When it was announced that 88-year old World War II veteran Delbert Belton was brutally beaten by two African-American teens in Spokane, Washington, readers flooded news sites and social media with commentary of outrage, disbelief, and racism.
Delbert Benton Killing Reaction
The story trended in August 2013 around the web, and the reaction was heated.
On the Web
- CNN’s coverage of the story amassed over 20,000 comments in the first 12 hours. Many anonymous commenters avoided moderation by expressing racial slurs using misspellings or insinuation. The George Zimmerman shooting of Trayvon Martin was highly cited, as was President Obama’s remarks on that case and his silence regarding this incident.
- The story was the “most commented” on ABC News on August 23, 2013.
- After only 30 comments, MSNBC closed discussion of the story, despite it ranking as the “Most Popular” news item of the day.
- Coverage of the initial story on Spokane’s KXLY (which FoxNews cited) had almost 7000 comments.
This graphic had nearly 7000 Facebook shares in only 3 hours.
On Social Media
- Twitter was active with commentary on the Benton killing, and the hashtags #justicefordelbertbenton and #delbertbenton trended in many areas.
- A graphic by the Facebook page Extremely Pissed Off Right Wingers 2 had nearly 7000 shares within three hours of being posted. (See right)
The Latest
March 2015: Demetrius Glenn was sentenced to 16 years in prison after taking a plea deal for the Benton killing.
Feb 2015: Kenan Adams-Kinard, 17, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on first-degree murder charges.
Sources
- WWII vet, beaten by teens outside Eagles Lodge, dies (Ian Cull, KXLY: Updated August 23, 2013)
- Police arrest juvenile in fatal attack on WWII veteran (Ed Payne, CNN: August 23, 2013)
- Police arrest one suspect, seek another after World War II veteran dies following parking lot beating (FoxNews.com: August 23, 2013)
Updated February 1, 2016
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