zlacker

It makes me so upset how distorted all media coverage has been of all sides of this overall topic, from the start. Even if, with the new information you provided, the basic conclusion is the same - "police overreach, especially when it comes to black people" - the details remain extremely important not just for the integrity of that conclusion, but even more so when it comes to forming opinions about where to assign blame and how to solve the problem at a systemic level. I'm mildly infuriated that this is the first I'm hearing these crucial details.

>>_bxg1+(OP)
Are they? If a group of people feel preyed upon and these, plain clothes officers with weapons, no-knock entered, they got what they deserved period.

The onus is on the enforcement to manage damage, not a citizen who doesn't even know its coming. The intelletualizing of this is ridiculous, its a common sense issue.

>>Cereal+H
You clearly skimmed my comment without actually reading it. The police were obviously in the wrong. But the exact way in which they were in the wrong remains extremely relevant to all of the discussions going on right now, yet the media appears to have largely cut it out of the story because that makes for a snappier piece. If we want to solve these issues as a society, we need to be working off of good information.

>>_bxg1+(OP)
It’s distorted due to the same 2 or 3 families owning all of the news sources you’re reading, and using those to push political agendas. Even the parent post points out the distortion field working overtime on this article.

We rail against twitter or Facebook when they push politics and don’t act like a nonpartisan medium of transmission, but we’ve allowed our news to become exactly that.

>>_bxg1+(OP)
Focusing on the fact that the guy shot first is way more misleading, as it detracts from the important issue of no-knock, plain-clothes warrants.

A group of people breaks into someone's house at midnight with weapons and it's not a story that someone defended themselves, at all. Bringing it up is a distraction - and this entire HN thread is a perfect example of that.

If the guy hadn't shot, or had shot second, or if Taylor hadn't been killed at all, it wouldn't make what they did justifiable. The fact that their absolute negligence led to a situation where a woman died is just what makes this that much more important to focus on.

It is not moved to another section "for a snappier piece" as you put it in another comment. It is simply not important information, it is not relevant, it does not change the judgment, it does not change that the police are responsible for her death.

>>_bxg1+P1
Appreciate the response, but didn't skim it. The "details" are inconsequential here. Im not bailing out the media, because their job has morphed into an attention megaphone in order to survive. The reason details dont matter is that the core problem is police acting with impunity. The problem becomes even worse when you look it relative to the victims accountability in all these cases.

Theres that video from two days ago of that (white) union chief screaming and spitting about "how deserve more respect and we are tearing them down" and it was accompanied by an array of tweets that said "He gets treated like a black guy for 2 weeks and he has a mental breakdown." I think this story even in it's detail loose state is an appropriate weapon to even the fight.