[MF:Apes] Photos and caption (via /contact form)

>>>>> "tait" == tait graves <tait_graves-/[email protected]> writes:

  tait> Hello, I have a few questions for you about your coverage of
  tait> the demonstrator who was shot.  First, you presumably reviewed
  tait> the entire file of Reuters photographs before selecting the
  tait> two photographs that you chose to publish.  

In fact, I didn't. *When* I published that piece, very early on
Friday, those were the only two photos I had.

	Yet you selected
  tait> only two that favored your chosen position:  that the
  tait> demonstrator was "unarmed."

Yes, I realize that's the impression. I didn't know about the
extinguisher until later. However, I don't think that justifies the
killing; certainly doesn't justify in my mind shooting him *twice*, in
the *head*, at point-blank range, and then RUNNING OVER THE BODY.

  tait> Other photographs clearly show that (1) a group of
  tait> demonstrators attacked a police truck that could not move
  tait> because it had hit a dumpster 

Yes, but no photos exist of what the police jeep had done before that,
huh? I mean, surely you don't think things started *there*; lots of
reports coming in of police vehicles purposefully trying to run over
protesters. 

	(2) the demonstrators appear to
  tait> be using a board, a sheet of rolled-up metal, rocks, and at
  tait> least one fire extinguisher as weapons 

Yes. But do you know for a fact they weren't either protecting
themselves or others in doing so? I don't; but I wouldn't be at all
surprised to learn that. At the very least, we don't *know*.

	(3) the demonstrator in
  tait> question was shot while attacking the police officer with a
  tait> fire extinguisher.

Well, maybe, maybe not. Even if so, *twice* in the *head*? That's
literally overkill.

  tait> Now, it seems to me that any reasonable person might withhold
  tait> judgment about what happened, given these photos.  

Without any other evidence or experience, yeah, you're right. But I've
been to mass protests and I know how cops act, and so I have serious
doubts about taking the protesters to have been *attacking*, sans
provocation, the cops. Also, I wasn't in a particularly reasonable
frame of mind when I wrote that piece. I was *angry* and still am.

	I think
  tait> it's terrible that the young man died.  However, he was not
  tait> "unarmed."  Moreover, it's possible that the police officer
  tait> feared for his own safety -- most people would, I think, in
  tait> those circumstances.

Perhaps. But fearing for one's safety and fearing for one's *life* --
that one is in imminent danger of being killed -- aren't necessarily
the same thing, and I think it's reasonable to wonder whether the cop
reasonably feared for his life. I'm very skeptical.

  tait> I found your link on Yahoo's news coverage.

Thanks for writing.

Kendall Clark