Examples of HuffPost inciting hate against police officers — then ignoring violence and hate crimes against them

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by Jon Sutz, Editor, SaveTheWest.com

Contents

Overview

(1) Inciting hatred against police officers (24 case studies)



(2) Ignoring hate crimes, violence, threats and incitement against police officers (and police animals) (29 case studies)



(3) Ignoring or whitewashing those who attack police officers (10 case studies)



(4) Ignoring/dehumanizing heroic police officers, the fallen, and their grieving loved ones (3 case studies)

Overview

As the Huff-Watch blog pointed out:

Numerous influential “news” entities have also failed to provide complete, balanced information to the general public about recent issues involving police officers… […] [H]uffPost, however has been going farther than any other alleged “news” entity, in terms of pouring gasoline on this fire. Specifically, since the Michael Brown shooting in August, HuffPost has been consistently producing “news” stories that could only serve to whip up hatred against, and endanger police officers across America, through three primary means: Incitement: HuffPost has repeatedly published incendiary, editorialized “news” headlines that paint the worst possible perception of police officers, up to and including calling them murderers. One headline (documented below) even asked, “Can the cops be stopped before they kill again?” Selective editing: HuffPost has consistently excluded essential facts that are necessary to provide accurate context to its headlines (which would often also serve to undermine them). Ignoring terrorist threats: HuffPost has pathologically ignored the progressively-worsening terroristic threats that have been made against police officers across America, both by “lone wolves” as and organized groups. This deliberate omission has served two purposes: to undermine the threats that every police officer across America faces, and to give tacit “free pass” and approval to these terrorist groups, especially when considering HuffPost’s overt calls for purportedly defensive actions against police officers. Were the Huffington Post just another website, these shameful practices would have little impact. As the #1 most-read online “newspaper” in the world, however, what HuffPost does carries weight, and has impact.

Particularly in regards to the acts of anti-police incitement that are documented in Section 1, it is worth recalling how much each of these incidents contradict HuffPost’s repeated public claims of journalistic integrity, and especially, its supposed prohibition of “conspiracy theories and inflammatory claims”:

“[At HuffPost] there are guidelines that have to be followed — and they include a prohibition on conspiracy theories or inflammatory claims. […] of what the great historian Richard Hofstadter called ‘the paranoid style in American politics,’ which he defined as angry minds that traffic in ‘heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy,’ and that see ‘the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms… always manning the barricades of civilization’.” – Arianna Huffington blog article, April 3, 2010

(1) Inciting hatred against police officers

(1.1) August 2014: “Arrest him!” (Officer Darren Wilson)

(1.2) September 2014: “Caught on tape: Cops gun down man at WalMart”

(1.3) November 2014: “They’re murdering our kids and getting away with it”

(1.4) December 2014: “How to get away with murder”

(1.5) December 2014: “Rabbis Arrested After Reciting Kaddish For Eric Garner”

(1.6) December 2014: “Can The Cops Be Stopped Before They Kill Again?”

(1.7) April 2015: “Cop throws rock at protester”

(1.8) April 2015: “Re-Thinking Non-Violent Resistance”

(1.9) December 2015: HuffPost smeared the vast majority of American police officers as being corrupt — but said smearing refugees from terror-prone countries, for the actions of a few, is wrong

(1.10) June 2016: Violence is “logical”; “Violent resistance matters. Riots can lead to major change”

(1.11) November 2016: “I will do my best to fuck up any bigot who fucks with you”

(1.12) March 2017: “Cops Fire Into Stolen Car, Killing 16-Year-Old Pregnant Teen”

(1.13) June 2017: HuffPost top-of-the-front-page “news” article: “There Is No Justice For Black People Killed By Cops”

(1.14) June 2017: HuffPost again falsely accused police officers of murdering black Americans, while omitting all essential context, such as the fact that juries — which included black members — exonerated the vast majority of them, and some of the cops were black

(1.15) August 2014, St. Paul, MN (belated discovery): “Police Allegedly Use Stun Gun On Black Father Waiting For His Kids”

(1.16) March 2016 (belated discovery): HuffPost published a front-page editorial that falsely claimed that local police took Dylan Roof, who murdered nine black church members in South Carolina, to Burger King for dinner after the shooting, as a symbol of American racism

(1.17) July 2017: HuffPost published a front-page “news” story that falsely implied a police officer shot and killed a black “WalMart shopper,” without reason, but won’t be charged; HuffPost knew the truth, but chose to bury it

(1.18) September 2017: In the hours after the acquittal of a St. Louis, MO police officer of killing a black drug suspect, HuffPost published on its front page a “news” story containing only a self-produced “news video” that presented black people who were killed by police officers, insinuating that they were all shot for no reason other than their race

(1.19) September 2017: HuffPost falsely claimed that “riot police suppressed a peaceful demonstration” — when in fact its own “story” debunked this deceptive, inflammatory headline [UPDATED: PROTESTERS BARGE INTO HOTEL, TERRORIZE GUESTS]



(1.20) August 2017 [belated discovery]: HuffPost published a front-page “news” story that claimed “police killed at least 233 black Americans” in the past year — and omitted all context for how these killings occurred

(1.21) October 2017: HuffPost published a front-page story that claimed “U.S. Government Drastically Undercounted The Number Of Civilians Killed By Cops In 2015” — with zero context, and no accounting for how many police officers were killed by such “civilians”

