Jan & Quiana Pietrzak; Media ignores hate crimes that don’t fit agenda
Riverside California – Four Marines have been charged in the murder of Marine Sgt. Jan Pawek Pietrzak ( A Marine Corps mechanic) and Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak (a local social worker). In addition to allegedly murdering the couple execution style, it’s also reported that the Pietrzaks were tortured before they were murdered, and Mrs. Pietrzak was sexually assaulted.
Court records indicate four Marines acknowledged they had roles in the robbery, sexual assault and murder of a Camp Pendleton-based Iraq veteran and his wife last month in Riverside County.
Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20, of Tennessee; Pvt. Emrys John, 18, of Maryland; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20, of North Carolina; and Pvt. Kesuan Sykes, 21, of California face murder charges in connection with the case.
The Riverside County District Attorneys office has decided to pursue the death penalty in the case, but at the rate California executes, they will likely die of old age if convicted.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s office will seek the death penalty against four Marines charged with the double homicide of Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak.
Investigators believe four US Marines – Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20; Lance Cpl. Emrys Justin John, 18; Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20; and Lance Cpl. T Kesaun K. Sykes, 21 – forced their way into the Pietrzaks’ French Valley home by gunpoint, sexually assaulted Jenkins-Pietrzak and then shot both in the head on Oct. 15.
“The absolute innocence of a beautiful, loving couple compared to the savagery of the actions of these four equally responsible defendants leads to one conclusion—that this is a death penalty case,” Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said in a statement released hours after a meeting between the DA’s office and the victims’ family members.
The decision comes slightly more than three months after a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy found the bodies during a check on the house.
The four defendants have been arraigned and have pleaded not guilty. They are all due back in court on Feb. 2 for a conference hearing and then a preliminary hearing shortly after, during which the prosecutor must present enough evidence to a judge to show the charges are warranted.
I have no doubt that justice will be served in this case, but what disturbs me is that the media has largely ignored the most horrific hate crime since James Byrd was murdered by three racist scumbags a decade ago. Sgt. Pietrzak was white and his wife Quiana was black. This interracial couple was murdered by four black men. It has been suggested that this crime was financial in nature, but as has been pointed out in Black Political Thought, Marine Corps enlisted men aren’t usually flush with cash.
As I tried to find out information on this case I found that it has only been mentioned in a few news outlets. One doesn’t need to imagine what the media coverage would look like if a black man and his white wife were murdered by four white Marines. Rather than deal with hypothetical murders, it’s easier just to look at the fevered coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Rape case, which turned out to be a hoax. Nobody was murdered in this case, yet it was the biggest news story for months. And although it was demonstrably a hoax from early on, media clamor only died down when the defendants were declared innocent.
So why has this story been largely ignored by national media?
Here are some of the few links to news stories on this case:
http://www.myvalleynews.com/story.php?story_id=35343
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/4_Marines_Charged_in_Murder_of_Marine_Wife.html
http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2008/11/marine-sgt-jan-pawel-pietrzak-wife.html
