Need factual, unbiased crime reporting - STLtoday.com

Reading the Post-Dispatch daily, reporting trends clarify a perceptible prejudice that negates equality and fairness. One can’t escape frequent evidence of two illustrations, one relating to race and another to who is armed or unarmed.

As to race, if an officer is white and the suspect is black and wounded or killed in an altercation, the officer’s and the wounded or killed suspect’s race is always reported. If the officer is black and the suspect or victim is white or of another race, it is generally not reported.

On July 18, two Associated Press articles appeared. A white Texan policeman was indicted in killing a black teenager; a Minneapolis policeman killed an Australian woman. The latter was a black policeman and a white woman. When a white or Asian victim is shot or killed by a black suspect, race is rarely reported as an issue; it is always an issue if a white suspect and a black victim are involved.

The second relates to police altercations. If the suspect is black and unarmed, despite mitigating circumstances, being shot by a police officer while unarmed is always emphasized. Thousands of unarmed victims are shot and killed nationally. The fact that most victims were unarmed too ought to be noteworthy. This is not to justify shooting an unarmed person.

Fair reporting will equally report in every case the race of both, regardless of being the victim or the police officer. It’s also time to emphasize murdered victims were unarmed.

Justice demands unbiased, factual reporting.

Helen Louise Herndon • Kirkwood

Let's block ads! (Why?)