McKinney, Texas, police officer Eric Casebolt subduing a “suspect” (from the video shot by Brandon Brooks)
I often think the clearest glimpse into a media outlet’s view of an issue comes not in the articles that directly engage it, but in the little throwaway descriptions—the shorthand used to sum up the story.
Take a look, then, at this AP wire report (6/8/15), in which an account of a brutal policing incident at a Texas pool offered this by way of background:
Incidents involving white law enforcement and black suspects have raised concerns across the US, in particular since last August when a white police officer fatally shot a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, fueling sometimes violent protests and a nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement.
No, the “incidents” raising concerns have not involved black “suspects.” Freddie Gray was not a suspect, nor Akai Gurley. Tamir Rice and John Crawford held toy guns, and Ferguson officers evidently “suspected” Michael Brown of nothing more than not walking on the sidewalk. A number of those killed have been “suspected” of being mentally ill and in need of help.
As a matter of fact, the presumption by law enforcement—and media—that any black person involved in an altercation with police must be a criminal suspect is part of the outrage driving public protest.
Telling, too, that in its description of police killings in the news over the last several months—including one officer who went free after leaping on top of the car of two unarmed black people and firing dozens of bullets into them, and another who saw all charges dropped for a putting a bullet through the head of a 7-year-old girl sleeping on her living room sofa—the only thing AP sees fit to describe as “violent” are the protests.
Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director.
Nothing to suspect about corpress complicity with the forces of “law and order”, is there?
It’s all there in black and white — figurative, and literal.
Any chance FAIR will report on the complete media silence regarding the anniversary of the USS Liberty? For some reason I have my doubts.
Independent news not funneled through corporations or government hacks!
I agree except for the part about the toy guns. It can be real to tell differences these days
Given the violence of American police officers in one outrageous incident after another, and the refusal of the courts and the media to take seriously the murders they commit on a daily basis, it should be clear to all Americans by now that they are living in a police state.
The United States is now controlled by a few individuals of inconceivable — literally inconceivable — wealth who have bought off its courts and legislature with millions of dollars that for them are mere pocket change.
These anonymous rulers are obsessed with greed and have no interest in dealing with such critical issues as global warming, gun proliferation, a living wage, and help of any kind for the needy.
Call it oligarchy, call it plutocracy, call it dictatorship, it is government by the extremely few, and it is becoming more entrenched. It sees police brutality not only as justified, but as necessary.
For decades now the mainstream media has whipped the middle class into a constant panic about violent crime, both in and out of low income neighborhoods. Of course violent crime occurs, and it should be handled by law enforcement.
However, as this story indicates, there are so many subtle (and sometimes not subtle) kinds of shorthand used when discussing crime and police abuses against minorities and low income citizens.
How often is someone shot or choked out or tazed for “resisting arrest” when there is no crime indicated for which they were being arrested? It becomes circular and almost comical if it wasn’t so terrible and tragic:
“He was shot while resisting arrest.”
“Oh, what was he doing?”
“He was resisting arrest.”
“But why was he being arrested?”
“He was suspected of being a criminal.”
“So why was he shot?”
“He was resisting arrest.”
And there are far too many people in our society who are of the opinion that this is all perfectly OK. I’ve read over and over that these victims would’ve been OK if they just shut up and did what the cops told them. And so that’s where “the land of the free and home of the brave” is these days? A cop barks an order – whether he has the authority or just cause or not – and if you don’t comply to his liking you could end up being killed. You are assumed guilty until the cops humiliate and control you for some absurd amount of time and maybe let you go. They can intimidate and threaten at every turn, but if they feel threatened in the least they are justified in using lethal force.
This will never change as long as whatever portion of white America condones this abusive, oppressive behavior because at least they’re “safe”.
If your White your Right, If you black, stand back.
This is sad, the Fascist have finally installed their own American Version of the Stasi, and single “white” police officer can shred the Constitution and override everyone rights because he is wanna be punk. To be fair their is those officers who work hard, do their job and operate fairly with everyone. But the Brutal, Egotistical, and dictatorial minded are giving a black eye, and the rest of American a headache and Heartache. What every happened to the 10 guilty men let free before 1 innocent is executed. No more, suddenly some punk rookie (regardless of how many actual years they have being a “supposed” police officer) decides he is Judge, Jury and Executioner and the Corrupt Judges and Judical System back them up.
