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Cops Who 'Have To' Kill: A Media Anaylsis

"Cops who have to kill," one of society's new kind of victims, have appeared with more frequency in Portland's mainstream press. Not to put down officers, whose jobs can be dangerous, nor to argue with their right to defend themselves if they are being attacked...what's objectionable here is the use of the phrase "have to shoot," or "have to kill". One has to breathe, has to blink. But the act of shooting or killing is a voluntary act--maybe done hastily and without planning; maybe regretted after-ward--but taking a life is never a case of "have to." There is always a choice involved, whether that choice is life-or-death to the officer or not. By minimizing this choice into a turn of phrase-- "Have to kill" --the media and the police public relations office are diverting public scrutiny into police shootings and whether, in fact, the shootings are justified.

Most recently, the Oregonian reported on a shooting incident in its Friday, June 24 paper. A suspect had led police on a high-speed chase from Aloha to NW Portland, where, after a brief standoff, police shot and killed a man whose identity was unknown at the time the article was written. But rather than take a look at either the implications of the high speed chase (how much damage and potential damage done chasing someone from a suburb into a densely populated area?), the forces driving people to desperation (the man had robbed a bank) or even the police officers' difficult choices, author Stuart Tomlinson opened his article like this (we're not making this up):

Outside, the blood had been washed away, but the stain remained--like cheap motor oil from a broken engine.

Inside, the Thursday lunch crowd at the September Restaurant and Bar finished up their plates of garlicky shrimp and pesto-flavored chicken sandwiches.

September owners Elroy Duran and David McNee celebrated their first month in business Thursday. But the celebratory pop of champagne bottles was replaced by the surreal pop of guns.

This portrayal borders on being a restaarant review instead of a news story about a homicide. It diminishes the value of the human life taken, and the danger the police believed themselves to be in. After a description of the robbery and what the dead man had been wearing, Tomlinson adds:

The chase and the man's life both ended in front of the restaurant at 2340 NW Thurman St, a newly redecorated spot with Northwest-inspired food and an autumnal, falling leaf motif.

The restaurant is in a funky neighborhood--mixed residential, light industrial and commercial.

Sheet metal shops and a mom and pop grocery store vie for space with a cafe, galleries and wine shops.

The article goes on to describe the atmosphere of the standoff as "relatively Hollywood" and quotes the tow-truck driver who witnessed the shooting as watching the blood flow "just like in the movies."

So with this human life devalued to a spectacle--part of the funky neighborhood scenery-- Lt. C.W. Jensen, public relations officer for the PPB, said the officers had "no other choice but to shoot the man."

And here we have a recurring refrain. An earlier instance of this was in the article "Shots in the Dark," which appeared in the Oregonian on November 22, 1992. (Remember that 1992 was the year in which the police shot 14 civilians, the highest number out of the last 6 years.) The article focused on the East Precinct graveyard shift (irony gone unnoticed) which was involved in the majority of those shootings. The first quote lifted from the aritcle, placed prominently above the front-page picture, says: "I feel vulnerable. In my mind I believe that in the next few years I will have to shoot someone." The person who said this was a female officer named Cheryl Swenson.

Here's another recent example, and probably the most striking: On May 17 this year, Cindy Hammill of Channel 12's Northwest Reports produced a segment called "Shooting Pains." While the segment was enlightening as to the trauma police undergo once they kill someone, the entire piece was focused on police and police psychologists. The families of police shooting victims were talked about, but not interviewed. (Not to mention the shooting victims, whose bodies were used as story-telling cutaways with no comment, identification, or explanation.)

One of the officers, Brad Benge, talked about the shooting in a way which genuinely made him seem remorseful. However, he revealed that the biggest changes in his life were due to the victim's wife, who called him, threatened him, and, he says (citing circumstantial evidence), tried to shoot him. The viewer is left believing the trauma is caused by this sort of revenge being wreaked on him, instead of something inside Benge which regrets killing for its own sake.

Another officer, Robert King, was in a situation at a traffic stop where a person actually stabbed him with a knife. He saw the man raise the knife again, and he shot. Later, Hammill asks, "remember Officer King, who had to kill someone during a routine traffic stop (emphasis mine)?" In an interview with Lt. Jensen about a man he killed in 1985, he de-scribes how the man raised a knife-- Jensen believed it was in order to stab a hostage or to come at him. So Jensen shot him. But then, she interviews Officer Bob Day, who pointed a gun at a knife-wielding suspect. That suspect raised the knife...and then dropped it. The officer never used his gun.

A more critical media might have raised the question, "Every time a suspect raises a weapon, is shooting them is always the appropraite course of action?" Instead, Hammill left the viewer with the concept that these police "are trained to use deadly force, but never dream they will have to use it."

Further belittling the other ramifications of police shootings, the reporter brings up the Nathan Thomas case, in wihch a 12 year old was taken hostage and the police shot both the young boy and his captor. Rather than question the policy that was used in that situation, Hammill notes that "it doesn't take the wrong person to die for (the) pain to eat away at the officer."

I ask, is there such a thing as choosing the right person to die? Who really holds that power to decide? How is it that police officers such as Dan Parks, who was involved in two disticnctly similar shootings, re-main on the force if shooting people is such a traumatic experience? What happens to people like Gerald Gratton, who are shot by police, but live--and are thus able to testify and even press charges against police?

When Channel 12 does a story investigating some of these questions, the public will truly have a full picture of the trauma behind police shootings.

Third Quarter, 1994
Also in PPR #3

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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