote the story. Readers are free to comment as they wish.
The paper has shut them down in this case and removed them. Unfortunately that meant more respectful comments also disappeared as well.
Hopefully those who write hurtful comments can realize the impact they have on grieving family members.
Previous entry and a link to the story of Jakob's death:
Family memorializes young man killed while riding bike near Carson
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About the Blogger
Larry Altman has covered crime in the South Bay since 1990. He's seen it all - the missing model who turned up dead in the desert, the wives found dead in trunks, the high-school coaches who get a little too close to their players. He drives his young colleagues nuts with his "I remember when" stories. He welcomes your tips and observations about the present, and you can mix in a little Lakers basketball talk if you like.
E-mail Larry at larry.altman@dailybreeze.com.
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About the Blogger
Denise Nix knew as young as grade school, when she spent every summer working on the camp newspaper, that she wanted to be a journalist. Denise has spent most of the last 12 years of her career in the courtroom. She joined the Daily Breeze in 2001, where she tracks and reports on hundreds of cases at every level of the justice system. And she's never, ever, seen a judge use a gavel.
E-mail Denise at denise.nix@dailybreeze.com.
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I had arrived to the scene after the incident occurred that day probably 5 minutes after its occurrance and was saddened by the fact that there was someone who is not here any longer in this world and I will probably never get to know. But Thank You! for allowing me to have a summary of his life family members, thanks for showing that he was a fun person and like i he cared much for his family. Say brother of creation I missed the opportunity to get to know you face to face but thank you family members who shared the moments with the ones who our truly concerned.
I'm so sorry for your loss. What I see and read from your site on Jakob, he was loved not only by his family but by many who was lucky enough to be a friend. God Bless.