A Dallas motel manager killed in a gruesome murder last week was remembered for his kindness by those who knew him.
Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, a 37-year-old man, is accused of beheading Chandra Nagamallaiah, 50, in front of his family and children.
Nagamallaiah and Cobos-Martinez, a motel employee, reportedly got into an argument over a broken washing machine.
What happened to Chandra Nagamallaiah?
The suspect allegedly retrieved a machete and attacked the motel manager, whose wife and teenage son ran out to help. Cobos-Martinez was arrested minutes after the attack and has been charged with capital murder.
The case was initially overshadowed by the assassination last week of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But the graphic CCTV footage of Nagamallaiah‘s killing and his story went viral on social media.
When the news reached the White House, it prompted discussion surrounding immigration.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump vowed to be hard on undocumented immigration and claimed the Cuban migrant, who is living in the U.S. illegally, had a lengthy criminal record.
“This criminal, who we have in custody, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law,” Trump said.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed Nagamallaiah‘s death was “preventable” if the Biden administration hadn’t released Cobos-Martinez into the U.S. after the Cuban government declined to allow him back into his home country.
Social media, a gift and a curse
Nagamallaiah was described by those who knew him as gentle and hardworking.
He moved to Texas in 2018 and eventually entered the motel business. His 18-year-old son Gaurav plans to study hospitality to carry on his father’s legacy.
Despite the case not garnering public attention at first, videos of Nagamallaiah’s killing provoked an emotionally charged reaction from many people, including the U.S. president, and helped the community band together to support his wife, Nisha, and son.
But his killing is another example of the gruesome and uncensored nature of content that circulates on social media.
The same can be said for the footage of Kirk getting shot, which dominated feeds on almost all of the relevant social media platforms, including X, Instagram, Facebook and even Truth Social, as well as the video of the brutal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina.
These platforms promise “unfiltered access, but without guarantees of truth and without protection from harm,” Ren LaForme wrote in an opinion piece for The Poynter last week.
In the story, he laments the internet’s “speed and reach” that barely allows a social media user enough time to look away.
News organizations oftentimes blur explicit videos or issue a warning to users. The volatile events as of late leave users at the whims of their algorithms that are designed to keep them scrolling, all the while provoking increased anxiety, fear and desensitization.