Twitter Drags ABC Tweet Doing Backflips To Avoid Saying Cop Killed Motorcyclist

Photo via @abcactionnews/Twitter

October 19, 2021, 1:04 pm

An ABC Action News tweet is currently under fire for producing one of the most passively voiced, information-obscuring sentences that many have ever seen, even on Twitter, highlighting once again how far media outlets will go to avoid saying that any cop ever did anything wrong. Echoing the notorious “officer-involved shooting” headlines, which have been called out too many times to count, ABC managed to take a story of a cop who killed a motorcyclist on a highway and report that “the trooper entered the path of the motorcyclist which led him to crash into the cruiser and become ejected.”

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Hundreds of people have already commented to essentially ask ABC, “Huh???”

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According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the trooper entered the path of the motorcyclist which led him to crash into the cruiser and become ejected. Troopers said the motorcyclist then fell into the road and was hit by a semi. https://t.co/QLlNSmp85v

— ABC Action News (@abcactionnews) October 19, 2021

Using passive voice is generally discouraged when it comes to journalism, but somehow becomes standard procedure when a police officer does anything bad. This particular tweet is so bad that you might think the motorcyclist was the one in the wrong, as they were the one framed as crashing into the cruiser, crossing the line from failing to provide actual information into spreading misinformation on a basic story.

Clicking through to the article makes the story a bit clearer.

“According to a press release, the trooper pulled his marked cruiser into the path of the motorcyclist on I-4 in Polk County around 7:30 p.m.,” Emily McCain reports. “As a result, FHP said the motorcyclist crashed into the front right side of the cruiser and was ejected from his bike. The motorcyclist then fell into the road and was hit by a semi, according to FHP.”

As the paragraph reminds you a full three times, this is only the police department’s side of the story, which is very often proven to be misleading at best. As far as we can tell, a Florida Highway Patrol officer cut off a motorcyclist and send him flying to his death. No mention was made as to the reason for the officer’s failure to see the motorcyclist coming, if the cop even looked both ways at all.

“FHP said the trooper was helping a construction crew install a lane closure to the interstate for repairs when he entered the inside lane and the path of the motorcyclist.”

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Even this leaves much to be desired, with other news outlets reporting that the officer actually hit the motorcyclist while pulling out of the construction lane, even while sometimes still seeming to blame anyone else, such as the poor truck driver who now probably needs a lot of therapy. Many will likely be left without knowing exactly what happened as nobody seems to be interviewing any witnesses, only taking statements from the police as though they’re reliable sources of true information.

The FHP did at least indicate that this was being investigated as a traffic homicide case in telling ABC that the investigation would last at least three months. They did not release the trooper’s name, but we can assume they’re now on paid leave.

Avoid the vague “officer-involved” for shootings and other cases involving police. Be specific about what happened. If police use the term, ask: How was the officer or officers involved? Who did the shooting? If the information is not available or not provided, spell that out.

— APStylebook (@APStylebook) August 25, 2020

This kind of passive voice that seems to be entirely for the purpose of avoiding any hint that any police officer in the known universe could ever have done a wrong has become such a problem that the Associated Press issued a new rule telling people to avoid the “officer-involved” language specifically. Unfortunately, AP itself doesn’t even seem capable of following their own guidelines, somehow unable to get out of the grip of a feverish and relentless pro-cop sentiment in the U.S.

Those who are under threat from deadly police violence, which kills over 2,000 Americans yearly, are sick to death of this long-running problem.

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Where do they teach that kind of writing?

— Supuhstar (@danalmont) October 19, 2021

the citations needed point about journalists completely abandoning coherent language when a cop does something wrong is illustrated once again

— phn (@weirdfigs) October 19, 2021

in fairness, the trooper might have looked and just not cared… the article doesn’t say one way or another

— Pé (@4everNeverTrump) October 19, 2021

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Hey big fan of this sentence, any way you can make it even clunkier and impossible to parse?

— J (@tra5hpanda) October 19, 2021

“…Unfortunately, the body of the motorcyclist, not being an inelastic, spherical cow, experienced rapid interactive energy transfer events with the local locomotive substrate. Crews were dispatched to disposition related debris…”

— -.-. –.- (@trmcloughlin) October 19, 2021

So many words used to try to obfuscate the fact that a cop killed someone.

— Old Kentucky Shark (@becktionary) October 19, 2021

Florida news station enters path of police press release, which led them to crash into institutional bias and caused the English language to become ejected.

— Tube Amps for Justice, USA (@CuriousAudioUS) October 19, 2021

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*First Published: October 19, 2021, 1:04 pm