The College Conservative’s Kyle Sabo notes that when it comes to news coverage, some deaths are deemed more worthy than others.

On December 1, 2014, the fate of a young man’s life rested with a Brooklyn jury. As grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York handed down no true bills in two cases of African-Americans losing their lives at the hands of white police officers, the story of Christian Ferdinand and his victim Shaniesha Forbes, a 14-year old African American girl from Brooklyn, was tragically lost in the shuffle of the more politically charged news of the day. Theirs are stories worth telling, especially in light of celebrity protests and social media posts proclaiming the rallying cry of protesters: “Black Lives Matter.” Indeed, they do.

Mr. Ferdinand met Shaniesha through Facebook when he was 20 and she was 14. The two began an online relationship, and ultimately met and had sexual relations. When Shaniesha told Ferdinand that she was pregnant and refused to get an abortion because her mother was religious, Christian smothered her with a leather pillow, stuffed her body into a suitcase, and kept it for two days before bringing it to a Brooklyn beach and attempting to light it on fire. The Kings County medical examiner ruled her death a homicide by asphyxiation.

…But it is the words of Christian Ferdinand, recorded for posterity through the permanence of a text message, that place this appalling end to a young life in a separate category from, for example, the 14 murders that occurred over July 4^th Weekend in Chicago this summer. “My nigga, are you serious,” Ferdinand texted to Shaniesha in an attempt to get her to abort her baby, “[k]ill that s–t.”

…Shaniesha’s story is not a deflection for the real grievances that many in minority communities (and many in the white communities) hold towards what they perceive as law enforcement’s overreach, abuse, and corruption. Senator Rand Paul has been vocal in his criticism of the militarization of our police departments, and many on the libertarian right and progressive left agree with him.