London – The press release of the video of the security cameras showing the police officers delaying the entry of a gunman who carried out the massacre that resulted in the death of 21 people in Uvalde, Texas in May, angered his relatives. victims..
Exhibit 12 was made by the Austin American Statesman of the same group and publisher of KVUE, one of the causes of the riot, before families saw the footage.
According to the commission of inquiry, they would later be released. But the newspaper says it won’t be released exactly, so he decided to guess.
What Does the Texas Massacre Video Show?
The episode questions the boundaries between respect for the people involved in a story and seeking the scoop, in a debate that won the American national media.
The Robb Elementary School video is shocking as it visually demonstrates the police’s lack of action that could have prevented at least some of the deaths.
In the footage, the attacker is seen walking down the corridor with a gun in his hand. He enters the room and gunshots are heard, while a student who sees the scene runs away screaming.
The police, protected by shields and vests, come with heavy weapons. But they stay in the corridor, walking from side to side without entering the room.
One of them wipes his hands with alcohol gel with impressive calmness for someone who is just meters away from a child slaughter. Others are caught laughing.
The exhibition created controversy, although families were united in their criticism of the police’s over an hour’s action on the incident.
Some family members posted notes on social media asking others not to share the leaked video. Gloria Cazares, daughter of Jackie’s daughter, one of the victims of the massacre, said, “This is the opposite of what the families wanted!!!” He wrote on Facebook.
Felicia Martinez, the mother of a child who died at school, criticized those who leaked the video to the newspaper at a press conference with a group of relatives.
“We are angry. She is very angry. We want justice for our children and that’s why she was released without seeing it before. We are parents who lost their children.
We should have seen this together. They are our babies.”
Investigative reporter Tony Plohestski, an award-winning journalist working for the newspaper and TV station, announced the “scoop” via Twitter.
BREAKING: We obtained a video footage of dozens of police officers reacting to the active attacker, along with a video footage taken from inside the Robb Elementary School, along with body camera footage of a responding officer. https://t.co/Vq4RL3FvES
– Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) 12 July 2022
“We’re doing this for these people, for their families in Uvalde, for the townspeople, and for the people of the state of Texas who are actually dying to know,” said presenter Bryan Myers before the video aired on TV. what happened. What happened at that school in May”.
The newspaper report highlights the “special” character of the story and warns that the images can be “disturbing”.
Estimating that the publication has the potential to receive criticism already, the newspaper published another text explaining the reason for the decision along with the news.
Editor Manny Garcia assumes the 22-minute video is “tragic to hear and watch.” And he explains that the Statesman’s choice was the subject of “long and thoughtful discussions.”
He reports that two versions have been produced, one edited for just over four minutes highlighting the most critical moments, and the other featuring the entire scene.
He points out that they blur a child’s face and eliminate the screaming sound when the shooter enters the classroom.
Contrastingly, Garcia says that the company’s policy is not to glorify criminals, but in this case, they decided to show the attacker’s face to avoid the suspicion that they were “hiding something.”
And he acknowledges that this point is a matter of contention between editors and members of the reporting team.
In his editorial reasoning, he criticized officials for “refusing media information requests from police leaders, public officials, and elected representatives of the public,” adding that “many of the requests are now in the hands of Attorney General Ken’s office. Paxton.” It has not yet decided what should be disclosed.
However, that may not be exactly the case with security camera video.
Dustin Burrows, chairman of the committee investigating the shooting at the school, predicted Tuesday morning that they would meet with community members first, giving them the opportunity to watch the video in the hallway and discuss the preliminary report. And that “very soon”, the report and images would be made public.
However, the newspaper The video of the massacre, which will be made public by the Texas committee, will not include the gunman entering the school and the gunman’s image in the hallway.
Also speaking on behalf of the relatives group, Nikki Cross, the aunt of one of the children, confirmed that families have been asking for access to the video for weeks, but with no results. But “now the whole world has seen this before,” she grieves.
According to this claim, the images could be kept by the newspaper and TV and published only if the suspicion that the video would not be fully broadcast had been confirmed.
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However, while the recording did not bring revelation that could have changed the course of the investigation, it made it difficult to mitigate the crime, raising public anger against the police as it was already known that the police had not entered the room even though they were guarded and armed.
Snapshots of moments such as hand-washing or a police officer checking messages on the phone continue to be shared with grim comments about the responsibilities of police officers and local and state officials.
In a review for CNN’s Trusted Sources newsletter, media columnist Ben Stelter asked two questions that were not easy to answer:
“If you were in charge of a newsroom and got a leaked copy of the hallway video, could you hold it?
On the other hand, what if your child was one of those killed at school? Would you like to see the surveillance video?”
Stelter himself has no answer. question whetherThe media did the right thing and rightly says, “I doubt this will be discussed for long.”
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The issue was also on the agenda of the ABC talk show The View, which featured actress Whoopi Goldberg as one of the backup members.
He criticized the newspaper in this week’s issue:
“I find it vulnerable. Sorry. You forgot that the people associated with all these voices have children.” And you didn’t have to. They were going to watch this video on Sunday. […]I think it’s terrible and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing it.”
Finally, Goldberg pretended to spit on the floor for reprimand.
Opinion was not the same among other participants. Host Sunny Hostin and guest of the day, Alyssa Farah Griffin, host of a political analysis program, argued that the videos were the key to dispelling the narrative that police officers were unprepared.
Hostin noted that the video was “conclusive proof that the police are cowards”.
Notoriety for terrorists
Alongside the sentiment towards families, the display of video of the massacre in Texas also questions the notoriety given to the perpetrators of such crimes.
But in general, social networks are in the limelight, not the traditional press.
One of the most emblematic cases was the killing of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. The shooter broadcast the action live on Facebook, and the images continued to circulate for a long time.
A week before the attack on Uvalde, another attack in Buffalo (USA) in which 12 people died was broadcast live on Twitch.
The Digital Anti-Hate Center has been one of the fiercest critics of digital media companies’ efforts to control hate speech.
Shortly after the attack, Imran Ahmed, managing director of the NGO’s Digital Anti-Hate Center, wrote an article in the British newspaper The Guardian stating that the Buffalo tragedy might not have happened had the issue been addressed after the Christchurch trial. New Zeland.
Ahmed noted that the author “used the same digital playbook as the Christchurch terrorist: he used live footage of the attack and a ‘manifesto’ referring to grand substitution and other white supremacist theories. He calls for government action to regulate the platforms.
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source: Noticias
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