The Lying Media (Again)
Climbing up on my soapbox…
I am so damned sick and tired of media bias. Oh, I expect it anytime politics is involved. But the absolute bullshit the media is pushing with the Tyreek Hill episode has got me really riled up.
Disclaimer: I grew up in a “cop house”. My dad was a police officer for well over 3 decades. My uncle was also a police officer, as well as a firefighter. My brother followed in our dad’s footsteps, eventually becoming chief of police in an Indianapolis suburb. I’ll admit to a pro-police bias, but only because more often than not it’s far closer to the truth than what the media tells us.
When this Tyreek Hill story first broke last Sunday morning, I told my wife that if we were allowed to see the entire bodycam footage, we would see Hill mouthing off, or getting belligerent, doing something to provoke the police and create a situation. When the full footage was shown (put another way, when we were “allowed” to see the events leading up to Hill being pulled from his car and cuffed), that’s exactly what we saw. We saw Hill refusing to roll his window down, we saw him telling police to stop knocking on his window. We saw him refusing to obey what are lawful orders in the state of Florida. We saw him mouthing off to the police and fighting them every step of the way.
While I sort of expected the media to lean towards Hill’s position on this, I admit to being caught off guard when they started blaming the police. I like Dominique Foxworth as a football panelist on Get Up, but when he said that it was up to the police to de-escalate the situation, I lost it. What nobody on that show had the balls to say is that it was Tyreek Hill himself who escalated the situation; if he’d simply rolled down his window and done what the police asked, nothing else would have happened. I know, I know, it’s ESPN we’re talking about; not sure why I expected anything resembling objectivity from them. My bad on that one.
Could the police have handled this situation differently? Maybe. I haven’t heard some of the other conversations between police and the other Dolphin players, and I haven’t seen what may have been taking place between the police and the civilian crowd. It’s possible that one officer overreacted to a situation that didn’t really (or didn't as of yet) exist. It’s also possible that they thought keeping Hill completely “contained” was the best way to prevent the crowd from getting out of hand.
But the bottom line is this: Full responsibility for the situation being escalated lies solely on Tyreek Hill’s shoulders. His actions alone caused this to become an issue. He is 100% to blame for things getting out of hand.
When will the media stop lying to us? Or is that misguided hope, much like drinking a lot of beer and whizzing into the Grand Canyon in an attempt to fill it?
Ok, I’m done ranting. Thanks for listening.
I am so damned sick and tired of media bias. Oh, I expect it anytime politics is involved. But the absolute bullshit the media is pushing with the Tyreek Hill episode has got me really riled up.
Disclaimer: I grew up in a “cop house”. My dad was a police officer for well over 3 decades. My uncle was also a police officer, as well as a firefighter. My brother followed in our dad’s footsteps, eventually becoming chief of police in an Indianapolis suburb. I’ll admit to a pro-police bias, but only because more often than not it’s far closer to the truth than what the media tells us.
When this Tyreek Hill story first broke last Sunday morning, I told my wife that if we were allowed to see the entire bodycam footage, we would see Hill mouthing off, or getting belligerent, doing something to provoke the police and create a situation. When the full footage was shown (put another way, when we were “allowed” to see the events leading up to Hill being pulled from his car and cuffed), that’s exactly what we saw. We saw Hill refusing to roll his window down, we saw him telling police to stop knocking on his window. We saw him refusing to obey what are lawful orders in the state of Florida. We saw him mouthing off to the police and fighting them every step of the way.
While I sort of expected the media to lean towards Hill’s position on this, I admit to being caught off guard when they started blaming the police. I like Dominique Foxworth as a football panelist on Get Up, but when he said that it was up to the police to de-escalate the situation, I lost it. What nobody on that show had the balls to say is that it was Tyreek Hill himself who escalated the situation; if he’d simply rolled down his window and done what the police asked, nothing else would have happened. I know, I know, it’s ESPN we’re talking about; not sure why I expected anything resembling objectivity from them. My bad on that one.
Could the police have handled this situation differently? Maybe. I haven’t heard some of the other conversations between police and the other Dolphin players, and I haven’t seen what may have been taking place between the police and the civilian crowd. It’s possible that one officer overreacted to a situation that didn’t really (or didn't as of yet) exist. It’s also possible that they thought keeping Hill completely “contained” was the best way to prevent the crowd from getting out of hand.
But the bottom line is this: Full responsibility for the situation being escalated lies solely on Tyreek Hill’s shoulders. His actions alone caused this to become an issue. He is 100% to blame for things getting out of hand.
When will the media stop lying to us? Or is that misguided hope, much like drinking a lot of beer and whizzing into the Grand Canyon in an attempt to fill it?
Ok, I’m done ranting. Thanks for listening.
The media just lies.
D.C. NIFO
It's the only way to be sure.