Jussie Smollett's alleged lies will bring great harm to innocent victims - Eugene Robinson

[USALiberal]

I hope actor Jussie Smollett gets the psychological help he apparently needs. And I hope authorities in Chicago throw the book at him, because the lies he is accused of telling will likely bring great harm to innocent victims.

Smollett’s arrest Thursday for allegedly filing a false police report came as no surprise. His improbable tale — he said he was accosted last month by two men who yelled racist and homophobic slurs, beat him up, put a noose around his neck and doused him with bleach, with one of the men saying, “This is [Make America Great Again] country” — sounded like a page from the first draft of a rejected screenplay.

Real life doesn’t happen that way. Actual white supremacists and homophobes don’t stroll through the streets of Chicago on a bitterly cold night, carrying a hate-crimes kit of rope and Clorox, hoping to chance upon someone who is black, gay and modestly famous. They don’t hurl perfectly scripted insults. They don’t vanish without a trace.

The minute I heard Smollett’s story, I suspected it would eventually fall apart — and I feared the potential consequences for genuine victims of genuine hate crimes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jussie-smolletts-alleged-lies-will-bring-great-harm-to-innocent-victims/2019/02/21/aef262f2-3624-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html

[samnsara]

1. he is no better than someone falsely crying Rape or Me Too

[empedocles]

2. . . . and some harm to Smollett's snap judgement supporters.

[ripcord]

3. Robison really lit into him.

[USALiberal]

4. He nailed it. Nt

[dalton99a]

5. It was stupid, self-destructive, and utterly selfish.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. "Even worse, the next victim of an actual hate crime might not be believed."

So...police might not do their job properly because of Smollett? Huh.

[USALiberal]

7. You honestly think people will not mention this incident with other ones???

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. The quote I pulled was from a paragraph about police response to crime, which is why my post

was about the police.