by nordique
‘Suicide By Cop’ Leads Soldier On Chase Of His Life : NPR
[Via NPR]
A few months ago, NPR and ProPublica published an investigation about five soldiers who suffered traumatic brain injuries from the same explosion in Iraq. The report also explored the cognitive and emotional problems they’ve been having ever since. Twelve days later, one of the soldiers piled an armload of guns and semi-automatic weapons into his pickup and led police on a high-speed chase across North Dakota.
[More]
We too often here about arrests gone wrong. Here is a story about one that ended without any deaths, even though that was the wish of the poor ex-soldier dealing with traumatic brain injury. Watch the video on the site which provides a rich multimedia presentation of the chase and arrest, using maps and video to really take us into what happened.
You’ll see something that could have ended tragically but did not. Because of the professionalism and simple humanity of the officers.
They did not want to shoot this man who wanted them to shoot him. For 2 hours they worked with him, especially Officer Christopher.
The article gives some useful background but the well-done video is an example of how information rich a multimedia presentation can be on the web. Why would I want to read a static NYT web page when I can gain such a deeper understanding of what really went on, by watching and listening to those involved.
NPR may be on some people’s radar screen for political reasons but this report demonstrates just how good things could be done with any information-gathering organization. Why don’t more do this?
As a collaborator of NPR’s – ProPublica – stated it:
Profit-margin expectations and short-term stock market concerns, in particular, are making it increasingly difficult for the public companies that control nearly all of our nation’s news organizations to afford—or at least to think they can afford—the sort of intensive, extensive and uncertain efforts that produce great investigative journalism.
Investigative journalism, while very important for a functioning civil society, costs money and provides very little to the bottom line. Charlie Sheen creates more profits. That is why we have seen less and less of that from the MSM. Much more opinion. Much more stenography. Fewer real facts.
Some of us like to use facts to make decisions. Here we can see that officers can defuse a dangerous situation, use a Tazer in the proper setting and actually care about the human outcome. We find out that the system will not sent this guy away but will actually provide him help.
That is the kind of America I want to live in and one we seldom see in the MSM.
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