(1.22) March 2018: HuffPost depicted an illegal alien who was arrested for running a human trafficking operation as a victim of wrongful, cruel police action

(1.23) December 2014: HuffPost published an incendiary, front-page headline that claimed a police officer shot and killed a black teenager in St. Louis, MO

(1.24) April 2018: HuffPost gave top coverage to its depiction of four NYPD officers as racist murderers, on what it knew was a false and grossly decontextualized basis, then ignored, downplayed and whitewashed information that exonerated them



(1.1) August 2014: “Arrest him!” (Officer Darren Wilson)

On August 18, 2014, HuffPost published this as its front-page splash headline:

The headline urged someone to arrest Officer Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, MO police officer whom Michael Brown had attacked. Keep in mind that at the time HuffPost published this headline, it knew (or should have known) that all of the available evidence showed that Officer Wilson was telling the truth — and that the narrative that had been spun around Michael Brown was a lie.

(1.2) September 2014: “Caught on tape: Cops gun down man at WalMart”

The following is adapted from an article at the Huff-Watch blog.

On September 24, 2014 HuffPost published this story as its incendiary splash headline, insinuating that police officers just ran into a Wal-Mart and gunned down a (black) man, for no reason:

HuffPost knew the truth – but failed to even hint at it in the headline. In reality, as its own version of the story (and a more responsible one in the Washington Post ) showed:

Police officers responded to a call that a man was walking around the store with a rifle, pointing it at people

The officers ordered the gunman, John Crawford III, to drop the rifle, but he refused to do so, after which they shot him

(1.3) November 2014: “They’re murdering our kids and getting away with it”

The following is adapted from an article at the Huff-Watch blog.

On November 26, 2014, HuffPost ran this story on its front page:

The Huff-Watch blog documented the endemic problems with this article, which could only serve to help incite hatred of, and violence against police officers:

Any honest, first-year journalism student would be able to look at the individual cases cited, and realize how egregiously HuffPost used selective editing to omit inconvenient yet crucial facts, such as how many of these individuals were killed after having been observed committing crimes, or refusing to comply with police orders – or were pointing weapons at officers. Another inconvenient fact: the median age of the six “kids” profiled is 23.5 years old.

Regarding HuffPost’s use of the term “murder,” see attorney Ben Shapiro’s demolition of this lie in Section 1.4.

HuffPost has also never published any of the scholarly reports, that challenge this incendiary narrative:

A report by a black Harvard economics professor, that demonstrated the reality is the exact opposite of its incendiary allegations; specifically that police officers are actually less likely to shoot a black suspect than a white one

A report that documents how the “news” media is playing a key role in inciting racial hatred in America, based on false allegations such as these

A report by a scholar that demonstrates that most of the narrative employed by Black Lives Matter is pure propaganda

Through these acts and omissions, HuffPost not only served to help incite hatred against police officers by propagating incendiary falsehoods, it also contributed to advancing racial hatred in general.

(1.4) December 2014: “How to get away with murder”

The following is adapted from an article at the Huff-Watch blog.

On December 4, 2014, HuffPost ran this story as a “news” headline – an overt accusation that police officers “murdered” Eric Garner and other supposedly innocent people, and got away with it.

Attorney Ben Shapiro demolished HuffPost’s incendiary lie –

Huffington Post: Cops ‘Get Away With Murder’, by Ben Shapiro, Breitbart.com, December 4, 2014. Excerpt: First off, whatever you think of the case of Eric Garner, it would be extraordinarily difficult to sustain a murder finding against him. To murder someone, you must have intent to murder; not only isn’t that present in the Garner video, there is no evidence of such intent. As former prosecutor Andy McCarthy put it at National Review today, “Officer Pantaleo plainly did not intend to kill Mr. Garner; he applied force he judged necessary to take Garner down to the ground so Garner could be cuffed. That this ended up killing Garner was unexpected and tragic, not intentional or willful.” Second, only the most cynically exploitative journalistic outlet would lump together the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Brown robbed a convenience store, then attacked a police officer, attempted to take his gun, then charged the officer before being shot. Garner yelled at officers and waved his arms about before he was put in a submission hold by an officer and died of a suffocation brought on by combination of heart disease and asthma, not directly by the hold itself. Third, the Huffington Post suggests that all officers “get away with murder. That conveniently ignores another police shooting today with a very different outcome: in South Carolina, a grand jury indicted a white police chief for shooting a 54-year-old unarmed black man. But that wouldn’t flatter the pattern Huffington Post attempted to build of uncaring white juries everywhere excusing police aggression against black folks. That would also explain why the Huffington Post suggested that the shooters of Grant and Zongo and Stanley-Jones “got away with murder,” when in fact, Grant’s shooter, Officer Johannes Mehserle, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter; Zongo’s shooter, Officer Bryan Conroy, was convicted of criminally negligent homicide; and Stanley-Jones’ shooter, Officer Joseph Weekly, was indicted on involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun (two trials ended in mistrial).

(1.5) December 2014: “Rabbis Arrested After Reciting Kaddish For Eric Garner”

The following is adapted from an article at the Huff-Watch blog.

For two consecutive days, on December 6 and 7, 2014, HuffPost ran this inflammatory allegation as a “news” headline on its front page, alleging that rabbis were arrested after saying a prayer (kaddish) for Eric Garner:

Is that really what happened? Were these rabbis really arrested just for saying a prayer? Of course not.

