“Having been stabbed with a knife and spent a month in the hospital during my service time I can tell you knives can and do kill people all the time.”
With all of the talk and media coverage of the recent shooting in Virginia on how a lunatic lefty targeted Republican Congress members, this may have gone unnoticed but for the fact that I try to read any press, positive or negative, about the profession I have worked in all of my life.
I recently caught a headline on my Twitter feed (@downrangewithcw) that jumped out at me. “Pregnant Mother Shot Dead by Cops Whom She Called for Help.” If I was an average citizen who saw that and took it as truthful news, I would be outraged. How dare the cops gun down a pregnant female who called them for help without any justification? My anger and outrage would be justified, if that was the “whole story.”
But since I like to read, I read the whole story. I was very surprised when I read the events that led up to the shooting. The story describes a completely different chain of events than the headline states. For example, take this excerpt from the article itself: “the woman began talking about the burglary calmly but then allegedly suddenly came at officers with a knife yelling ‘you ready? Motherf—s!’” This is backed up by an audio recording of the incident. It continues on to say, “’Get back! Get back!’ the officers responded before opening fire on Lyles, while at least one child can be heard crying in the background.”
The article then goes on to bring unrelated past issues into the forefront, trying to stoke the anti-police fires and build resentment. The so-called reporter felt it was important to jump to the conclusion that this incident, which has not even been fully investigated yet, was caused by police negligence, stating that, “The Seattle Police Department had a long history of using excessive force against people with mental illness and substance abuse problems.”
This is why we have a problem in the US right now. The media, in an effort to get clicks and boost views, creates sensational untruthful or misleading headlines. Then they add fuel to the fire by bringing up completely unrelated issues before the investigation is even conducted. And of course it’s a racial issue because the officers were white and the knife wielding attacker was a black female.
This is why people no longer trust the media. They realize that the media tries to steer the story the way they want it to go instead of reporting facts. It doesn’t matter that the officers were attacked by a knife wielding person. The fact that a knife can be used as a deadly weapon is overlooked.
Having been stabbed with a knife and spent a month in the hospital during my service time I can tell you knives can and do kill people all the time, and if it does not kill you, it can leave lasting mental and physical scars.
To NBC News I say shame on you! By allowing a reporter to mislead the public, you are helping to divide this country even more. You should “police” your reporter’s stories better to make sure they are factual and not so biased. And you wonder why you are losing readers and numbers by the hundreds of thousands? This is why!
