The prosecutor who obtained the conviction of Jeffrey Dahmer — the notorious serial killer whose chilling crimes are the focus of Netflix’s controversial new series “Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” — is reportedly pushing back at how the real-life drama is portraying Milwaukee police.
Former Milwaukee District Attorney Michael McCann said that the idea that MPD officers turned a blind eye to Dahmer’s victims because they were gay or Black is simply not true.
McCann, who obtained the conviction of the infamous serial killer and rapist in 1991, told TMZ he knows that “Dahmer” is characterizing investigators in the case as people whose judgments were clouded by racist and anti-gay biases — even though he hasn’t watched the show yet.
The show “exposes these unconscionable crimes, centered around the underserved victims and their communities impacted by the systemic racism and institutional failures of the police that allowed one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade,” Netflix said in an official synopsis.
McCann, who’s now in his mid-80s, insisted that if police knew that they had a serial killer in their midst, they would have acted swiftly, regardless of the victims’ backgrounds.
The former DA also noted that Dahmer covered his tracks well, and didn’t leave a lot of obvious evidence lying around, according to TMZ.
The latest Ryan Murphy-created miniseries tells the story of the late serial killer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, who killed 17 men and boys, some as young as 14, between 1978 and 1991.
Many of the murders involved cannibalism, necrophilia, as well as the preservation of human body parts. Most of the victims were people of color.
The 10-part series, starring Evan Peters as Dahmer, is mostly told from the point of view of the victims. Despite currently having a score of just 50% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the show quickly rose to the top of Variety’s Trending TV chart following its debut on Friday with more than 918,000 engagements on Twitter.
Shortly after its premiere, relatives of some victims took to social media to express anger at Netflix for having them relive such painful moments.
Some critics have also slammed Netflix for the glorification of the Milwaukee murderer, calling out the streamer for its “sick” retelling of events.
Earlier this week, some social media users noted that the streaming giant removed an LGBTQ tag from the description of the show, apparently listening to widespread criticism on social media.
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