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OllieFromCairo t1_ja7hxjk wrote

I really wish news organizations would stop with that baloney phrasing.

"Police kill woman in Pittsburgh's St. Clair neighborhood," is what actually happened.

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ShuinoZiryu t1_ja7k0wl wrote

So did this lady actually fire at the police? No one mentions hearing anything outside the 5 shots the police took...

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isthatwhathappened t1_ja7l3xu wrote

What an absolutely terrible headline…”Women killed after shooting at police” would be much more accurate.

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lWishItWastheWeekend t1_ja7n0eb wrote

To be fair, I was reading about this story on social media and it appears that she did shoot at people. None of her family members or friends (including one who was with her) are blaming the police for her death. Unfortunately it looks like she had a lot of mental health issues throughout her life. One would like to see the police be able to incapacitate someone in this situation without killing them, especially someone who is having a breakdown, but I guess they aren’t trained to do that.

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jnissa t1_ja7ofna wrote

I think there are a lot of situations (most) in which we could/should expect cops to incapacitate somebody, but taking active fire isn't one of them. They're trained to *not* shoot to incapacitate for their own safety.

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OllieFromCairo t1_ja7soqn wrote

The article says “She was shot and killed by police,” and gives context for why—she was shooting at the police, the police claim.

The ARTICLE is actually pretty good. The headline is not.

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ollieoxblood t1_ja8d796 wrote

"Officer involved shooting" is the stupidest phrase, and I pray for its retirement from common use.

A police officer shot and killed a woman. Stop using passive voice. You can absolutely include the relevant information that the woman shot at police in the headline without making it seem as though the woman ran into the cop's bullet.

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JAK3CAL t1_ja8mb5s wrote

Seriously? This woman came out shooting, allegedly. An errant bullet could kill a child, or a pregnant mother, or anyone else honestly.

It’s unfortunate, but ending this situation seems imperative to the greater public’s safety and doing it by lethal force is justifiable to me.

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Excelius t1_jaa69pd wrote

Tranq darts don't work like they do in the movies. The target doesn't drop instantly. Even nature documentaries tend to make them seem quicker than they actually are due to editing for time.

Here's a Youtube video involving tranquilizing an African Wild Dog in real time:

https://youtu.be/k4D2pDk4Yvw?t=35

The shot is taken at the 35s mark. The wild dog runs away and even ends up coming back to continue eating it's prey. By about the four minute mark it's starts stumbling around drunkenly, and then only goes down after about five minutes.

How much damage could a human with a gun cause in that amount of time? Plus unlike animals, humans have hands and are likely to rip out a dart before it's had a chance to inject it's full payload.

Ultimately they're just darts of medical sedatives. A bigger dose could theoretically produce a faster effect, but an overdose can easily kill someone. Unlike in surgery you're not going to be able to have an anesthesiologist to carefully administer the proper dose in real-time and monitor the subjects vitals.

It's already a controversial practice for police to have agitated and uncooperative individuals sedated with ketamine by responding EMTs, and even that can lead to severe complications and death despite the administration being done by medical professionals. Giving police pre-loaded darts to shoot at people without medical supervision would be disastrous.

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barsmart t1_jaaf472 wrote

Remember folks, most everything you read nowdays is brought to you via advertising money. Including this reply.

What is the main objective of advertising? To change minds.

That said, the headline should read:

"Pittsburgh Area Woman Killed By Police After Allegedly Shooting At Them"

God damn it that is boring, factual and unlikely to cause clicks, shares and 500 comments that sell more ads after every reload.

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burritoace t1_jac4zo2 wrote

I get this attitude, but I don't really think an article with that headline would see meaningfully less traffic. Local news is just overly deferential to the police and thus largely incapable of handling this issue fairly.

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Excelius t1_jacy84d wrote

Unfortunately you see a lot of misinformed stuff when it comes to self-defense and use of force, so it's hard to tell sometimes. I've seen tons of people make the "tranq dart" suggestion completely seriously.

At any rate, hope someone found the info helpful.

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barsmart t1_jad1b4e wrote

Every single news headline written in the past 5 years has been done so with the goal of maximum penetration into social media. The media corps pay a lot of money to 'experts' on SEO, social media placement and trending.

If you put my headline next to the one that was used - I have no doubt that mine would get picked last most of the time.

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burritoace t1_jad9sqm wrote

I understand what you're getting at, I just think this particular issue has another layer of complexity. "Pittsburgh Area Woman Killed by Police" is actually a more inflammatory headline in some ways, so there is something else going on here. Given that the police seem to be one of the only institutions that get this kind of kid-glove treatment by local media it is safe to assume there is a reason.

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burritoace t1_jadhogb wrote

Very strange. This is a case where the police are getting soft treatment by the media which they extend to nobody else. Plenty of other institutions don't enjoy this kind of treatment.

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barsmart t1_jado03t wrote

Premise is faulty.

Local media is very soft when dealing with all EMS and Fire services, to the point of not even reporting on things like Brentwood losing their EMS.

Local media is also very soft on new car dealers because of how much they pay for ads on the local market.

Local media is soft on local media... Bill Hillgrove slams his car into a grocery store at 2x the DUI limit, walks in to pick up a prescription and you have to dig for the article because the local media is busy talking about how he still calls games at 82. Don Cannon freaks out on air and no other stations covered it. (Little factoid, that nights show is the only one missing from the WTAE archive.)

Nobody else? Disagree.

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