The woman, Talisa Coombs, told Delaney she’d just gotten into what she alleged was a physical altercation with her granddaughter’s mother, Maria Pike, and called 911. Independence police’s response to that 911 call ended with the shooting death of Pike, 34, and her two month old daughter, Destinii Hope — who were identified Tuesday by authorities from the Police Involved Investigative Team, or PIIT, a team of eastern Jackson County detectives called in to investigate police shootings and use-of-force incidents.
The officer who fired his weapon was “a long-tenured veteran of law enforcement,” Dustman said. That officer and another two who were at the scene are on administrative leave.
The passive voice writing in this article is as usual playing defense for the police.
I’m not implying this specific author or newspaper are writing in this style out of malice. I think this is part of a problem with the culture in journalism, because most articles on police violence are written this way.
That’s an interesting observation. But, I can also feel that the point of journalism is to deliver facts about what has transpired, not to place blame, unless it is unequivocally true along with proof. It is however important to expose weaknesses in society, so that people don’t get away with murder, literally or figuratively.
Still, that’s something very interesting that you brought up. It could be just a style common in journalism, or more deliberate so as not to take responsibility for calling anyone out.
The thing is sometimes articles do use aggressive language, if you pay attention you can frequently determine the political affiliations of a news source by the word choice they use when describing the actions of various groups.