Mainstream media has been captivated by the shooting death of Dexter Reed in Chicago, but they have not been entirely honest about the incident. News outlets, desperate for a George Floyd or perhaps are misleading about the incident because this is an election year.
Reed was approached by the police in March. The body cam shows an officer asking Reed to lower the window and then trying to open the car door when Reed rolled the window up. At this point, shots are heard and the officers run to cover. The officers fire their guns again as Reed stumbles out of his car.
Reed fired 11 shots, the first of which struck an officer’s arm. The press reported “96 shots” to create sensationalism. On the extended footage of his body camera, he can be seen bleeding.
Reed’s family was among the first to report misinformation.
“If they were going to pull him over for a stop in traffic, why are there four guns pointed at his face?” “He was terrified.” “They shot at him 96 times and reloaded the clip three more times,” Reed’s Sister Porscha Banks stated during a press conference on Tuesday.
The video clearly shows that guns were pointed at Reed only after he refused and began to roll up his window. The officer conducting the traffic stop approached the vehicle initially in a normal way. The officer may have drawn his gun after seeing Reed’s weapon through the window. Reed had been released on pretrial for violent felonies relating to an alleged shooting. Did the officers check his tag to see who he was? This could also be the reason why officers were so cautious when drawing their guns after Reed refused.
Released body cam footage of Dexter Reed shooting reveals he open fired on police officers before getting shot dead at traffic stop.
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 11, 2024
You would expect that a loved one’s family would defend them. It is not expected that the media would be so irresponsible.
This framing from the mainstream media is the exact type of irresponsible reporting I highlighted in my book about the 2020 BLM riots.
Like the rioters who faced little accountability back then, the media faced zero consequences for their role in fanning the literal flames. pic.twitter.com/vgVIgbDd1n
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) April 11, 2024
You would never guess from the headlines that Reed shot and injured an off-duty police officer before police opened fire on him. The perception is that a black man who was not armed was shot and killed unjustly. To put things in context, the injured police officer was also black.
The body of the articles is no better. The Washington Post, for example, doesn’t mention Reed opening fire until the eighth paragraph of its article.
The crucial fact that Reed fired on police officers first, injuring one, is not even mentioned until 8 paragraphs into the @washingtonpost article by @GuinnessKebab (Jennifer Hassan). This is how the article begins, with a dishonest & inflammatory narrative that police were just… pic.twitter.com/04xt4EgfC8
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 10, 2024
The number of shots fired by the officers and the fact Reed had to leave the vehicle with his gun are being emphasized. Both of these points are extremely misleading. After a suspect fires and hits an officer, all expectations of limiting the use of force are gone. The mission at that point is to neutralize any deadly threat. In the heat of battle, no officer will count how many shots he fires to look good to the media. There was no way of knowing if Reed had a gun or not when he left the vehicle. This is a case of hindsight, which has no place in an accurate analysis.
I have never supported a police officer blindly but instead judged each incident based on its facts. It was a justified killing by all standards, but one could be forgiven for thinking that the media wanted violence in response. Why would they cover up the truth?