As HuffPost knew, these rabbis were standing in a busy New York street intersection, and refused to move when ordered to by police. HuffPost’s original “news” story, however, mentioned none of that.

(The fact that HuffPost attempted to whitewash what really happened concerning these rabbis is laughable, given its pathological incitement of hatred against Jews and Israel. Who can forget its lie-filled “news” story, that Mitt Romney was chased away from a wedding by a “pack of Jews” ?)

(1.6) December 2014: “Can The Cops Be Stopped Before They Kill Again?”

The following is adapted from and article at the Huff-Watch blog.

On December 6, 2014 HuffPost positioned this inflammatory editorial screed, not on the left margin, where its opinion pieces go — but rather as a “news” item. How could any reasonable person view this as anything other than a call for direct action, if not violence, against police officers, everywhere?

Can The Cops Be Stopped Before They Kill Again?

(1.7) April 2015: “Cop throws rock at protester”

This case study is adapted from an article at the Huff-Watch blog.

This “news” story appeared at the top of HuffPost’s front page on April 27, 2015:

According to HuffPost, a police officer threw a rock at a presumably peaceful protester, presumably without provocation, and as a result, Baltimore was burning.

But is that really what happened? Of course not.

HuffPost knew it at the time its “journalist” constructed this “story.” For as shown in the headline on its story page headline, these police officers were throwing rocks back at protesters. And given the broader context — and the video of this incident (below) — it is certainly understandable:



Police Throw Rocks Back At Protesters In Baltimore, by Nick Wing, Huffington Post, April 28, 2015. Excerpt: Baltimore police officers targeted by rock-throwing protesters on Monday appeared to hurl projectiles toward crowds on at least two occasions. One photo shows a projectile, possibly a rock or piece of concrete, leaving an officer’s hand. Video taken from a helicopter appears to show another officer hurling objects toward protesters, including many who appeared to be teenagers. At least 15 officers were injured Monday as protesters launched rocks, bricks and other objects at police. Some of the projectiles were reportedly heavy enough to break police riot shields. Baltimore police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said two of the officers had been hospitalized, and that injuries included “broken bones.”

The Daily Mail (UK), had much more detail about the incident (emphasis added):

Violent protesters in Baltimore, Maryland injured several police officers on Monday, throwing bricks and rocks at the overwhelmed cops hiding behind riot armor. While most of the cops tried not to engage with the protesters, at least one officer was seen throwing the rocks right back at the mostly-young groups of rioters even as the nation watched on live TV. A photo taken by photographer Patrick Semansky captures the moment one police officer threw a rock back at protesters while his fellow cops looked on. […] Fifteen police officers were injured Monday – two seriously – in the clashes with angry mobs rioting over the death of Freddie Gray.

And here’s the video of the incident — notice the police being pummeled with rocks before, and especially after a lone officer picked up one of the rocks and threw it back at the rioters:

This is the same model HuffPost has been using for years: knowingly, falsely depicting violent attackers as victims, and their victims as the perpetrators. It has also used this deception-and-incitement model with particularly great effect in regards to depicting the Israel-Palestinian conflict, whenever the Jewish state is forced to respond to terrorist attacks; see SaveTheWest’s recent documentary about this issue here

(1.8) April 2015: “Re-Thinking Non-Violent Resistance”

On April 29, 2015, HuffPost positioned this editorial mid-way down its front page:

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page:

Re-Thinking Non-Violent Resistance, by Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, Executive Religion Editor, The Huffington Post, April 29, 2015. Excerpt: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and now we add Freddie Gray to the names of unarmed black Americans who have died at the hands of police. [STW: Notice that this implies the police officers decided to murder each of these individuals — without reference to the facts of the issues, which as shown elsewhere on this page, HuffPost systematically ignored, or dismissed.] Despite requests for peace from Freddie Gray’s family, Baltimore erupted in anger on Monday after the young man’s funeral. In moments of serious unrest, the reflex for politicians, media and religious leaders is to call for an end to violence. But, in the face of the systematic racism of America’s policing and prison system as well as crippling poverty that disproportionally affects the black community, how does non-violence work to actually solve the root of the problem? Or does it work at all? Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an impassioned piece in The Atlantic called “Non-Violence as Compliance” — in it he writes: When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community. […]

In sum, this editorial was HuffPost’s attempt to justify the violence that was resulting, at least in part, from its incessant lies and incitement about racial and police matters across America. It was but a preface, however, to another editorial it put on its front page, barely a year later, that explicitly advocated and justified the use of violence against political opponents; details here.

It should also be noted that the term “resistance” is used by numerous terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and others, as a code-word for their murderous acts. HuffPost didn’t bother to mention that fact, perhaps because for years it has been the unofficial voicepiece of Hamas, which claims that by raining rockets down on Israeli cities and murdering Jews, it is practicing “resistance.”

(1.9) December 2015: HuffPost smeared the vast majority of American police officers as being corrupt — but said smearing refugees from terror-prone countries, for the actions of a few, is wrong

In these two front-page articles, HuffPost demonstrated another of its double-jointed beliefs on vital national security matters.

In the first case, it applauded a video blogger (“vlogger”) who claimed that because a minority of police officers are bad, we should “replace the system.” Yet in the second instance, it explicitly claimed that just because a minority of Syrian refugees are or may be terrorists or terror supporters, it should not dissuade America from taking them in. Further, it falsely claims that America employs rigorous screening procedures — a claim that it knew, or should have known, is false, as our top national security officials have testified, in many or most cases, this is impossible to do.

