The Culture of Fear_ Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things - Barry Glassner [24]
Described by his mother as a man who deeply loved his family and his country, Riggs had written home from Saudi Arabia, “There’s no way I’m going to die in this rotten country. With the Lord’s grace and his guidance, I’ll walk American soil once again.” But before that letter even arrived, while Riggs was moving his wife and three-year-old daughter to a new apartment, five shots rang out and witnesses heard the sound of screeching tires. Some faceless thug had killed him just to get his car. “His wife, Toni, found him dying in a gutter,” the Post reported. 1
TV newscasts showed Mrs. Riggs sobbing. She had warned her husband that there had been a shooting on the street earlier in the day, but he wouldn’t listen. “He said he’d just got back from having missiles flying over his head, and a few shots weren’t going to bother him,” according to Toni’s aunt, quoted in the Los Angeles Times. That of course was the larger point, or as the Post put it, “Riggs’s death was a tragic reminder of President Bush’s words recently when he announced a new crime bill: ‘Our veterans deserve to come home to an America where it is safe to walk the streets’.”2
Oops, Wrong Story
From the point of view of journalists and editors an ideal crime story—that is, the sort that deserves major play and is sure to hold readers’ and viewers’ attention—has several elements that distinguish it from other acts of violence. The victims are innocent, likable people; the perpetrator is an uncaring brute. Details of the crime, while shocking, are easy to relay. And the events have social significance, bespeaking an underlying societal crisis.
The murder of Anthony Riggs seemed to have it all. The only problem was, very little of this perfect crime story was true. Reporters named the right victim but the wrong perpetrator, motive, and moral.
It was the massive media attention, ironically, that resulted in the real story coming out. Confronted with demands from politicians and citizen groups to catch Riggs’s killer, the Detroit police launched an all-out investigation. While digging through garbage cans around the Conley Street neighborhood, an officer came upon a handgun that turned out to belong to Michael Cato, the brother of Riggs’s wife, Toni. Nineteen years old at the time and currently serving a life sentence for murder, Michael said in a confession that his sister had promised him a share of $175,000 in life insurance benefits.
Reporters cannot be blamed for failing to possess this information prior to its discovery by the police, but had they been a little skeptical or made a few phone calls they almost certainly would have stumbled on at least some aspects of the truth. They might have learned, for example, that Toni had been making noises about dumping Anthony for some time, or that it was she who arranged a hefty life insurance policy for her husband before he went off to war. Reporters might also have checked into Mrs. Riggs’s past and discovered previous irregularities, such as the fact that she had not yet divorced her previous husband when she married Anthony.
Journalists also might have discovered the existence of a letter Riggs wrote to his mother from Saudi Arabia. “Toni has wrecked my car. She is now bouncing checks.... She is never home: 2:30 A.M., 4 A.M.... I would put my head through the neck of a hot sauce bottle to please her, but now I need happiness in return,” People magazine, the only major publication that subsequently ran a full-fledged account of the true story, quoted him penning.3
Had news writers checked with knowledgeable criminologists