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[Cops Gone Wild]: Don't Call a Cop a Bitch Or She'll Shoot You In the Chest Edition
saint2e
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuGCZZoy2mIBystanders take video of female police officer shooting an unarmed homeless man in the chest after he apparently called her a bitch. According to the video she did have a taser on her as well.
To be fair, he is under suspicion for being involved in some local robberies, but I doubt whatever he was doing did not warrant that.
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At least, I like to think so.
that's a murder
But if the headline is true? The story is just 'Cop murders homeless guy'.
(that's the normal excuse these days, right?)
Yeah you can't see much from the video, but the eyewitness account speaks volumes.
Assuming it's unedited, which is something I sadly have to say given the recent Zimmerman fiasco, to quote Ron Burgandy, "That escalated quickly"
Welcome to media, yeah.
Anytime someone is murdered it is important to know all miscellaneous facts about their life that the standard person thinks are bad.
Neither can I.
I do have to say, obviously it's totally wrong if it went down as described by the witnesses, but you probably shouldn't ask a cop who has a gun out, "What you gonna do, bitch?" Like, this is not a course of action I would recommend for those interested in self-preservation.
Victim-blaming!
(I keed, I keed)
Well, there are times when it's relevant and would be poor journalism not to report.
The police are understandably going to be more on an edge dealing with a known violent criminal or someone on parole than they would be with a random person off the street.
This report doesn't give any reason to believe this is one of those times. I'm sure we'll find out he 'went for her gun' or something like that.
There certainly are, but most of the time it comes up it's irrelevant. Past offenses, previous drug addictions, etc. always seem to come up whether it matters or not.
It's just something worth being vigilant about.
"...then I shouted 'He's comin' right at us!' and fired my gun..."
Well, I don't know. Plenty of people - especially people living the life of hard knocks - couldn't give two fucks. Depending on the tone and context, the remark could well be just a flippant gesture from someone that's more or less lost any faith in society or authority.
From the video, it looks like the officer runs at the guy, there's some kind of altercation, and then the gun goes off. What happened during the altercation is basically impossible to see from that phone camera footage, but it look like more than dude just mouthing off the officer.
A known history of violence is going to be part of an officers risk assessment, making it relevant to their actions and the story as a whole.
What you're saying is true in the whole, but this doesn't seem the case to make it on.
Sure, it's going to be part of the officer's risk assessment. As a viewer of the news channel, is it somehow part of my risk assessment? Of course not. The anchor is just saying it to let me know that he was a bad guy to impart some bias.
Before we know anything about the situation, the first facts we're told by Mr. News Channel is that the victim was a homeless criminal. That's not 'informing' me - that's giving me a photograph that's had fangs and pointed ears drawn on.
Seems pretty pertinent.
Do we know the officer's history? Was she decorated? Had many complaints? Is totally unremarkable?
I'd be especially interested if the corresponding discussion would be similar.
Why are these details brought up, and not a hypothetical nazi-shrine in the cop's basement and history of throwing bottles at kindergartners, or whatever bad details they might dig up?
Because it's trying to build one-sided bias against the murdered person in order to make it easier to let the cop off the hook in the media without significant backlash.
Yes, well done, those could be relevant.
I imagine that's something the papers didn't have the time or ability to find out, but I would be very surprised if for example they had found out she was decorated and didn't start with 'decorated female officer...'
We know she is a 13 year veteran. Also the first mention was "an unarmed homeless man" which was quickly followed by "Who officials identify as a convicted burglar wanted in a recent robbery." so I don't exactly understand what you guys are going on about. It seems pretty connected to the events.
Well, we release the name of the dead guy because we don't "disappear" people.
However, Im kinda OK with sparing this woman the wrath of the internet on the basis of a cell phone video in which no one can see shit.
It's connected to the events. The problem is, that the proper order of presenting stuff is first describing the event in detail(however much is available) and other relevant reasonably objective information. Detail on the participants follows after.
Presenting detail on one of the participants(especially since it seems to be mostly negative detail) prior to describing the event in detail, unnecessarily constructs bias against that party before we even know what the chain of events was.
Don't worry, there'll be an investigation, paid leave, and we'll never hear of this story again. The internet won't do shit.
True enough.
Although that consideration is very selectively applied. I'd be okay if the names of arrested people weren't released unless formal charges are brought, or, even better, a conviction.
Also, the way the information is framed:
"Officials identify as a convicted burglar wanted in a recent robbery," rather than, say, "Whom the officer wanted to detain for questioning regarding a recent robbery,"
Same pertinent information, less ridiculous bias against the victim.
EDIT: Also note that when you frame it without going out of your way to smear the victim, you also give more respect to the situation the officer may have been in. It makes more sense when you tell the viewer that she was going to question him that his reaction might have been hostile, and why she may have reacted the way she did when he said, "What you gonna do, bitch?" during whatever altercation happened.
The way this is framed, before we even see the video the case is already built that this is a bad guy and a criminal who is probably at fault for whatever follows.
That's equally terrible for the same reason.