Vlogger Shuts Down ‘But There Are Good Cops Too’ With Perfect Analogy, by Aaron Barksdale, Huffington Post, December 3, 2015. Excerpt: In the video, Kirk draws the parallel between police brutality and clean water. “If I live in a house where the water is coming out dirty sometimes I don’t just say ‘well, it’s not always dirty, so nothing is wrong.’ No, I need to replace the system,” he says.

vs.

Donald Trump Jr. Compares Syrian Refugees To Bowl Of Skittles; He grossly exaggerated the risk that a Syrian refugee could be a terrorist, by Marina Fang, Huffington Post, September 19, 2016. Excerpt: Donald Trump Jr. used a bowl of Skittles to claim that admitting Syrian refugees poses a threat to the United States, perpetuating an unfounded fear. The son of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted a graphic on Monday that warned of the danger of accepting Syrian refugees because some could be terrorists. […]

The comparison grossly overstates the proportion of refugees who have had ties to terrorist groups, and generalizes the process by which refugees and other types of immigrants come to the U.S. For reference, see sections 4 and 8 in this research report, produced by SaveTheWest.com, that demonstrates a sizable portion of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern nations (including on U.S. soil) believe in the radical Islamist ideology, and support ISIS. Also, see this December 2015 video by devout Muslim Raheel Raza, as she obliterates the notion that it is only a tiny minority of Middle-Eastern and North African Muslims who support sharia, the most oppressive, often violent fundamentalist beliefs, and who are seeking to emigrate to America: More: See this video by attorney Ben Shapiro further dissect the myth that it is only a “tiny minority” of Muslims from around the world who believe in sharia, including the most violent forms of it. The fact is, the vast majority of police officers whom HuffPost vilifies, and depicts as “bad,” end up being exonerated in courts of law, because they did nothing wrong. Yet it advocates replacing our entire law enforcement system, because of a micro-minority of bad cops. Yet in contrast, when a demonstrable, sizable minority of Syrian refugees are found to be radicalized, HuffPost attacks those who point out this reality.

(1.10) June 2016: Violence is “logical”; “Violent resistance matters. Riots can lead to major change”

Prior to June 6, 2016, HuffPost had systematically incited hatred against its enemies, through lies, deception and bias. Then, when violence was perpetrated against these enemies, it generally either ignored it, or put the perpetrators and the victims on the same moral playing field — if not expressed sympathy only for the former.

As shown in Section 1.8, HuffPost went one step further on April 29, 2015 — before Trump even announced his run for the presidency — when it publishing an editorial on its front page that questioned whether non-violent resistance should be “rethought.”

Then, on June 6, 2016, HuffPost removed all pretense of its supposed commitment to civility, when it published this explicit call for political violence and domestic terrorism on its front page:

Excerpts from:

Sorry Liberals, A Violent Response To Trump Is As Logical As Any, by Jesse Benn, Huffington Post, June 6, 2016. Amidst the hot takes and denunciations from liberals, they all seem to miss a few key points. First, they misplace the blame[…] they ignore the history of successful violent insurrection in the US, instead favoring the elementary school version of history in which nonviolence is the only means of struggle that’s ever achieved a thing. Violent resistance matters. Riots can lead to major change. It’s not liberal politicians or masses that historians identify as the spark underlying the modern movement for LGBTQ equality. Nor was it a think piece from some smarmy liberal writer.

Although this editorial does not incite violence against police officers, specifically, given (a) HuffPost’s previous, deliberate efforts to incite hatred against them, and (b) its ignoring or whitewashing the attacks on them from this date forward, it becomes clear that given its reach and influence, this editorial likely played at least some role in the physical attacks on police officers since then.

It should be noted that this editorial is a direct violation of HuffPost’s publicly-stated terms and conditions:

HuffPost prohibits materials that are… hateful, unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening… encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate.



(1.11) November 2016: “I will do my best to fuck up any bigot who fucks with you”

HuffPost published this “news” story on its front page on November 16, 2016.

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page:

These Buttons Want You To ‘F**k Up’ Bigots; Here’s an alternative to that safety pin you’ve been wearing, by Jenna Amatulli, The Huffington Post, November 16, 2016. Excerpt: Writer and editor Margaret Killjoy is selling 1″ buttons that “help you make clear your intention to, you know, fuck up bigots.” They look like this. […] “A friend of mine posted [online], ‘I don’t care if you wear a safety pin or not. I just want you to fuck up bigots.’ I wholeheartedly agreed,” Killjoy told The Huffington Post.

Although this “news” story does not incite violence against police officers, specifically, given HuffPost’s previous, deliberate efforts to incite hatred against them, particularly through the editorial contained in Section 1.8, it is clear that all American police officers fit into its “bigot” category:

unarmed black Americans… have died at the hands of police… [and] the systematic racism of America’s policing system…

Thus, while there may be no direct, conclusive line to this front-page item, and the ones cited in Sections 1.8 and 1.10, causing the rash of violence to America’s police officers — which HuffPost generally ignored — it is clear that items such as these could only help to pave the way for such attacks.

