Goodmorning. It is Monday September 24,2018 I am Nailah Teasley. Today I will discuss about the death of a boy who died in a mat reaching for a sneaker who's name is Kendrick Johnson. The article is called "Gym mat death shocker: Body stuffed with newspaper", by Victor Blackwell from CNN.
I am going to talk about Blackwell's main point. I'm going to discuss how the author's attitude and tone contribute and detract from the article. I will also go into how Blackwell's statistics, experts quotations, and overall appeal achieves his purpose.
The title was appealing to me because the title described it as being an shocking death. Therefore I wanted to read what was so shocking about what happened. The title itself can be disturbing but it's also an appealing title to make people want to read about this case.
I read about this article months ago, I am glad I can discuss about it. This case was not pushed as the way it should've been, because the investigators who worked on it did not take their time on investigating more into it. This death was not an accident because the boy had missing organs and found rolled up in a mat with stuffed newspaper in him.
Blackwell said "the death of the 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson was awful enough for his parents."(par 1) Kendrick Johnson was dead in a gym at Lowndes County High School. The state medical examines concluded that the three-sport athlete suffocated after getting stuck in a rolled up gym mat while reaching for a sneaker, Blackwell stated.
The body was found, the body and body skull had been stuffed with newspapers. The father told CNN, "we have been let down again," " when we buried Kendrick, we thought we were burying Kendrick, not half of Kendrick".(par 3) Kendrick parents won a court order to have their sons body exhumed and a second autopsy.
Blackwell stated in this article that during the autopsy, internal organs are removed and examined before returned for burial. Dr Bill Anderson, the private pathologist conducted the second autopsy, and stated that the teens body organs from the pelvis were missing. Anderson said "i'm not sure at this point who did not return the organs to the body.""But I know when we got the body, the organs were not there."(par 5) Two entities had custody over Kendrick body after his death, stated Blackwell. (par 7)
The GBI spokeswomen Sherry Lang told CNN that after the autopsy "the organs were placed in Johnson body, the body was closed, the body was released to the funeral home", thats normal practice Lang said.(par 8) Blackwell said "funeral home would not comment to CNN, but wrote a letter to Johnson attorney. Funeral home owner Antonio Harrington said "his firm never received the teens organs, they were destroyed through natural process." "Due to the position he died and "discarded by prosector before the body was sent back to Valdosta ." A prosector dissects the body for pathological examination. (par 9)Stuffing a body with old newspaper "like he was a garbage can," said Jacquelyn Johnson Kendrick mother, it isn't standard practice. (par 10)
Blackwell said " Anderson was hired by the Johnson family said, "Kendrick had sustained a blow to right side of his neck that was consistent with inflicted injury"(par 13). He concluded the teen died as the result of "unexplained, apparent non-accidental, blunt force trauma".
Blackwell says death scene imagery obtained exclusively by CNN had led a former FBI agent to question how Johnson died: "I think this young man met with foul play"(par 14) said Harold Copus. Lowndes County Sheriff refused to discuss with CNN stated Blackwell. He called Johnson case a "closed case that it wouldn't open a civil rights investigation into the case."(par 14)
The U.S attorney Micheal Moore said ,"Federal prosecutors in South Georgia met with family and took the case upon them", "this is about getting to the facts and the truth, and we want the Johnson family and the community of Valdosta to have confidence in the process." (par 16) Moore urged to anyone with information to contact his office. Blackwell said Johnson family come to believe their son death was no accident. The mother Jacquelyn Johnson said " its unbearable just about, the only thing that wakes you up in the morning is to keep pushing".
Blackwell's main point about this article was to discuss this case on what happened to Kendrick Johnson, on how he died and how is organs where not in his body. You can tell by the way he wrote this article, he was very shocked at how this happened to this teen and that he felt for kendrick's family. Blackwell had a very unbiased point of view, from earlier in the text when he stated "the death of the 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson was awful enough for his parents."
Blackwell shows the feeling on how he feels and how people like Kendrick parents, Dr. Bill Anderson and, Sheriff Micheal Moore felt about this case. How it was an tragedy that Kendrick Johnson death is left unspoken on how he died. This case had a lot of covering up going on. How can you call a case an accident and close a case without even knowing why and how the teens body was found with no organs but with stuffed newspaper.
Thank you for listening to what I had to discuss, if you are interested and want to know more about what happen to Kendrick Johnson case you can look up Kendrick Johnson name and read about it on more CNN and other news articles.
Reference:
Blackwell, Victor. "Gym Mat Death Shocker: Body Stuffed with Newspaper. " CNN, Cable News Network, 10 Oct 2013,
www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/georgia-gym-mat-death/index.html. Accessed 18 Sept 2018.