Eugene weekly., May 11, 2017, Page 12, Image 12

ALL
THE
NEWS
THAT
f ITS
mike weber of lane county
mugshots uncensored
photo by trask bedortha
Looking at Eugene through the online lens of Lane County Mugshots Uncensored
By Rick Levin
I
have a confession to make: I’m a junky for Lane County Mugshots Uncensored — a
massive, sprawling, closed-group Facebook page revolving around the spectacle of
daily mugshot postings released to the public by Lane County law enforcement and
other nearby jurisdictions.
I’m not proud. I have an addictive personality, and something about the site — its
raw, adrenalized hit of unreconstructed civic collapse from the street level — makes
me feel giddy and dirty and kind of sick at the same time.
Along with the daily mugshots, which freeze alleged suspects in various poses of
defeat, defiance and degeneracy, Lane County Mugshots Uncensored features the spontaneous
and unreconstructed posts of site members who assume, somewhat recklessly, the role of
amateur reporters cranking out copy on issues of law and disorder throughout the community.
The site also offers reposts from local law enforcement as well as crime reports from media
sources such as KVAL and The Register-Guard.
Whenever I recognize a face that pops up in a daily mugshot feed — which happens
surprisingly often, thanks to the particular crowd I run in — my first thought is: “Damn, girl,
you look like hell. Guess you got what you had coming, eh?” My next thought is: “Poor fucker.”
And then I blast myself for my uncharitable and superior attitude, as I attempt to channel a more
spiritual generosity toward the fall of humanity.
Train wrecks in slow motion and shootouts at the OK Corral, and the teeming crowds that
always ogle them up-close or from a distance, some folks reaching out a helping hand, some
frozen in terror or rabid with recrimination, and a lot of bystanders simply pointing fingers and
saying “Ha! Good thing that ain’t me. Sorry sucker!” Nothing quite like beholding the slapstick
of another person’s misery. There but for the grace of God.
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May 11, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
Mugshot Nation
Sites like Lane County Mugshots Uncensored have
sprung up everywhere around the country, in part as an
opportunistic reaction to the collapse of public trust in
traditional news sources. Piggybacking on the rise of social
media, with its up-to-the-second immediacy and perpetual
trolling, such sites subvert and complicate the stodgy
paradigm of mainstream media, which in comparison moves
with slow feet and an authoritative, often patronizing mono-
voice wrapped in the prestige of professionalism.
In lieu of a single journalistic narrative, LCMU presents
a clamor of voices competing for primacy in a free-for-
all that mobs up, for better or worse, around those places
where people fail: law breakers, drunk drivers, chronic
fuck-ups, delinquents, tweakers, recidivists and freaks.
If LCMU is a news source, it’s certainly a new kind of
news source, a funneled mutinous howl from the hoi polloi
that works like a form of hearsay from ground zero of a
zero-sum game. Imagine if every single fan inside Autzen
Stadium during a Ducks football game was given equal
voice in coaching the team on field, and you get the idea
of what would ensue. It might remain sport, but it wouldn’t
be very sporting.
Lane County Mugshots Uncensored, then, is where
we all watch each other, and where the watchers watch
the watchers watching. Beyond any question of civic
or social value, the phenomenon is fascinating and a bit
mindboggling, and in a not entirely cheerful way. It’s like
an inversion of the panopticon, a prison of totalized and
perpetual surveillance. Instead of The Man keeping an eye
on things, everybody is now up each other’s ass.