(1.12) March 2017: “Cops Fire Into Stolen Car, Killing 16-Year-Old Pregnant Teen”

On March 17, 2017, HuffPost published this story on its front page:

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page:

Cops Fire Into Stolen Car, Killing 16-Year-Old Pregnant Teen; “It’s not the same knowing she’s not going to be here tomorrow,” her uncle said, by Sebastian Murdock, Huffington Post, March 17, 2017. Excerpt: Police in Northern California fired into a stolen car on Tuesday, killing a pregnant teenager who was in the vehicle. Elena Mondragon, 16, was fatally shot while in the vehicle with three others. The car, which was reported stolen, had been connected to armed robberies in the Bay Area, KTVU reported. Officers with the Fremont Police Department cornered the car in an apartment complex and attempted to stop it. That’s when the male driver of the vehicle rammed into police cars, injuring two detectives, authorities told the press. During the incident, the two detectives fired at the car, hitting and killing Elena. She was in her first trimester, according to the coroner. “The female suffering from the gunshot wounds and was treated by the Hayward Fire Department at the scene and transported to a near-by trauma center where she succumbed to her injuries,” the Fremont Police Department said in a statement.

Why did HuffPost not give indication of the real reasons the police officers shot at the car, and the fact that two of them were injured, in its headline?

(1.13) June 2017: HuffPost top-of-the-front-page “news” article: “There Is No Justice For Black People Killed By Cops”

On June 16, 2017, a jury in Minnesota, comprised of ten white and two black people, found Officer Jeronimo Yanez not guilty in the 2016 shooting death of Philando Castile. The local paper, the St. Paul Star Tribune, covered the story here.

That evening, HuffPost published this “news” story at the top of the front page — asserting, as fact, that “There is no justice for black people killed by cops”:

Starting with that inflammatory, incendiary, opinionated premise, HuffPost opens its “news” story by catering to the “journalist’s” personal feelings on the matter:

AMERICAN CRY: There Is No Justice For Black People Killed By Cops, by Julia Craven, Huffington Post, June 16, 2017. Excerpt: It’s happening again. I have to write about Philando Castile, the 32-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a Minnesota police officer last July. I have to compose myself, sit at this laptop and write something profound about another black life taken by a police officer, another officer found not guilty for killing a black person. And, you know, I have nothing much to say.

After beginning to address some of the facts of the case, albeit in a way that gives all credibility to Castile, HuffPost left out of its “news” story what was apparently one of the facts that caused the jury to render a not guilty verdict: as reported in the Star Tribune:

Defense attorneys argued that Castile was culpably negligent in the shooting because he volunteered that he possessed a gun without disclosing that he had a permit to carry it, that he reached for it instead of keeping his hands visible, and that he was high on marijuana, rendering him incapable of following Yanez’s order not to reach for the gun. Yanez testified last week that he fired because he feared for his life.

Here, however, is how HuffPost depicted this alleged fact:

Yanez pulled the car over. Things escalated. Yanez shot seven times into the vehicle. He thought Castile was reaching for his weapon, a gun that Castile was licensed to carry and that he had informed the officer about moments before. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, says he was reaching for his wallet. She began filming on her phone. The resulting video, with Castile bleeding to death on camera as Reynolds calmly complies with the officer’s screamed instructions, is impossible to forget.

Notice that HuffPost selectively-edited the allegations in order to spin a one-sided narrative of the situation:

It insinuated that Castile had informed Officer Yanez about both his gun, and his permit to carry it — omitting the fact that the defense asserted that Castile never told Yanez that he had a carry permit.

It completely omitted the defense’s assertion that Castile was not following Officer Yanez’s commands, especially when instructed to not reach for his gun.

The rest of HuffPost’s “news” story contained more emotional appeals and opinions from its “journalist,” and more selective editing, that could be designed only to serve only one purpose: to whip up more hatred against American police officers, based on emotional appeals, half-truths and yellow journalism, and which, given HuffPost’s massive reach and influence, may well contribute to getting more police officers murdered.

UPDATE June 17: One juror came forward and explained that the two black jurors voted to acquit Officer Yanez

HuffPost’s egregiously biased editorial screed was published at 6:32pm on June 16. Nearly three hours earlier, however, at 3:50pm on June 16, the AP, HuffPost’s most often-cited news wire, reported:

3:50 p.m. A member of the jury that acquitted a Minnesota police officer of manslaughter in the shooting of a black motorist called deliberations “very, very hard” and says he thinks the panel delivered the right verdict. Dennis Ploussard says the jury was split 10-2 early this week in favor of acquittal for Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who was charged in the death of 32-year-old Philando Castile. Ploussard says jurors spent a lot of time dissecting the “culpable negligence” requirement for conviction. He says the last two holdouts eventually agreed on acquittal. Ploussard wouldn’t identify the two holdouts, but says they were not the jury’s only two black members.

HuffPost completely left this fact out of its story, as shown by this cached version of it taken at 8:40pm on June 17, more than 24 hours later. Furthermore, a cached version of HuffPost’s entire front page, also captured at 8:40pm on June 17, proves that it never put up a new story to reveal this reality.

Instead, as this screencap, taken at 8:40pm on June 17 shows, HuffPost maintained the original, biased, incomplete story at the top of its front page:

Analysis

HuffPost’s bias-by-omission n this incident closely parallels another it perpetrated, on November 23, 2016. In summary, it published a splash headline alleging that “Trump tanked with black, Hispanic voters,” thus fueling the narrative that the election was “won by the Klan,” and that “white people ruined America.”

