I found the article that you published regarding the incident involving a fight in Wells between three students to be poorly investigated, and it does not do justice to the situation. As the sister of Connor Long and the daughter of the woman who wrote a news tip to this newspaper regarding the story, I feel as if I have the right to state that this article does not shed light on the situation at all.

The news tip that my mother (Ona Knudtson) sent in spoke about the unfairness that my brother has had to face from the police due to family connections that the injured boy has. The tip spoke about students who were at the scene and tried to give a witness account but were denied. The tip spoke about the unjustness of the dismissal of the female student’s complaint that she was repeatedly hit by the boy who was injured by Wells police even though she had marks on her body and other students admit to witnessing it. Where is any hint of these news tips in the article?

When I read this article, I expected to see some hint of the wrongness of how the situation has been handled or even a statement from Ona. Instead, what I read was a very bland and ill-investigated article that included nothing except information from the court hearing and the police department. Why didn’t the reporter look into anything that Ona had to say in her news tip?

The entire situation has been very frustrating for my family and this article does nothing but raise tensions because it makes it seem as if my brother is a felon and had no reason to pick a fight when this is not the case at all. I really wish that this article would have included more investigative journalism instead of simply regurgitating information that may or may not be true and in result casts a terrible light on my brother.

Also, Connor’s name is misspelled as “Conner” and he legally does not have a middle name. Misspelling a name makes one wonder how credible this article actually is.

 

Jenna Long

student

Bemidji State University

Kiester