Originally published at: Maryland State Police trooper shoots and kills 16-year-old in Leonardtown | Boing Boing
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Can we stop getting back to normal, NOW!
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I had read another article about this before i saw this post in BB, another thing related to the story is that Maryland does not require their state troopers to wear body cams and the trooper was by himself. There’s no way of knowing right now if the reports of the teen randomly pointing the airsoft gun at the trooper and then pulling a knife after being shot is even real. To me it sounds pretty unbelievable and they’re looking for a story that is justifying the shooting.
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There’s also a younger generation of underschooled but overbusy journos who simply don’t know any better.
I’m not going to blame this on callow youth. If they don’t know any better, that’s a failure of their editors or producers or a pro-police dictate from management.
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But where was the Good Guy With A Gun?
I’ve been led to believe that they’re everywhere, and we need to protect our Second Amendment rights because it is vital to their work.
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But hey, they’re both white so there’s that.
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This phrasing is the worst kind of casual propaganda, meant to presumptively exonerate the state agents of violence from the harms they perpetrate against the communities they supposedly make safer, and its continued use in news media is a clear signal that the fourth estate has completely capitulated its role as a check on the organs of government.
But it’s not a passive construction.
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So the trooper shoots the kid - fair enough if there’s an apparently real gun pointed at him. However, the 16 year old has been shot, is laying on the ground and pulls a knife that doesn’t present a real hazard to the cop until he gets into hands-on range. An extendable baton would easily and safely knock the knife out of the kid’s hand. Instead the trooper puts another bullet in the 16 year old, killing him.
This is murder.
BTW State Trooper is an unnecessarily military nomenclature for what are supposed to be police.
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Looks like we’re paying our executioners’ salaries. Isn’t that nice?
Okay, I fully agree with and support your statement. This would have been an excellent point to put forth in the article.
Often relying on clickbait headlines/stories to earn a living.
Doing what most reasonable people would be doing, hiding!
Fun fact, he got his job re-instated with back pay after being fired!
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Does that mean the cop will get charged with “witness tampering?”
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It’s safe to assume that the cop is lying. They always do.
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Stormtrooper would be a more descriptive term to use, except this one can apparently actually hit a target.
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A few months ago I was walking my dog around 5:45 in the morning. We were on a major street where the homeless set up at night so it was not uncommon to see a few of them around. One guy, though, seemed to have a long gun. He wasn’t pointing it at anyone, and took no notice of me, but had set up a piece of cardboard along the railing of a closed restaurant. He took a prone position, and shot the cardboard. I don’t know if it was a paintball or airsoft gun or what, but I knew it wasn’t the real thing.
It bugged me that this guy was doing this on a public, although still quiet, street, and I thought about calling the cops. In my mind, though, I could see them rolling up on some sketchy-looking dude, prone with a long gun, and thought it not improbable that he would end up being shot by a real gun. Dog and I walked on.
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See, though, those headlines are the exact opposite of clickbait. They’re evasive and hard to parse yet tie themselves off into neat knots of nothingness. Their function is to kill the story, to make no-one want to click. Which is why it’s all the more freakish that We The Media go along with it.
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Trouble is that News Media is a one way stream. We the People “go along with it” because there is no real discourse to stop it or redirect the stream back to the source for clarification.
Obey. Consume.
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Yes, so if there is no immediate/obvious sensation, they get reported along the easiest route. Which is how the police (or whoever) press release ends up being reported.
