……BY INCOMPLETE, INACCURATE OR MISLEADING INFORMATION.

Google the name ‘Brennan Guigue’.

Results reprinted from news outlet sources are dated in November of 2015. After that, the media lost interest when Brennan Guigue was arrested in Montreal and he was no longer the flavour of the month.

Police investigations and court proceedings over the next two years leading to a resolution in the fall of 2017 did not attract any broadcast and press attention, as Brennan Guigue did in 2015. But, that long undertaking would have moderated the mass media perspective of the man and his crimes that was first circulated in 2015.

There was no intent by the media to misinform five years ago. What was printed, what was seen, is what was available at the time, and what the police were circulating. It’s not unusual for sources to overstate a potentially dangerous situation, but it is rare to see later clarifications. That can be laid at the feet of investigators who prioritize the demands on their resources, and editors who decide what constitutes worthy news. Today’s demands on policing and the justice system trump yesterdays closed files for one, and the fourth estate is a business for another.

No pretty pictures come out of society’s underbelly. No perspective will make Brennan Guigue look good. As with anywhere in the spectrum though, there’s no black and white either. The predominance of grey blurs the landscape and shapes an ambivalence that leaves the observer with the task of discerning where the truth lies.

Never rush to judgement. Peel back the layers.