If they are so convinced that so many people must be ‘removed from society” by death, then maybe it’s time we start with them, have a few actual public executions to boot. If it makes one cop stop for a second, and think before pulling his weapon and murdering a person (it is murder, not ‘self-defense’) then it would be a good start.
But lets be clear, this is not going to be easy to stop, and we also have to rid our selves (through elections) of the politicians who scream for Murder with their “Tough on crimes” chanting.
A large part of the problem arises out of places like Force Science Research Center (now just “Force Science” I believe), a facility operating out of U-Minnesota – Mankato originally. While posing as a psychological research center looking specifically at ways to make policing safer for both the officer and the public, what it in fact was doing was pumping out scientific-sounding reports that police-union legal teams could present to those rare juries sitting in judgement of an officer who had blatantly, obviously & , of course, PUBLICLY, killed someone without justifiable cause. FSRC, under the direction of Bill Lewinsky, has been the go-to source of legal snake-oil for cases where the cop must show how he could shoot some unarmed civilian in the back several times yet claim in their report they were certain the guy was armed and running toward him. Or how he could have feared being run over by a car speeding toward him yet all gunshots are in back window as vehicle sped AWAY? FSRC has been consulted on many high-profile OIS where the world simply assumed no defense for it was possible only to be stunned by a Not Guilty or Unproven verdict. They proudly boast of getting cops off that mayors, even police chiefs, had said was “disgraceful, cold-blooded, uncivilized” etc. claiming “but for our research, an innocent man, public servant, police officer….would have been convicted of murder!”.
To give an example of their biased “research”, recently they “found” the best way to extract the most accurate memories of what happened during an OIS from the LEO themselves is to wait for at least 24 hours before asking the LEO to recall any of it, and to certainly not place anything said by him in the record without first allowing the officer and his attorney to go back to the scene – ALONE and unrecorded- and retrace the event . Only then should a legal report be written up by IA investigators. And only then it should come out of the lawyers mouth, not his own since “the trauma of an OIS may cause the LEO to have an emotional outburst; to say or do something that /looks/ incriminating – or at least unprofessional”. I’m f-ing serious! This ostensibly scientific organisation is able to promote garbage like that without being shut down overnight for one reason only…..! None of these miraculous findings showing how the mind of someone under pressure can’t stop themselves from blasting away at someone despite now being able to see there is no gun aimed at them, that the person they’re shooting is the wrong person anyhow, and that person stopped, turned, and began fleeing from the officer thereby accounting for the two bullet holes in their back. Ah! The foibles of the human mind under extreme pressure during what they at least *thought* was a life threatening situation!
Oddly enough. None of these tricks and limitations of the mind under pressure ever seem to apply to citizens awoken at 4 AM from their sleep by a gang of hollering, cursing and threatening SWAT officers serving a no-knock warrant on an 80 year old man some meth-head bargained his way out of jail by giving an address….any address….in a black neighborhood, thereby giving the cops a legal excuse to bust down the door of a black man’s house they otherwise couldn’t have.
No, never is that civilian found innocent of mowing down the entire squad with the Glok he keeps under the bed for protection because “the human mind just can’t switch gears as quickly as we’d like it to sometimes”, …..a line PD attorneys have used in numerous successful defence arguments after consulting with Force Science. And believe me….this is just a brief look at FSRC. Go here http://www.forcesciencenews.com/home/detail.html?serial=24
I found this example of using research to defend the behavior of killer-cops on the very first page – “When attention [is focused on one thing] it necessarily extracts a cost on other modalities [things], the brain can’t simultaneously give full attention to both.” Duh, right? But to Lewinsky! Hey…. “this explains why cell phone conversations diminish a driver’s visual acuity for what’s happening on the road”. But Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, sees important law enforcement implications.(of course he does!) “This explains why officers defending themselves in a shooting may not hear things accurately–or at all,” he told Force Science News. “Their intense focus on a powerful visual stimulus–a threat to their life–causes their brain’s hearing receptors to shut down.
“We’ve known for a long time that shooting survivors (Lewinsky’s euphemistic term for “cop who killed someone”) often don’t hear their rounds going off, can’t remember hearing their partner screaming in their ear, may have perceived their gunshots as puny pops and so on–many sound distortions or omissions. Now we know why this so-called auditory blocking takes place.”
IOW, “Now we know what to tell jury members for why he kept shooting despite his partner yelling “its the wrong guys. Stop shooting!” Or “18 shots into a dead body isn’t enough? You’re going to reload….again?”