The reality was, as HuffPost knew, or should have known, is that according to multiple detailed surveys that had been published prior to its shocking headline — including by the New York Times — Trump received more votes from black and Hispanic Americans than Gov. Romney did, four years earlier. See the documentation here.

Also note that in this case, HuffPost never corrected the record, but instead, dramatically escalated its efforts to incite racial hatred in America, based on what it knew or should have known were egregious, malicious lies.

(1.14) June 2017: HuffPost again falsely accused police officers of murdering black Americans, while omitting all essential context, such as the fact that juries — which included black members — exonerated the vast majority of them, and some of the cops were black

On June 23, 2017, HuffPost published this headline at the top of its front page:

That headline led to this story page, and the following opening sentences (screencap):

The Collective Déjà Vu Of Black America: We are stuck in a loop of violence and injustice, by Julia Craven, Huffington Post, June 23, 2017. We’ve been here before. Right here, at this very specific moment of anguish. Each time, it’s as though the world freezes and a familiar jolt zips through our bodies. Our vision blurs. Panicked, we look around to see if anyone else feels what we are feeling, to see if anyone else is in the grip of the same dismay. On June 20, two Seattle police officers shot and killed Charleena Lyles, a 30-year-old pregnant mother of three. The following day, the former Milwaukee police officer who shot and killed 23-year-old Sylville Smith in 2016 was found not guilty of reckless murder.

By HuffPost’s wording, these police officers murdered the cited individuals without any reasons — but presumably, only because they were black. The facts show otherwise:

In regards to Charleena Lyles, here are excerpts of how the Seattle Times presented the shooting, on June 18, 2017 — five days before HuffPost published this story:

Just after 10 a.m. Sunday, Seattle police responded after the woman had called to report an attempted burglary at her Magnuson Park apartment. At some point, police said, she displayed a knife and two officers shot and killed her. Relatives identified the woman as Charleena Lyles. Family members said she was several months pregnant and had been struggling with mental-health issues for the past year. They said she was concerned authorities would take her children, one of whom they said has Down syndrome. […] Police Detective Mark Jamieson said officers were alerted to “hazard information” in the system after a previous encounter with the woman, which prompted a two-officer response Sunday morning when she called to report an attempted burglary in her fourth-floor unit at Brettler Family Place apartments. “Officers were confronted by a 30-year-old woman armed with a knife,” the department wrote on its web blotter. “Both officers fired their duty weapons, striking the woman.”

HuffPost completely ignored all of that context — and instead decided to falsely depict Lyles’ death as a murder, perpetrated by racist Seattle police officers. Are there facts to be determined as to whether Lyles presented a clear and present danger to the officers? Clearly, yes. But that investigation has not been completed, and HuffPost knew it at the time it decided to smear the Seattle police officers as racist murderers.

Regarding the second incident, here are the facts, according to a compilation of local news sources, by Heavy.com:

A 23-year-old black man armed with a stolen gun was fatally shot Saturday afternoon by police in Milwaukee during a foot pursuit, authorities say. The man has been identified as Sylville Smith, police said. Smith was shot in the chest and arm, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said. [Smith] fled from a car during a traffic stop Saturday about 2:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin city’s North Side, police said in a press release. […] Mayor Tom Barrett said […] the officer ordered the man to drop his gun twice and then fired several times when he refused. Barrett said a photo from the body camera clearly shows Smith had the gun in his hand when he was killed.

Once again, HuffPost completely ignored all of those vital details, as to why Smith was shot. It also ignored another vital one: that as Heavy.com revealed, the police officer who ordered Smith to put his weapon down and surrender, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who was acquitted over the shooting, is also black:

Rather than an isolated incident, this article represents the latest installment of HuffPost’s pattern of consistently inciting hatred against police officers based on either lies or grossly decontexualized allegations, and increasingly, based on false accusations of racism.

To continue its race-based hate-propaganda, HuffPost also invited readers who are “always angry about politics” to join this “journalist’s” email list:

(1.15) August 2014, St. Paul, MN: “Police Allegedly Use Stun Gun On Black Father Waiting For His Kids”

Note: STW belatedly discovered this item.

On August 29, 2014, HuffPost published this inflammatory headline on its front page:

Did the police really use a stun gun on this man, just because he was waiting for his kids? No. And HuffPost knew it at the time it wrote and published this story, regarding an incident that occurred eight months earlier, on January 31, 2014. Here is the story page to which that headline led:

Police Allegedly Use Stun Gun On Black Father Waiting For His Kids, by Emily Thomas, Huffington Post, August 29, 2014. Excerpt: Chris Lollie says he was just sitting in front of a First National Bank in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, on Jan. 31, waiting to pick up his kids, when an employee from a nearby store approached him and asked him to move.[…] The footage begins as he walks with a female officer, explaining to her that he had been sitting outside the bank for 10 minutes before he was asked to leave. He tells the officer he didn’t see signs saying he was on private property and didn’t think it was fair that he was being asked to move. “The problem is I’m black,” he can be heard telling the officer. “That’s the problem. … I’m not sitting there with a group of people. I’m sitting there by myself. By myself, not causing a problem.” Shortly after, a male officer walks up to them, and the exchange becomes heated. Lollie appears to drops his cell phone as he is presumably restrained by officers. “Put your hands behind your back or you’re going to get tased,” a voice can be heard saying as Lollie frantically repeats that he hasn’t done anything wrong.

