Recently, a homicide has took place in the small area of Brooklyn, Iowa. Mollie Tibbetts, a 20 year-old Iowa college student, was dog-sitting for her boyfriend Dalton Jack before she disappeared. When her boyfriend arrived home, he realized she had not responded to his texts or calls and he was notified by her place of employment that she had not shown up to work.

No responses came from Tibbetts, so Jack decided to call her parents and law enforcement to try and figure out where she might have been. Mollie Tibbetts disappeared on July 18, and in every waking moment, her parents and the local police searched Brooklyn, Iowa for any trace of her.

The last place Tibbetts was seen was out on her usual mid-evening jog on a sidewalk close to the house where she was dog-sitting. The disappearance of Tibbetts sparked many news channels’ attention, and soon nearly every town knew her name.

The police struggled to find enough evidence to build a case, and eventually turned to using her Fitbit to try and track her whereabouts. Footage from a nearby camera covered a car circling Tibbetts as she went for her jog. Once they looked into the footage and the suspected driver in the car, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, eventually came forward to confess of the murder of Mollie Tibbetts.

After a long investigation and thorough questioning, Rivera led them to Tibbetts’ body. Rivera recalled that he followed her in his car when he saw her running, and she had noticed and threatened to call 911. Rivera was angered by her comment and his memory blocks out the events that took place in the next few minutes. When he had “woken up” from the state he was in, he noticed he was back in his car with someone’s headphones in his hand and blood on his clothing.

Police dug into Rivera’s personal life and discovered the identity he was using was not his own. Rivera is an illegal immigrant that had been living in Brooklyn, Iowa for quite some time, working as a farming assistant for a family nearby. Once the news broke, President Trump used Mollie Tibbetts’ story as a way to degrade immigrants of all kinds. The media covered Tibbetts’ story as an “illegal alien” case and no longer a remembrance of her life.

Regardless of Rivera’s citizenship in the US, Tibbets had still been killed and the media is still using this as a way to make a point about immigration. Tibbetts’ aunt, Billie Jo Calderwood, took the immigration debate to Facebook on a post dedicated the the conflict: “Please remember, evil comes in EVERY color. Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship, and support throughout this entire ordeal by friends from all different nations and races.” She continued: “From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.” The Tibbetts family refuses to let media control how people view immigrants of all kind as well as Mollie Tibbetts’ story.

In today’s day and age, the media coverage has a tremendous impact on how we view people, sexualites, races, and gender. The media overpowers our thinking ability and our view on the world, and that is something Tibbetts’ story came to show. Mollie Tibbetts’ death was a tragedy and will leave a lasting effect on everyone who knew her. Equally, her passing has brought attention and light to the hatred that stems from media of all kind in terms of how we view people and the world.

Perspective is everything.