@Hanna regrettably I am I the same unfamiliar spot…
If the alleged victim is to be believed the crime is neither opportunistic or random. As he describes the event it would have to be a well planned and target specific hate crime. Random violence is prevalent and unfortunately so are general acts of hate. A violent hate crime targeting a specific individual such as this however is extremely rare.
Specifically the assailants would have had to pre purchase and bring rope and bleach. Additionally they would have had to follow and target the alleged victim otherwise how did they know his sexual orientation.
It seems extremely far fetched to think that two individuals specifically identified this individual well in advance, planned things out, pre purchased the tools required, engaged in active surveillance and decided to execute their plan on a sub zero degree night at 2am all while avoiding video surveillance.
My sympathy goes out to any and all victims of violence or hate. I fully appreciate the need to assume victims are truthful, and the horrible reality that hate crimes continue to plague our country . This case however seemed implausible from the outset.
^ to be fair the actor is very famous for his role and his being gay is well known. So, far from"active surveillance", they wouldn’t have had to do very much at all to recognize him, follow him, and decide to attack him because he’s gay.
Deciding that liquid attacks on a subzero night is a good idea is something else.
^They would have had to find him in the first place. On a night that cold he wouldn’t be that easy to spot and once again not everyone has bleach and rope on their person. It was 2am. The perpetrators would have had to follow him for some time or known his behavioral patterns. That’s what I meant be surveillance.
Far from random.
There certainly is a lot of hate in the world…but that is a very specific and effort intensive expression of hate if accurate.
That makes no sense. The people at Empire are standing behind him because it is the safest thing for them to do, to support someone who says he was a victim. Why would this be a sign it’s not a hoax? How could they possibly know? It would be idiotic for them to state they did not believe and support him before the results of a police investigation.
Why does anyone perpetuate a hoax? They think they can get away with it, they crave more attention (and some actors can never get enough), they want to be seen as heroic or desire victim status. People do all sorts of things that make no sense to others. Smollett claims to be a huge critic of “45” and that’s why this happened to him…maybe he had political aspirations. Who knows.
Then again, he might not have been in on the plan. Perhaps he didn’t recognize these were his workout buddies, that they were black, and perhaps they don’t have Nigerian accents. Or maybe these men were arrested for something else. I found the picture of their apartment kind of weird, all that bleach and piles of boxes with merchandise. Perhaps their arrests were because of other criminal activity and is totally unrelated to this hate crime.
The nicer neighborhoods in Chicago have “roaming gangs of thugs.” Most of the crime is robbery – cell phones, wallets, and the like. It’s not an every hour occurrence, but happens enough to be cautious. But even the thugs disappear on the cold nights. And the thugs aren’t generally MAGA people. He also had what looked like a perfectly wrapped subway sandwich in his hand after the attack? But who knows anything in this day and age of “fake” news.
“The nicer neighborhoods in Chicago have “roaming gangs of thugs.”“
That’s news to me as someone who’s lived and worked in those neighborhoods since 2002. Of course people in all urban areas learn to be cautious about their purse/wallet/cell phone, but I have never worried about any roaming gangs, and I walk around at night all the time. I rarely hear about muggings in my neighborhood a couple of miles from the site of this incident, but when I have, the suspects work solo or occasionally in pairs. It doesn’t make any financial sense to use large groups to rob individuals; you’d have to split the proceeds of one wallet 5 or 6 ways.
Ha, Just looked up at what temperature bleach freezes. Household bleach freezes at 18-19 degrees F. If it was 9 below as someone mentioned, there’s no way anyone could throw the bleach in liquid form. It probably freezes mid-air if it wasn’t already frozen in the container.
You can carry around a bottle of water, pour it, etc. when it’s that cold. Room-temperature liquids don’t freeze instantly even in very cold weather. I had a half gallon of milk in the trunk of my car for an hour today when it was about 17 degrees. It doesn’t even have ice crystals in it, and it would be hours before it was frozen solid.
@Nocreativity1 : I totally agree with you if that’s what you meant. I thought that by ‘active surveillance’ you meant following him around for days, bugging his car, etc etc. @busdriver11 : I figured that the Empire crew wouldn’t stand by an actor brining bad publicity.
And I was genuinely puzzled as to why something famous would do such a thing but your ideas make sense. I guess scheming isn’t my strong suit.
That’s true, it takes a while to freeze. Especially if it was sheltered in the car. When you throw it tho, it spreads and it would freeze much sooner. If you poured the milk on the street, it probably would have frozen quickly. At some temperature people claim urine could freeze instantly when you go. 9 below seems extreme and could be that temperature.
Igloo. That was my first thought that a bottle of bleach would freeze. It couldn’t be thrown as a liquid. At 9 below it wouldn’t take long for it to freeze .
@MYOS1634, I guess you’re just too straightforward to scheme. I often do not understand why people do the things they do, either. I’m always a little suspicious with sensationalist things when it comes to actors, though. I have a son who is an actor, so it’s probably unfair to take what they say with a grain of salt, just can’t help it.
Or are the police setting a trap? How can Smollett ID these two as the attackers when he said his attackers were white? And now police can get their phone records which could show calls to Smollett.
At least one of the suspects has a criminal record.
$674 and probation for attempted murder is an example of how draconian our legal system is. And he had no problem going to college afterwards and borrowing his living expenses:
Fantastic. We often hear of the stress of student loans and how they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. I am so happy to hear that these two escaped that trap. Now the taxpayers get to eat the expense of educating these young scholars.
