Police Chief Regrets Statement Denying Jonathan Joss’ Murder Was a Hate Crime: ‘It Was Way Too Soon’

29 comments

1. >During a press conference on Thursday, June 5, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus offered an update on the case and responded to public backlash after the department said that their “investigation has found no evidence whatsoever” that Joss’ June 1 shooting death was a hate crime.

   >“That was way, way, way premature,” he admitted. “Shouldn’t have done it. It was way too soon before we had any real information, and I will own that and simply say, again, that we shouldn’t have done that. It was way too early in the process for any statement of that nature to be issued.”

   >“We understand that many in the LGBTQ+ community are feeling anxious and concerned,” McManus continued. “A lot of it has to do with that premature statement that we released, and again, I own that shouldn’t have done it. The loss of Jonathan Joss was tragic and most, most heavily felt by the LGBTQ+ community.”

2. Yeah they hadn’t even done any kind of investigation yet including the relationship history with the neighbors. Took the perpetrators words at face value rather than an eye witness.

3. Cops gonna cop, I guess.

   But I also remember posts going, “It’s probably not a hate crime, it’s just unfortunate.”

   Believe victims, especially if it ends up in their death.

4. Police chief then stated “Don’t worry, we’re still going to ignore and downplay this, we just goofed and did it while it was still in the news….our bad.”

5. What baffles me is people say we can’t trust Jonathan’s husbands statement on this but go on and on about what the neighbors in the area said about Jonathan. So how are the neighbors more trustworthy than his husband?

6. Get fucked bigot pig.

7. It was way too soon to say it… I guess they wanted to wait a bit to make it seem they really looked into it. The issue wasn’t that it was announced too soon, it was that the statement was false

8. I guess this is the best one can do, but the side that doesn’t want to believe it was a hate crime already has their sound bite. Now they can just say that this LEO just caved to social pressure.

   “But mark my words, the first utterance is the truth.”

   Then they’ll quote some wildly misappropriated bible verse because you can’t have a cake without frosting.

9. Also chief: “we didn’t know the rest of the country would be paying attention.”

10. And his tired old ass should be fired immediately!! You can’t be trusted

11. r/noshitsherlock

12. Boy, chief should’ve said wait so they can finish their investigation.

13. It looks pretty likely that all the erratic behavior reported by the neighbors, and by the KOTH sub who had been worried about Joss for a while, are true. But that doesn’t rule out a hate crime or make his husband an unreliable witness.

    Let’s do a thought experiment: Pretend you are the shooter, Sifredo Ceja. You are an angry middle-aged man who lives in West Texas. You own guns, drive a truck, and hate your crazy neighbor. In fact, you hate the guy so much that you’ve already had the cops called on both of you for brandishing weapons and fighting in the street. One day, your hated neighbor divorces his wife and brings home a new husband, a trans guy half his age.

    How do you treat your enemy’s new husband and newly visible LGBT+ status? Are you tolerant and respectful, do you take the high road? Or are you so openly hateful that the husband thinks your entire beef is based on homophobia? Does this make you escalate the feud? Does it make you more willing to load your gun?

14. I genuinely don’t understand what difference it makes. Murder is a hate crime. 

15. Cops love being publicly dumb.

16. Wait, So John Redcorn is gay now? Or is it the neighbor that has a trans spouse? Either way is does not matter because murder is not justified! Just because you dislike someone’s life choice (who their partner is) does not mean they should die. Do you and let them do them. You do not have to agree or even like it just stay the fuck away from each other and live your own lives. Another absolutely senseless tragedy. 😢

17. Translation: I didn’t know people liked that colored fruit.

18. This is progress and we can allow those who desire to change a seat at the table.

19. Except now we all know what your stance is and how (non) seriously you’ll take this.

20. We will self investigate and find we did nothing wrong.

21. Lmao they got called out on it and now have to pullout the crocodile tears because they got caught

22. It’s Texas. Nothing will happen. Maybe the Chief will take ~~vacation~~ leave to let things cool down.

23. I dunno if it was a hate crime or not. But it sure looks premeditated.

    The dude has a history of being kind of a kook from years of drug and alcohol abuse, but you decide to park your car right behind his in the dudes driveway before getting into it with him?

    You’re afraid of the dude enough to shoot the guy, but weren’t afraid to needlessly involve yourself instead of just…keep on driving while he has one of his episodes?

24. They had the information via the many 911 calls, the burning down of their house, and the fact that there was a dog skull and carcass where his body was. If only they’d actually done their job, then the right person would’ve been in jail long ago, and Jonathan Joss would still be alive.

25. Easy to say after the department ignored the reports.

26. Kind of refreshing honestly.

27. Way too soon to call it a hate crime I see. Fucken skulls of dogs they killed in mailbox was a sign of what then? Dislike of their dogs?

28. I’m not sure what happened. I just know that everyone who is sure what happened who wasn’t there and are just reading about it online don’t know what happened.

    Its my hope that they conduct a standup investigation and give us a detailed breakdown of the facts because this is the kind of thing that creates conspiracy theories to the end of time.

29. Good on him for owning it tho. We could use more of that all around.

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