On February 10th, 2017, ABC7 Chicago released an article on a police-involved shooting in Chicago.
Police were called to a CVS in North Center over a woman inside the store who was threatening employees with a weapon.
Police arrived at the scene, and the woman did not comply with the officers. She pointed the weapon at the officers and threatened to attack them.
After using a taser did not work, she lunged at the police (more than once), and the officers had no choice but to shoot her.
The Problem?
Within their article “Woman Killed in Police-Involved Shooting in North Center,” they posted this phrase:
The victim was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. No information about the victim has been released, aside from her gender.
By “victim” they are referencing the woman that threatened the CVS employees and the police.
This woman is not a victim. Women that get sexually assaulted are victims. People that are just trying to work when they have a crazy woman with a knife threaten them are victims. Officers that are just responding to a distressed 911 call about getting a knife pointed at them and then having the offender attack them are victims.
She is an assailant, an offender, an attacker, and a threat.
The Definition of Victim:
A victim is defined as an innocent person who has suffered physical or emotional harm, property damage, or economic loss as a result of a crime.
The lady that assaulted the cops and the store’s employees did not die as a “result of a crime”. She was the crime. And she was not innocent.
Had she lived, they would not call her a “victim” in court. She’d be the defendant; the offender.
Calling her a victim is demeaning to those who are actually victims. And it only goes to further the problems of victim-hood in our society, where everyone is somehow a victim. It also further supports false agendas by groups like Black Lives Matter when they further target police. They see her as a “victim” and you continue to support that assertion, true or not. This is adding fuel to their fire. People that harass others and assault police should not be labelled innocent victims in any situation.
Use the correct terms or don’t report on it at all. You’re not helping anyone in Chicago by pushing this agenda.