It's absolutely pernicious. The Left's hate of people having any Liberty and freedom from "Daddy Government" colors their every perception. Case in point. A home invader was shot during the course of his crime. How does WPXI out of Pittsburgh report it? "Police said people inside of a Garfield home may have acted in self-defense when they shot an intruder Wednesday night."
May have. Now, reading the rest of the report, I'm pretty certain the police did say, "They may have acted in self defense." Note the lack of a quotation in the piece. It seems pretty clear that the bad guy was armed (broke in by shooting the door), and dangerous (during said shooting, hit one person inside the house in the face). I can't imagine there's a jury outside of New York City, or maybe England, who would convict the people inside the house of anything.
So, if it's unlikely that the police said "may have," then why did the station report it that way? Well, because the assumption (to Leftists) is that any use of a gun is criminal, and the burden lies on the shooter to prove that it wasn't. Shooting is quickly becoming the new "harassment" in that mere accusation will soon be enough for a conviction.
It's also to make you, the reader, think that when someone breaks into your home, using a gun to get through the lock, your first reaction shouldn't be to defend yourself, but to hide and hope help arrives. Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!
Sadly at least some of this is due to the remarkable stupidity of various libel/slander/defamation/whathaveyou laws.
ReplyDeleteI know for a fact that for some odd reason it's considered a good idea (from a liability) standpoint to stick "alleged" in front of any body who hasn't either a) plead out or b) been convicted.
I've seen cases of people caught red handed (of various crimes not germane to this discussion)and yet the legal beagles I work with insist it's an "alleged" crime until the courts say otherwise for the purposes of liability. Seriously...yeah....
Maybe it's different in Pennsylvania, but where I'm from, police would say something like, "We're investigating, but right now it looks like self defense."
DeleteWhich has a whole different tone that "it may have been self defense."