Justice for Tamir Rice! 12 year old shot and killed for a BB gun.

[HereSince1628]

74. The problem with pictures...the early articles talk about scratching off the orange tip.

Last edited Mon Nov 24, 2014, 09:25 AM - Edit history (2)

Below you will see the tip of an airsoft handgun that is similar to the picture of the gun in the box, you will notice that the orange tip is a colored tube, a piece of colored plastic. It CANNOT be scratched off. The orange of its tip can't be scratched off. It might be broken off or otherwise removed. But scratching off? No it's not a painted or laminated covering.

Now the toy alleged to be present at the homicide may not be an 'airsoft' but as abcnews reports rather 'an airsoft type' spring powered pellet gun which may be different





The picture you show is what the police want us to know. And it doesn't reveal any of the critical detail of the muzzle so we can't be sure what it looks like. So far I haven't seen a report of the manufacturer and model type of the toy.

Frankly what we have is a picture, and it might not even be a picture of the toy involved. We as readers of the internet actually don't know the provenance. And critically we don't know what the muzzle looks like...nothing is in that picture that suggests an orange paint or laminated plastic was scratched off or that an orange plastic barrel tip was removed.

We do know that this is a piece of evidence being displayed for the purpose of 'clearing' the officer. In that sense it's potentially being presented in a biased manner that leads us to conclude that the officer believed it was real

But, here's another thing, considering how guns are tucked into the waist of a pair of pants muzzle first, the tip actually -isn't- visible.
The reporting says the officer shot on seeing the boy 'reach' toward something in a waistband that was perceived to be a gun.

We are led to the reasonableness of that claim because the reporting also says that the officer -saw- the boy tuck a black gun in his waistband.

Only the officer knows what the officer thought he saw, for us to know what he thinks he saw it must be assumed that he has reported that. He's clearly not an unbiased reporter.

And it's clearly in his interest and the interest of his department to say he thought there was a real gun present. The police releasing that claim about what the officer saw did so to turn public opinion.

So what we seem to have is the police presenting to the public a preliminary conclusion "of facts" by releasing three details of evidence that can't be challenged, and they did so for the purpose of supporting a police officer through prejudicing public opinion.