UPDATE: On Wednesday, local police said that that alleged killer Darwin Martinez Torres was not a member of MS-13. But Torres does appear to have a violent history, which goes against the insinuations that the murder was a hate crime.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post broke a disturbing development in the story of a Muslim girl killed by an illegal immigrant in an apparent case of road rage. According to The Post, a week prior to the slaying, accused murderer Darwin Martinez Torres put a woman in the hospital. Torres “had punched, choked and sexually assaulted her and was a member of the MS-13 street gang.” Previously, only ABC and NBC has touched the story at all. But despite these new details about the alleged murderer, the story was nowhere to be seen during their evening broadcasts.
“The acts allegedly occurred in the presence of a young child, which prompted a call to Loudoun County’s Child Protective Services agency, which in turn filed a report with the county sheriff,” wrote The Post. “But the woman told CPS that she did not want to pursue charges or accept any social-services help, and so no further action was taken. Days later, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen was dead.”
With the killing of Hassanen reaching nation attention, “CPS staff recognized that [Torres] was the person allegedly involved in the domestic assault incident and flagged the connection to the sheriff’s office.”
The journalists for The Post noted that the unnamed victim in the hospital “remained overnight at the hospital because she also said she feared the man, the report said.” “The woman also said the man who attacked her was an MS-13 gang member whose violence against her had been escalating, according to the report made to CPS,” they added. They also reported that CPS didn’t think the woman’s case met the standard required for them to advise police involvement.
Local police couldn’t comment because it was an active investigation. But what was known was that Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a detainer on Torres because he’s an illegal immigrant from El Salvador and could face deportation.
When the news first broke onto the national scene, CBS and NBC ignored the case. Meanwhile, ABC censored how Torres was in the country illegally and speculated that Hassanen was the victim of a hate crime during their 18-second long news brief.
It took NBC News two full days to finally report the heinous attack on the innocent girl. But they too omitted Torres’ legal status while pushing unsubstantiated claims it was a hate crime. “Police say it was a result of road rage, but prosecutors say they can't rule out a hate crime. It's a deadly incident that's touched a nerve across the country,” announced Anchor Lester Holt part way through NBC Nightly News that evening.
The two top Spanish-language networks, Univision and Telemundo, also omitted the gang affiliation update from their evening broadcasts Tuesday. Instead of reporting on the development, Univision instead made time to report on a baby that was born on an airplane. Telemundo, for its part, covered a recent road rage incident in California and discussed America’s road rage in general, but made no mention of this latest high-profile, road-rage related murder.
The blackout of Torres' legal status, coupled with the blackout of his affiliation with the extremely violent MS-13 demonstrates how the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) refuse to report on the crimes committed by illegal immigrants. But they were quick to push false claims that it was a hate crime. CBS has yet to mention the murder of Hassanen at all since the story went national.
