Patterico's Pontifications

2/3/2005

More L.A. Times Cop-Bashing

Filed under: Dog Trainer — Patterico @ 6:28 am



The Los Angeles Times reports:

A man attacked a sheriff’s deputy at a Montebello burger restaurant Monday with a machete, nearly severing his finger, before another deputy shot and wounded him, authorities said.

Sounds like a righteous shooting to me. But the story is quick to portray it as one in a recent string of shootings:

Reuben Sifuentes, 30, was the ninth person in nine days to be shot by police in Los Angeles County, five of them fatally

His shooting came a day after a 25-year-old Carson man who had threatened a girlfriend with a knife was shot and killed by a deputy.

Sounds like yet another righteous shooting. It sounds even more righteous when you find out — at the end of the article — that the guy didn’t just threaten his girlfriend with the knife. He also tried to stab a deputy sheriff with it:

About 1:30 p.m. Sunday, sheriff deputies were called to 24000 Fries Ave. in Carson, where a woman allegedly had been stabbed by her boyfriend. Deputy Luis Castro said that as the suspect fled on foot, deputies blocked off the surrounding neighborhood. The man then tried to stab a deputy, Castro said. As the man advanced, the deputy shot him in the upper body, Castro said

Couldn’t you have told us that fact at the beginning of the article?

(Incidentally, why does the article have two sentences that end without periods? Aren’t there any editors reading this stuff?)

This is the part that gets me:

The string of officer-involved shootings has occurred against a backdrop of steadily increasing use of guns by sheriff’s deputies.

More significantly, it sounds to me like these shootings have occurred against a backdrop of steadily increasing attacks on sheriff’s deputies. There is a phrase for this: “Suicide by cop” — and it sounds to me like more and more people are taking this road off our planet. After all, the only two shootings specifically mentioned in this article are ones where someone attacked sheriff’s deputies.

But, of course, The Times has to suggest that this is really about the police and their propensity to shoot — with no evidence to back it up.

4 Responses to “More L.A. Times Cop-Bashing”

  1. “The string of officer-involved shootings has occurred against a backdrop of steadily increasing use of guns by sheriff’s deputies.”

    It sounds like the “string” is the “backdrop” which negates the intended implication that something is occurring on top of or in addition to something else. There is also an unsubstantiated suggestion that the rate of deputies using guns is increasing – accellerating as though out of control, and that this is some unilaterally caused occurrence.

    What does this indicate to criminals? That police will take no prisoners, so that the criminal might as well shoot it out rather than submit to arrest? What is wrong with reporting logically and responsibly? What is wrong is that the reporters apparently even don’t know what this is.

    J. Peden (ffccb8)

  2. Which of their idiot reporters (sic) wrote this one?

    jim sweeney (9a8729)

  3. Tell you the truth, I’m rather dismayed the machete wielder was only wounded. This is not the kind of vermin we’ll ever want to see free to roam the streets again.

    clark (a68a2b)

  4. Clark – HERE HERE!

    Rod Stanton (833c82)


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