Monday, September 22, 2008

Collateral Damage: Patrick Lumumba At The Maniacal Hands Of Amanda Knox

Posted by Tara

[click for larger images]

Everyone should “Google” his or her own name. The results are sometimes quite surprising.

You might find yourself quoted at a local political caucus, see your name mentioned in the legal documentation for some past dispute, come across a photo of yourself at a PTA meeting, or even be quoted by someone who didn’t tell you they were writing a story for a local rag!

Usually the results are not life altering, and some of us have no results at all.

Amanda Knox accused bar owner and musician Patrick Diya Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher. He was arrested and spent two weeks in jail. He has a wife and a young son, who watched as the police handcuffed him at home early one morning and swept him away in a parade of police cars.

The problem is that he was falsely accused and in fact was not involved in the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher.

To the relief of his family, he was released. Unfortunately, his association with a crime he did not commit has a long electronic shelf life.

Here’s what came up this past weekend in a quick search if you just type “Lumumba Perugia”:

USA Yahoo Search: 153,000
USA Google Search: 23,400
USA MSN Search: 11,800

All of these results associate his name with murder. His young son and wife can “google” their last name and see the results, which are increasing daily because this sensational case is not over.

Le Chic, Patrick Lumumba’s bar, is now closed.

Mr. Lumumba has filed slander charges against Amanda Knox, his accuser. Some have been very vocal about their disapproval of his action. They claimed Lumumba had maybe profited financially from interviews and that he will continue to do so. Their thought is: why hit on a young woman who already has the weight of the world against her and is facing murder charges.

My thought is that when you tell a lie, and falsely accuse someone else of murder, you must be held accountable.

Patrick and his family’s life is changed forever, and not in a good way: not when a search of their name brings thousands of results associated with murder.

Posted by Tara on 09/22/08 at 06:28 PM in Evidence & Witnesses, Pat Lumumba, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR

Comments

Patrick’s story sure has legs. If you click on tne images to expand them, you can see how the numbers have grown 1-2 percent since Saturday.

His many new mentions now seem to be because he is on the offensive. At last.

I’m sorry his bar closed. Another formerly nice place, now gathering dust,

Posted by Fast Pete on 09/22/08 at 10:24 PM | #

Nice post, Tara. It needed to be said. Patrick has been subjected to several wrongs.

First, he was wrongly accused. Even if Knox claims, as she is now doing through her parents, that she only wanted to help the police and that the police suggested his name, she still made the accusation knowing that it was false.

Moreover, and this is more interesting, she places herself at the scene of the crime, as an ear witness to murder. She is lucky that these statements have been ruled inadmissible with respect to her own case.

But Patrick is not so lucky. He has lost his source of revenue. Whether or not it turns out that the police share responsibility for what happened to Patrick, I think most people intuitively feel that Knox went above and beyond the call of duty and gave a pretty complete fanciful description of the involvement of Patrick, a man she said she feared.

And what about Raffaele? He gave a corroborating statement that indirectly implicates Patrick. Had he not said (after abandoning his earlier story) that Knox left him and went to meet friends at Le Chic, Patrick may not have been arrested.

On some level, I find it hard to hold the police entirely responsible for arresting Patrick. After all, they got testimony from two people being questioned separately that supported the accusation.

Posted by Skeptical Bystander on 09/22/08 at 11:33 PM | #

Thank you for posting this, Tara. Personally I don’t see anything wrong in Patrick getting paid for interviews and suing Knox for slander. He was an immigrant who has worked very hard -I am sure- to build a good life for himself and his family. Those false accusations have literally shattered his whole world. He has any right to get some kind of compensation including from the one person who has caused his psychological and financial hardships.

I don’t see why Patrick should forget about the one who has ruined his life only because Amanda Knox already has the weight of the world against her and is facing murder charges. Nobody twisted her arm to make her accusing Patrick, so now she has to face the consequences of her own wrong doing.

Posted by nicki on 09/23/08 at 10:52 AM | #

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.