Arrested and Never Heard from Again

This thread is meant mostly to draw upon Alan's journalistic expertise, but of course anyone is welcome to give insights.

Alan:
Did you ever hear about this drug bust exactly a year ago in Colorado? Two drug mules were pulled over and law enforcement found 220 pounds of cocaine in the vehicle's trunk.

$10 million in cocaine seized in Colorado traffic stop

No doubt this pair are in enormous legal trouble...perhaps a life sentence in prison. What really caught my eye, though, was that when I recently wanted to research any possible follow-up article on this case there was absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing to be found except for that arrest a year ago.

Can you possibly explain why these two people just simply "fell off the face of the Earth" after being arrested a year ago? I would think by now there would have been an arraignment, a trial, or plea bargain, or even sentencing. There is simply nothing, nada!

Alan, you're a notable proponent of free speech and sometimes I find such an omission of information to be rather disturbing. Can you or someone else enlighten me as to why these people just "disappear" to where the news media says nothing on the case after the arrest? Thanks for your time on this if you can provide answers or even some intelligent speculation.

Interesting question, but my first reaction is that the news media didn't follow up on the story. So my first question is, did you happen to phone either the State Attorney or District Attorney's office, or even the police unit involved and asked them?

The news media is notorious for not following up on crime stories.

Years ago when I was at KCAL9 in LA the news department went out of its way to do a "follow up" on the big high speed chases -- to determine where the arrested people were a year after all of Southern California watched them on TV speeding on Freeways and evading police for an hour or longer. What we found was that they were sitting in jail, awaiting trial, or had entered pleas and were already in County Jail.

It's not that these people "fall off the face of the earth," it's more like the news media didn't bother to follow the case.

Thank you for taking my questions, Alan.

This cocaine seizure was one of the largest in the entire United States last year, and I had only read about it because it actually made the front page of national news websites at the time (CNN, MSNBC, etc.). It really surprises me that even the local news outlets in Colorado wouldn't bother to follow up on a story of such notoriety.

I don't have a personal interest in this story (not a druggie), so I won't be calling the DA over it. I did harbor some brief thoughts along the lines of: "Maybe some Mexican cartel boss is super angry at losing 100 kilos of cocaine and will be hiring some assassins on these two mules. Did law enforcement take pains to suddenly hide this couple so they could become useful informants?"

Now I see this is most likely not the case.

Let me say this about the news business: it's not made up of brain surgeons. And there probably is no time, no money, and no interest in doing "follow up reports."

Today's "news" for the most part is all about where was the fire, where was the accident, where was the high speed chase, who got killed, and who got caught and ... little else.

My biggest complaint about the news industry today is that for the most part you are watching kids operate in a grown-ups' world. These kids do not have mortgages or kids in school -- certainly not in college. They don't know what pensions are, they probably don't pay property taxes, they might not even vote. Yet every day they enter our homes telling us what's going on. It's pretty sad.

Today, life experience and knowledge and news experience doesn't count when stations hiring news reporters and anchors. What does matter is if they have blond hair, blue eyes, C cups, or could model for Abercrombie & Fitch.

Back when I was in the news business, and I made my frequent appearances at Church groups, civic groups, homeowners association meetings, etc., I was often asked why there were so much police and fire news stories on TV? I told them the truth: it's easy to cover fire and police stories. You know the fire department has to put the fire out, and the police have to catch the bad guy.