Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Opuscula

Media bias?
Half truths?
Recipe for riots

A CBS This Morning talking head on September 21, 2016, told the world that the riots in Charlotte NC were prompted by a black man being shot by police.

A “reporter” did state later that a protest started peacefully, but then disintegrated into a riot, with the rioters storming a Wal-Mart and stealing goods from the store.

NOT ONCE – NOT ONE TIME - did anyone on CBS This Morning mention that the cop that shot the black man ALSO WAS BLACK. The “on-the-scene” report showed photos of both the victim and the cop, but – again – the words “black” or “African-American” NEVER were used in connection with the officer.

Following the, at best, “incomplete” reporting from Charlotte NC, CBS This Morning reported, briefly, on the shooting of a black man by a white Tulsa OK policewoman.

Added to the report were Obama’s comments and Hillary’s condemnation of the shooting in Tulsa OK; never mind that neither mentioned WHY the men was shot. Obama is famous for knee jerk reactions; consider his hasty attack on the Cambridge MA police and his later hosting the “beer summit” to extract himself from the embarrassment.

According to news reports from Tulsa, the man walked to his vehicle with his hands in the air. Video shows this. Then, although told by police NOT to reach inside his vehicle, he allegedly tried to do just that and was shot.

The cops were, justifiably, worried that he had a gun in the vehicle, which is why he was told don’t reach into the vehicle.

The cops did NOT find a gun in the man’s vehicle, although they claim to have found Phescyclidine (PCP), a/k/a angel dust, in the vehicle.

Lawyers for slain Tulsa man contend that the "Drug discussion (is just) a distraction".

Truth in blogging. My first born is a cop. He tells me horror stories of careless cops who now are dead because they allowed a person to grab a hidden weapon. If a cop says to do, or don’t do, something, follow the cop’s orders and live.

I was a newspaper reporter and editor for many years in many places across the Several States. I do not recall so many police shootings, although there were shootings. I also do not recall so many times that people took to the streets using a death, or politics, as an excuse for rioting and looting. These things happened, but not in the numbers seen in the last decade. By the same token, I lived in the Middle East in much quieter times.

Reporting on trials taught me to get all the facts before deciding guilt or innocence. Knee jerk reactions before all the facts are in fails to serve anyone other than, perhaps, the jerk with the knee. People in positions of power, and people who WANT to be in positions of power, should control their tongues until they know all the facts. (The ONLY exception is in the event the nation is under attack and POTUS must make a decision with only the facts at hand.)


ABC News reported that Both the officer involved in the deadly shooting and the victim are African-American, a police source told WSOC-TV, but otherwise nothing was reported about race.

Fox News headlined At least 12 Charlotte cops injured in protests following officer-involved death of black man and reported in the first paragraph that the fatal shooting of a black man by police who said he was armed and posed a threat. Fox managed to note, in the second paragraph, the man was fatally shot by a black officer.

CNN, under the race-neutral headline, Charlotte police shooting: Protests erupt after officer kills man noted in the leed paragraph that a police officer fatally shot a black man; later, in the fourth paragraph that The officer who killed Scott, Brentley Vinson, also is black.


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