If I were Kathryn Knott's lawyer, I'd be getting ready to argue that a Twitter feed absolutely is not a window into the soul.
Knott, 24, of Southampton, Pa., is one of three suspects charged in connection with the brutal beating Sept. 11 of a young gay male couple in Center City. The 2013 LaSalle University nursing graduate reportedly has been suspended from her suburban hospital job due at least in part to the appalling Tweets she posted about, you know, those icky sick people.
Like the ER patient whose severed fingers were on display in a photo she Tweeted.
To borrow one of Knott's hashtags, ew. That's one she used in reference to LGBT people -- whose very existence also appears to deeply…concern her. As does the existence of other people who are foreign to her world, such as Asians, poor folks, and those she perceives to be immigrants.
What seems most Tweet-inspiring to this 24-year-old suburban police chief's daughter is alcohol. It's a substance with which she appears enamored, if not, enthralled. And unlike her seeming fixation on injured or LGBT folks, it's something she has in common with with countless other humans.
But as a gay man who's also a recovering alcoholic, I know what it's like to be seen through a narrow, one-dimensional lens. I know how it feels to be reduced to a label, to have a single fact transformed into the definition, the sum, of me.
So while I'm repulsed by the callowness and cruelty of Knott's Tweets -- and certainly would urge her to find another line of work -- I'm wary of using them to draw the sort of conclusions a jury may be asked to make.
The two victims of the attack, both of whom ended up in the hospital, surely are more deserving of empathy than anyone else involved in that ugly incident at 16th and Chancellor. If Knott is convicted, she ought to be punished to the fullest extent.
But is that repulsive Twitter feed a window into her soul? For her sake, I hope not.
--KEVIN RIORDAN