HuffPost also included the police statement regarding the incident:

Our officers were called by private security guards on a man who was trespassing in a private area. The guards reported that the man had on repeated occasions refused to leave a private “employees only” area in the First National Bank Building. With no information on who the man was, what he might be doing or why he refused to leave the area, responding Saint Paul police officers tried to talk to him, asking him who he was. He refused to tell them or cooperate. Our officers are called upon and required to respond to calls for assistance and to investigate the calls. At one point, the officers believed he might either run or fight with them. It was then that officers took steps to take him into custody. He pulled away and resisted officers’ lawful orders. They then used the force necessary to safely take him into custody. The man was charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstruction of the legal process. Those charges were dismissed in July. We have had a discussion with the man in the video and he was given information on how to file a formal complaint if that was his desire. At this time, no formal complaint has been filed.

Analysis

Clearly, Lollie was not just “waiting for his kids.” He was on private property, was asked to move out of the bank’s employee parking lot, he refused, he did not provide police with his identification when requested, and when he refused to comply with the rest of the police officers’ requests, they threatened that if he continued to act in this way, they would take him into custody. HuffPost knew all that at the time it wrote this headline, which it knew was both untrue and incendiary, and could only result in inciting hatred of police officers on a false basis.

Further, Lollie came forward with this story eight months after it occurred — and yet, never filed a complaint against the police department, for alleged racial bias, harassment, or anything else. Instead, he went to social media.

It is also crucial to consider the timing of HuffPost’s incendiary headline: this was two weeks after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, which it helped to turn into an orgy of lies, hate and incitement.

As shown throughout this page, this is the exact same model that HuffPost has used in the past, to create headlines based on lies and half-truths, infused with incendiary allegations and sympathetic pictures, that could only result in the incitement of hatred against police officers. It has also used this exact same model in order to incite hate against Israeli police officers.

HuffPost left this false, incendiary headline on its front page for three straight days

HuffPost published this headline on August 29, 2014. As the following screencaps show, it left the story there, in its original, deceptive form, on August 29-30-31:

(1.16) March 2016: HuffPost published a front-page editorial that falsely claimed that local police took Dylan Roof, who murdered nine black church members in South Carolina, to Burger King for dinner after the shooting, as a symbol of American racism



On March 23, 2016, HuffPost published the following editorial mid-way down its front page:

The editorial incited racist hatred against, and mocked Otto Warmbier, the American college student whom North Korea accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster, and sentenced him to fifteen years of hard labor. See SaveTheWest’s analysis here.

In the same article, HuffPost also smeared the Shelby, NC police department with a provable lie, that could only be designed to further incite racist hatred against American police officers.

In summary, HuffPost falsely claimed that the police officers put Roof, a white supremacist, into a bulletproof vest and took him to dinner at Burger King — after it arrested him for murdering nine black church parishoners:

North Korea Proves Your White Male Privilege Is Not Universal, by La Sha, Huffington Post, March 23, 2016. Excerpt: When you can watch a white man who entered a theatre and killed a dozen people come out unscathed, you start to believe you’re invincible. When you see a white man taken to Burger King in a bulletproof vest after he killed nine people in a church, you learn that the world will always protect you.

The writer’s link goes to this article at HuffPost, which claimed, accurately, that the Shelby, NC police bought food from Burger King for Roof — but it never put him in a bulletproof vest and took him to the restaurant.

HuffPost based its article on (and linked to) one in the Charlotte Observer, which reported the story accurately:

Shelby police chief describes arrest of Charleston shooting suspect, by Andrew Dunn, Mark Washburn and Michael Gordon, Charlotte Observer, June 19, 2015. Excerpt: In Shelby, the FBI handled Roof’s initial questioning, Ledford said. Shelby police’s lone conversation with the mass-murder suspect was about food. Earlier in the day, Roof had bought water and chips at a south Charlotte gas station. Now he was hungry. Police bought him food from a nearby Burger King, Ledford said.

Thus, HuffPost knew the reality at the time it published this article on its front page — yet it chose instead to project this incendiary lie about the Shelby, NC police department to be spread to the world, as being a racist department, and representative of racist police departments all across America.

SaveTheWest.com reached out to Shelby, NC Chief of Police Jeffrey Ledford on June 22, 2017, to ask him if what is in HuffPost’s editorial is accurate. Here is his official response:

“In response to your question: ‘Did police officers with the Shelby Police Department put Dylan Roof in a bulletproof vest, and bring him to Burger King for a meal, after he was arrested?’ That is absolutely not true. Roof was never taken to any restaurant to eat. He was provided food while in our custody, which is our obligation to do, to meet the needs of the prisoner. On that day, we actually provided lunch from Burger King (we use different food sources, Burger King being only one of them) for several people, who were at our headquarters, one of whom was Roof. No food is held on site, so all food is brought in from outside sources, depending on when it is needed. Just as it was on this day.”

Yet as of June 22, 2017, HuffPost’s incendiary, false, racist allegation is still published:

(1.17) July 2017: HuffPost published a front-page “news” story that falsely implied a police officer shot and killed a black “WalMart shopper,” without reason, but won’t be charged; HuffPost knew the truth, but chose to bury it



On July 11, 2017, HuffPost published this “news” story near the top of its front page:

Is that really what happened? A police officer (presumably white) was just bored, walked into a Walmart, and shot this black man to death? No. And HuffPost knew it, for months prior to publishing this headline.

