The media have totally ignored what Itzcoatl “Izzy” Ocampo is accused of doing–fatally stabbing four white men; forget the Latina mom and her son for the purposes of this twisted logic–instead spinning Orange County's latest serial killer as “a good kid,” “patriotic,” “a war hero,” a recipient of “metals” (sic), “a good role model” and “a ladies man.” So charges a “white cvil rights movement” that has posted a provocative video to make its case.
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White Igniters News, whose motto “You view/you decide!” sure reminds me of someone else's, posted the following video with, at last count, a whopping 1,191 You Tube views since Jan. 16.
In case you threw up before the end, the video concludes with a slow scan of the Ocampo mugshot from our opener page set against chilling keyboard music and the script, “They paint him as a person with 'emotional problems.' . . . Never mind the 4 white men murdered. . . . Racist murderer of white men. . . . Not newsworthy.”
Now, maybe I dreaming, but I seem to recall the murder of four homeless men being pretty goddamn big news in Orange County. Ocampo's capture, past red flags and the possible death-penalty case mounting against the Yorba Lindan (the investigation is ongoing) have not only generated a ton of local headlines, but national and international ones as well.
A quick scan of just the Weekly archives, which also include posts dedicated to allegations Ocampo slayed Raquel and Juan Estrada in October, shows 13-related entries since the killing of homeless, white men began Dec. 20. When have we written 13 times about anything that does not involve boobs, pot or pot-filled boobs?
True, besides the information fed to the media by law enforcement, there have been reports based as interactions with the Ocampo family that have attempted to understand the 22-year-old. But there is a great deal of interest in these killings and what kind of sick fuck could have possibly committed them. Humanizing Ocampo shows serial killers–if that's what the troubled young man even is; remember, innocent until proven guilty–can be as seemingly good, patriotic, heroic, decorated, influential and worthy of a past prom date as the recruit living next door.
The latest news about Ocampo comes from his lawyer, who reports his client is hearing voices in his head and suffering from facial tics that have been so severe, the accused wounded himself by knocking his noggin against a toilet in his jail cell. I suppose passing that along could be perceived in some uninformed corners as media-created sympathy toward a killer of whitey. To me, it reads like a lawyer's attempt to further his looming insanity defense, but what the hell do I know?
By the way, Ocampo is due in court Friday for a pre-trial hearing. Too bad there won't be any media there to assess whether he still has toilet wounds on his head. They'll, of course, be too busy shining his metals and medals.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.