“MS-13 forever”

Law enforcement authorities made two more arrests in the case of the execution-style murder of three Newark college students. The two newly arrested suspects include the apparent ringleader in the killings. They were apprehended in Washington, D.C., so the Washington Post covers the arrests as a big local story. The Post describes the suspects as “a 24-year old Nicaraguan man” — Rodolfo Godinez — and his teen-age half-brother.
One has to infer from hints in the story that the arrested suspects were illegal immigrants. The Post reports that Godinez’s 16-year-old half brother was apprehended “in the basement of a Woodbridge townhouse as the intense manhunt in the execution-style killings moved to the Washington immigrant community, authorities said.” The Post drops one other hint from which an inference can be drawn:

A man who was in the apartment at the time of the arrest said that Godinez and a friend had shown up about 11 a.m. Thursday and that Godinez was drinking beer and tattooing some of the other men. The man said Godinez talked about being a member of MS-13. He said that when police took Godinez away, he yelled, “MS-13 forever.”

Whether or not the suspects are here illegally, the Post declines even to address the question that naturally arises from the facts of the story. The Post observes the reigning taboo more scrupulously than the Victorians observed the taboo about the public discussion of sex. Mark Steyn devotes his brilliant, angry column today to the earlier arrests of three other suspects in the case. Steyn observes the same taboo at work in coverage of the earlier arrests:

[T]here’s been a succession of prominent stories with one common feature that the very same pundits, politicians and lobby groups have a curious reluctance to go anywhere near. In a New York Times report headlined “Sorrow And Anger As Newark Buries Slain Youth,” the limpidly tasteful Times prose prioritized “sorrow” over “anger,” and offered only the following reference to the perpetrators: “The authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive. Three suspects

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