For AP, Being Shot by a Cop Makes You a Suspect
JUne 8, 2015
I often think the clearest glimpse into a media outlet’s view of an issue comes not in the articles that directly engage it, but in the little throwaway descriptions—the shorthand used to sum up the story.
Take a look, then, at this AP wire report (6/8/15), in which an account of a brutal policing incident at a Texas pool offered this by way of background:
Incidents involving white law enforcement and black suspects have raised concerns across the US, in particular since last August when a white police officer fatally shot a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, fueling sometimes violent protests and a nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement.
No, the “incidents” raising concerns have not involved black “suspects.” Freddie Gray was not a suspect, nor Akai Gurley. Tamir Rice and John Crawford held toy guns, and Ferguson officers evidently “suspected” Michael Brown of nothing more than not walking on the sidewalk. A number of those killed have been “suspected” of being mentally ill and in need of help.
in full: http://fair.org/home/for-ap-being-shot-by-a-cop-makes-you-a-suspect/
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's from dictionary.com:
"a person who is suspected, especially one suspected of a crime, offense, or the like."
It doesn't say the "suspicion" has to be by a judge. In fact, it doesn't say who the demoted agent of that passive is. The noun "suspect" actually as a verbal subject buried in it that is *not* the person being described. (It's rather like "alleged": an "alleged murderer" has no assertion that the person really is a murderer and all but states that the person has not been shown to be a murderer.) Lots of people can do the suspecting. Most of the time the difference in usage is legal and non-legal. If I suspect somebody of having done something, I don't have the authority to declare him a "suspect" as far the legal system is concerned. If a policeman suspects somebody, he does have the authority. Being a "suspect" as far as the legal system goes is, after all, the result of a speech act, and we've empowered certain people to perform such speech acts. I'm not one of them; you're probably not one of them, either. There are criteria for that kind of legal speech act, some formal and probably some informal.
If you're not "suspected" there are alternate categories: innocent (or not guilty), which is to say "not suspected"; and "guilty". "Suspect" does not mean "guilty" any more than "not guilty" means you didn't actually ever do what you were accused of. It's hard to remember that words have more than one meaning. It makes communication dependent on a certain measure of good will, of cooperation, just to understand what's being said.
I guess there's a third status, suspected by authorities but without sufficient evidence and not meeting the criteria for them to say the person is legally suspected, but I can shonfinkelize that by saying that's just when the person holding legal authority considers you suspect but doesn't make it a legal speech act. Because "suspect" status is, after all, like "alleged" status, just the result of a speech act. Merely being aware of context disambiguates the meanings just fine in 99.999% of the time (yes, I just made up that stat).
Freddie Gray was a suspect. He was held not for a crime, something that the police can't actually hold you for (because they can't declare you a criminal or determine the actual facts of a legal case) but under suspicion of committing a crime. The legal facts are up to a judge and jury and none ever rendered a verdict on the facts of the case. When he got to the police station, the cops' superiors may well have overridden that determination and said, "No, not a suspect." Tamir Rice was suspected of having an actual firearm--such was the report, and so the police couldn't investigate something that wasn't suspicious and had no suspect (that would be called "ignoring"
; that it turned out to a real, honest to goodness toy gun has little to do with being a suspect. Many suspects are found innocent; many more are simply released.
"Suspect" status in these cases is a speech act, one that is performed not by you or me but by law enforcement. "Criminal" status in these cases is a speech act, one that is performed not by your or me or even law enforcement authorities but by the judiciary branch.
Many words have a lot of definitions that are situationally determined. A common trick that's played and surprisingly often works is to predetermine what the definition must be and then pretend that the words can only have that or a narrow range of definitions, having carefully eliminated the ones that we don't like or find inconvenient. It's a really low-level, puerile way of arguing because it's not an argument: It's a coercive claim with bravado and often anger behind it which, if accepted, is less than a win through reason and truth than an assertion of power and control. It attempts to stipulate victory by unilaterally stating the terms of the debate in order to fix the only possible outcome. It's the kind of faux argument reasonable people look at and walk away from because an argument first requires two reasonable people to agree on evidence and meanings and then reason over them.
Where's my little "walky away" emoticon?
