You could not get away from this story a few days ago. Especially here in Michigan.
Here are some of the headlines:
Those are the Google results from just a minute before I wrote this post. On page one of Google right now, only 2 articles mention that this story was fabricated. Given that up to 95% of users won’t go to the second page (various studies have it 80% – 95%), this is a perfect scenario for this fake news to continue to spread.
“She came in the house and she was wet, like soaking wet, and I’m asking her what happened but she was afraid to tell me because she thought she was going to get in trouble,” Rapier told Fox17. “And then I called my boys because I knew they’d tell me and then they said the guy said ‘stupid N-word’ and started peeing on her.”
After interviewing several of the children who had allegedly witnessed the incident, police arrested David Allen Dean on the charge of felony sex offense excluding assault and commercializing, WWMT reported.
Sounds horrific. I even came close to posting it myself. Then again, I’ve been in the media a long time. I know the patterns, and I’m a cynic. The overwhelming majority of these types of stories are garbage.
You saw the headlines in the image above. This became a national viral story.
Then … the truth:
A thorough investigation by the Grand Rapids Police Department, in conjunction with the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office, has revealed that recent allegation that an adult male urinated on a child were fabricated. After interviews by a trained specialist, the parents of the children talked to them more, and the children admitted the adult make was not involved. One the of the children urinated on another child, and the story was concocted to avoid trouble. Additionally, citizens in the surrounding provided a verifiable alibi for the recorded time of the incident.
We appreciate the conscientiousness of the parents in bringing the matter to the attention of the police, and in continuing to ask their children question as new evidence was obtained.
As I’ve said countless times … don’t rush to validate a sensationalized story. They’re usually hoaxes.
