Wednesday, July 23, 2014

California Highway Patrol Seizes Medical Records of Woman Allegedly Beaten by Officer

And what could possibly be wrong with that? 

Via Instapundit: 

"California Highway Patrol investigators have seized the medical records of a woman seen on video being repeatedly punched by one of its officers on the side of a Los Angeles freeway."

"Chris Arevalo, executive administrator for psychiatric services at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, confirmed that the CHP served the search warrant Tuesday for Marlene Pinnock's records."

Furthermore: 

"Moving on from this larger wrongness, I'd like to take a little time to point to the complicity of the Associated Press in the low-level whitewashing of this latest development by using that famous law enforcement standby, the passive voice."

"My first notification came to me via Officer.com, whose headline read:
CHP Seizes Medical Records of Woman Seen Punched
"Seen punched?" Punched by whom? By the CHP, of course, not that this headline indicates that. As far as this headline goes, it may have just been a random mugging. A more accurate headline would be "CHP Seizes Medical Records of Woman They Were Seen Punching." Clumsy, but more honest."

"The AP buries the lede and other media sites run the feed without even altering it. Of course, Police One took the AP's weak title and made it even worse.
CHP seizes medical records of woman in scuffle with cop
"Not only does it side more with the CHP, but it also makes it appear as though the CHP seized her records during the "scuffle."

"We expect this use of the passive voice from police officers. The media doesn't really need to assist law enforcement spokespeople in their blame-deflection efforts. When misconduct allegations arise, they're always followed by details of "weapons discharging" and innocent bystanders "receiving gunshot wounds" and officers never striking anybody but always "responding" to actions, movements or words from some person whose personal safety was ensured by hospitalization."