Eugene weekly., May 11, 2017, Page 15, Image 15

traditional news outlets, which require a considerable
budget, mugshot sites are relatively cheap and easy to run.
“It’s really pretty economical to put out information in this
way,” he says.
“As a journalist myself, I’m always in favor of more
free speech, more comments, more people discussing these
issues,” Milbourn says. “The main thing is, what’s the
context here? How can we move the discussion on public
safety forward in a way that helps us really understand the
complexity of the problem?”
It’s not an easy problem to solve, Milbourn suggests.
“We’re in this moment of experimentation in trying to
figure out what this new phase is going to look like,” he
says of the current state of journalism, where decades
of budget and staff cuts have led media outlets away
from more hard-hitting, Watergate-style investigative
reporting.
Weber says sites like LCMU are “the future of news,” in
that they are unfiltered sources of events happening in real
time. He admits that eyewitness testimony is notoriously
unreliable; and yet, thanks to the collective nature of the
site, he sees a lot of policing of information among the
members, especially whenever someone posts something
that is straight-up false.
Weber, who refers to himself as an “accidental journalist,
calls LCMU a “death pit where people can battle it out” in
ongoing discussions about the nature of drug addiction, the
pros and cons of gun ownership, the causes and solutions
of homelessness, etc., etc.
The Punchline
“It can have value,” Weber says about Lane County
Mugshots Uncensored. “You can leave, or you can stay
and read this and understand that it’s a slice of your own
community. It’s a slice of what’s going on here. It may be
vile, but this is what your community thinks.”
He continues: “If you don’t like what they’re saying,
don’t blame me. This group is your community. As a
whole, when you put these comments in a bowl, you’re
looking at what a majority of people thinks. This is what
you’re up against.”
The talk isn’t pretty on LCMU, Weber suggests, but
it’s real. Concern and contempt collide in rough and rude
language that speaks to the current zeitgeist. Look away at
your own risk. These are your neighbors. This is your city.
The establishment liberals and high-minded
progressives in Eugene who are wringing their hands and
wondering what to do about the Trump phenomenon would
do well to quit tilting at windmills and take a look at Lane
County Mugshots Uncensored, where the other half tends
to pipe up — that disenfranchised and angry half of the
population that the snobby glitterati of Eugene consistently
fails to recognize, or even see.
The people who populate LCMU are, largely though
hardly exclusively, those “deplorables” Hillary Clinton so
grotesquely called out during her campaign, pointing to a
catastrophic division at the core of our politics no amount
of policy talk will stitch up. Eugene, which considers itself
such a bastion of West Coast liberalism, would do well to
realize that the political sentiments of Pennsylvania and
Kentucky aren’t as far away as some of us would love to
believe.
Weber says that, from his perspective, the social and
political situation in Eugene has gotten worse over the
years. “I think a lot of these people are frustrated,” he says
of site members.
There’s a strong tendency for comment threads to
devolve into shouting matches over national politics.
“There’s a lot of anger out there. I think politics and the
presidency is out of control. It’s so undignified,” Weber
says. “People just want to argue about Trump. This whole
thing has just become such a joke. If you think about it, if
you’re for Trump, your joke’s just different.”
The level of fear, despair and anger revealed on LCMU
seems at once to reflect reality and somehow reinforce
and amplify a particularly grim vision of it, creating
a feedback loop that seems, at times, ready to ignite
into mob violence. If faith in politics and faith in law
enforcement are declining, the fact that ordinary citizens
are taking matters into their own hands is understandable,
if a bit frightening.
On the upside, LCMU’s real-time posts offer immediate
access to situations with real impact, as when an accident
jams up traffic or an ongoing emergency creates a public-
safety threat.
For instance, when an armed man with a gun was
reported running loose in west Eugene the evening of May
3, causing a major police lockdown, several Facebook
posts updated residents almost immediately. But when I
turned for more information to a local news channel, they
were running an interview with the University of Oregon
golf coach and a weather update. Cut to commercial.
The downside, however, is not to be ignored, because
the snake of discontent tends to eat its own tail. The phrase
“taking the law into your own hands” rarely has positive
connotations. We are a community whose citizens are
armed to the teeth. Judging from the evidence of LCMU,
we are also angry, scared, cynical and itching for a fight.
On the advent of the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los
Angeles riots, let us not fail to recall that many African-
Americans frustrated over perceived racial bias in the
Rodney King verdict turned their lethal anger on Korean-
Americans in their neighborhoods. People died. And then,
as coverage of the verdict and riots hit the airwaves, smaller
riots spread across the country. For a while, it looked like
civil war might erupt.
To all appearances, the powder keg of public discontent
is a lot closer to ignition than it was in 1992. It’s not hard
to imagine that the fear and loathing that is often evident
on Lane County Mugshots Uncensored could, given a
proper spark, turn into a very unregulated militia hitting
the streets. And then, posted and reposted in real time,
escalating from there. ■
THIS SATURDAY
MAY 13 Leave a donation of
nonperishable food by your mailbox.
Your Letter Carrier will pick it up. Donate
online at foodforlanecounty.org.
eugeneweekly.com • May 11, 2017
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