Probably a good thing TASER changed their name to Axon.
Also forgot "vandal suspect"
My argument: he was a teacher, recent grad, and a vandal [the victim/suspect was painted one way, biasing the reader]. Refuted argument: His being a vandal was irrelevant, because death as a punishment does not fit the crime of vandalism.
You're saying its relevant; they're saying its irrelevant. We aren't computers we don't need to declare every variable.
Well no that's not at all what I was saying. I took issue with the author attempting to make Israel more sympathetic, instead of treating him objectively. Rather than paint a right vs wrong, police accountability should be based on facts and the merits of the circumstances according the policies and processes of the police department.
But, since you raised that point, the fact that he was a vandal, and he was fleeing police, was actually material in making the use of non-deadly force (a TASER is not considered deadly force), lawful.
Your use of 'lawful' is a weasel word.
You are trying to have it both ways.
Trying to slur the dead young man as a 'vandal' and a criminal (I don't think graffiti is a felony in most jurisdictions) but then insisting that the news article should have been objective.
You yourself are not being objective. You used an emotionally loaded term, but then in your subsequent arguments are insisting on defending it by logic alone, when you know your comment was meant to have an emotional impact.
It was Lawful because the officer was justified in using non-lethal force to apprehend a suspect who was evading arrest. The intent of using a taser is to incapacitate with non-lethal force.
For Israel, the combination of shock exacerbated a health condition that caused him to go into cardiac arrest.
Calling him a vandal balances out the emotional impact of referring to him only as a "recent highschool grad, and aspiring teacher."
The article describes the offence he was being chased for (according to the police).
Do you have a problem with that?
The author was clearly trying to subjectively paint him, glossing over the fact that he was caught (allegedly) committing a crime.
Did he deserve to die, of course not. That's not the point.
The point, reporting on policing should be objective. Biasing your readership towards one point of view over another is only going it that much harder to get accountability.
Okay, but I'm talking about police accountability.
'Vandal Suspect' added in there somewhere does absolutely nothing to help me relate to the decision to shoot a TASER at a non-violent vandal.
Why bias the reader one way?