Jordan Steinke, a Fort Lupton, Colorado, police officer who placed a handcuffed suspect into a police SUV that was then hit by a train, was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation and 100 hours of public service, according to her attorney.
Because nothing says “accident” like leaving a prisoner in the middle of a railroad crossing!
“Flooding kill X people” is a regular headline though, as the default is to be based on the person/thing that is acting. So flooding kills people, but people who fall into the river while boating put themselves into the situation and therefore drowned.
Things like trains that are controlled by people fall into the thing you are talking about, where there is a possibility that either person’s actions could have led to the outcome. In that case they tend to default the action based on avoiding blame in headlines. An “officer involved shooting” tries to avoid blaming either person, but as you note tends to be read as excusing the officer by default which is more of a blame the victim thing. It also avoids the possibility that the officer was present but never shot their weapon as a CYA default.
For trains though, it is treated like someone who stepped in front if a car in a way that couldn’t be avoided. They were struck by the car even though the impact was not caused by the car or the driver. That is because the car is the larger object that impacted a smaller object.
So I am agreeing with you that the language can imply something, but explaining that it is not always malicious intent that results in the wording we see every day. In fact, I would prefer if shootings involving police were worded as “police shot X” instead of officer involved shooting, and that vehicles/people were described as not getting out of the way of trains. But that just isn’t how attempts at neutral language work.
“Flooding kill X people” is a regular headline though, as the default is to be based on the person/thing that is acting. So flooding kills people, but people who fall into the river while boating put themselves into the situation and therefore drowned.
Things like trains that are controlled by people fall into the thing you are talking about, where there is a possibility that either person’s actions could have led to the outcome. In that case they tend to default the action based on avoiding blame in headlines. An “officer involved shooting” tries to avoid blaming either person, but as you note tends to be read as excusing the officer by default which is more of a blame the victim thing. It also avoids the possibility that the officer was present but never shot their weapon as a CYA default.
For trains though, it is treated like someone who stepped in front if a car in a way that couldn’t be avoided. They were struck by the car even though the impact was not caused by the car or the driver. That is because the car is the larger object that impacted a smaller object.
So I am agreeing with you that the language can imply something, but explaining that it is not always malicious intent that results in the wording we see every day. In fact, I would prefer if shootings involving police were worded as “police shot X” instead of officer involved shooting, and that vehicles/people were described as not getting out of the way of trains. But that just isn’t how attempts at neutral language work.