Orwellian

[poliphilo]

Some politician was saying we've got the terminology wrong.

We shouldn't say "shoot to kill"; we should say "shoot to protect".

Of course, that makes all the difference.

Now lets think of a nice way of saying "innocent man with five bullets in his head."

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I take your point about Orwellian.

I haven't been following the eyewitness reports on this very closely, except to note the sound-bite about the deceased looking "like a cornered fox."

But does it appear to be true that he didn't respond to several orders to stop? If so, I wonder what the back-story is -- maybe he didn't speak English. Maybe he had bad experiences being unfairly roughed up in Brazil. Maybe he had done something else illegal and didn't want to get caught.

Assuming he refused repeated orders to stop, I would have to say the fatal lesson for the rest of us to learn here is that it's unhealthy to act like a fugitive when the police are armed and nervous.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They're saying he was here on a student visa and it had run out and that was why he ran from the police.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Yes. I bbc'd the issue right after commenting and saw that. The family is denying it.

It's a scary place for the police to be. "You have a nanosecond. Is this a terrified illegal alien or a suicide bomber? Guess wrong and you're screwed."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're learning, I think, to mistrust the media.

It's one of the drawbacks of the kind of rolling news coverage we now enjoy. Facts get reported without being checked and much of what we're told
turns out to be untrue.