A Dark And Quiet Room

Hooray! Peoria made the national news!

Illinois Police Pepper Spray Crowd Mourning 4-Month-Old Baby

Honestly, this looks like a mild rewrite of an article from our very own Peoria Journal-Star.

Baby found dead in Peoria home; police fire pepper balls on crowd

Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it?

Now, one of my co-workers is a member of the Tazewell County Auxiliary Police, and when this story was passed around the office, he was a bit put out. He pointed out that it is the job of the coroner to take the body of the deceased. It’s also the job of the police to secure a crime scene. For the record, an area where an infant died suddenly counts as a crime scene. Finally, he noted that it is normal procedure to give multiple warnings before using pepper spray.

Here’s an excerpt from the Journal-Star story:

“A bunch of family and friends came and were refusing to let the officers out with the baby,” said Lt. Marshall Dunnigan. “We had to use great force to get the coroner out with the baby.”

So, hang on a sec. There was a crowd of people attempting to interfere with the police doing their proper duty, and so the police eventually responded to protect the coroner and enforce the law? Why is this a problem?

But even the Journal-Star story sounds like the police overreacted, not to mention the Associated Press story that Fox News ran.

Another co-worker put his finger on this issue:

The problem lies in the use of the word “mourners.” That automatically puts the police in a bad light, implying they used force on people who were in emotional distress. It was a crowd gathered at the house that threatened to turn into a mob by interfering with police. Mourners are usually found at funerals, visitations, grave sites, etc., not congregating at a possible crime scene. It shows us how one eight-letter word can skew the perception of an event.

(Emphasis mine.)

And that’s it right there. Let me reword the lead sentence of that news article by making a slight adjustment:

Police officers fired pepper balls into a group of mourners mob gathering at the house of a 4-month-old girl who died in her South Peoria home Wednesday.

Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Or, as an alternate example, check out how I tweak this headline:

Officers use pepper balls to break up mob of about 100 people fire pepper balls at group of children

Use of force by the police always draws a lot of scrutiny, and that is certainly a good thing. I’m fairly confident that the entire situation will be reviewed and investigated as necessary internally; moreover, it’s good for the police to be accountable to the public at large. At the same time, we all need to be careful of the opinions that we form as a result of our interactions with the media. Just a single word or phrase can change all our opinions and reactions.

Learn to read between the lines.