Rupar misled tens of thousands of people into thinking this was the officer giving his own view of the suspect’s motive. That narrative got picked up by several major outlets. And his defense is that the officer wasn’t directly quoting, just paraphrasing.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1373086901578649609
And then journalists that fell for that false narrative decided to go further by stalking through the social media of this private officer and smearing him as a racist in several major outlets because he once posted a picture of what he thought was a funny shirt re Covid/China.
I’m rarely surprised anymore, but one of the more despicable media pile-ons I’ve seen recently. Especially because it was targeted at a private figure that happened to be the spokesperson for the Sheriffs Department on the case.
Think about that. WaPo, Buzzfeed, New Yorker etc. have now labeled that random officer a racist to millions of readers because of a misleading clip from the press conference and one social media post of a Corona Beer parody shirt blaming China for Covid-19.
Do you think they considered how that would impact his family? His life? If he has kids, they now have to go to school and have to deal with that label. All because while doing his job he said something that some reporters misrepresented and didn't like.
And none of the people who encourage these mobs aimed at private individuals could ever withstand the same type of scrutiny themselves. They searched this guy's posts, which should have never been a news story, and found this one t-shirt pic.
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