That headline brought the reader to this story page:

Ohio Cop Who Fatally Shot Walmart Shopper John Crawford III Won’t Be Charged; The Justice Department said it can’t prove the officer violated the slain man’s civil rights, by Sebastian Murdock, Huffington Post, July 11, 2017. Excerpt (from opening): An Ohio police officer who fatally shot a black Walmart shopper holding an air rifle did not violate federal civil rights laws, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Beavercreek Police Officer Sean Williams, already cleared in a criminal investigation of the August 2014 shooting death of John Crawford III, will not be charged with any federal offenses, officials said in announcing the conclusion of their investigation. “This investigation revealed that the evidence is insufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Officer Williams violated federal civil rights laws,” the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District Ohio said in a statement. The offices “will not pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against Officer Williams.” Crawford’s family has been notified of the decision, the statement said. Crawford, 22, picked up a pellet gun while shopping in the Walmart toy section, prompting a 911 call from a customer who wrongly reported he was loading a rifle and pointing it at children. Store surveillance video showed Crawford casually walking around the store with the toy gun in one hand while talking on his cell phone. A short time later, Crawford is seen being fatally shot by Williams.

HuffPost knew from two years earlier (see Case Study 1.2 on this page) that its headline this time around was also intentionally deceptive. Because as its own version of the story at the time confirmed, and a more responsible one in the Washington Post showed, the video showed that the officers ordered Crawford to drop the rifle, but he refused to do so, after which they shot him. Yet this is how HuffPost falsely depicted Crawford’s shooting in a splash headline:

Yet as in the above case (Case Study 1.2), none of those facts made it into HuffPost’s headline, or sub-head, or anywhere near them. Instead, one has to travel to the sixth and seventh paragraphs to discover even its partially-correct version of the story.

It is also worth noting that HuffPost decided to pull this stunt for a second time, only six days after a New York City police officer was murdered by a man who posted anti-police rants on social media that mimic HuffPost’s incendiary half-truths and lies about them. See Case Study 2.13 on this page.

(1.18) September 2017: In the hours after the acquittal of a St. Louis, MO police officer of killing a black drug suspect, HuffPost published on its front page a “news” story containing only a self-produced “news video” that presented black people who were killed by police officers, insinuating that they were all shot for no reason other than their race

On September 15, 2017 a judge acquitted former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, who was accused of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith.

For context on the events that led up to this acquittal, see this overview by Heavy.com:

Anthony Lamar Smith: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, by Daniel S. Levine, Heavy.com, September 15, 2017.

At approximately 10:00pm, HuffPost published this “news” story at the top of its front page:

This is the story page to which that headline led:

Unsettling Pattern Continues As Former Cop Walks Free After Killing Black Man

A former St. Louis police officer was found not guilty in the 2011 death of Anthony Lamar Smith, adding his name to a growing list of officers who have walked free after the shooting deaths of black men and women.

Note that HuffPost included the officer’s name in neither the headline, nor this body copy — but did include the name of the man whom he was accused of murdering. This subtle act of dehumanizing the officer is a continuation of HuffPost’s behavior in this regard — to super-humanize the alleged victims of police racism, but not the officers themselves, almost every one of which has been exonerated from that which the “nonpartisan” newspaper accused them of doing.

The video in HuffPost’s “story” page, however, is the biggest problem, because as in many of the previous 17 case studies on this page, it only lists the faces and names of the black people who were killed by American police officers in recent years, while making no mention whatsoever of:

The fact that the police officers who shot them were white, black and Hispanic — further indicating that they were not shot because of white racism

The circumstances of the shootings — which in almost all cases was because the person who was shot was either brandishing a weapon, or the police officer claimed to have reason to believe that they were a threat

Here is HuffPost’s “news video”:

Given these facts, HuffPost’s massive reach, and the fact that published this video at the top of its front page within several hours of the judge’s acquittal of former officer Stockley, could only have contributed to:

The anti-police hatred on the ground in St. Louis

The hate that led, hours after its video was released, to nine local police officers were assaulted, with two suffering serious injuries

[Details of police assaults from 9/15]

The next day, September 16: HuffPost continued ratcheting up the anti-police incitement, by falsely claiming — visually and verbally — that police violently attacked peaceful protesters

As NBC News reported at 12:48pm the next day, September 16:

“Nine city officers were injured”

“Officers were hurt by thrown bricks, police said, and they had to use tear gas and pepper balls on the crowd”

“Agitators have converged on Mayor Krewson’s house. Throwing rocks and breaking windows”

At 1:30pm on September 16, HuffPost’s front page contained not a single headline about the fact that nine police officers had been injured as a result of being attacked by rioters. Instead, HuffPost positioned this “news” story at the top of its front page:

ST. LOUIS TURNS VIOLENT; Police In St. Louis Fire Tear Gas And Rubber Bullets In Clashes With Protestors

Notice that even though HuffPost knew or should have known that nine police officers had been injured in violent attacks by rioters, in this headline, it:

Falsely implied that the police had initiated the violence, by attacking the demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets. (Note: This is the exact same tactic that HuffPost uses repeatedly to incite hatred against Israel, when it must defend itself against Palestinian terrorists; it refuses to report the preceding attacks on the Jewish state, then only depicts Israel as “attacking”; examples on this page.)

Visually depicted the police, in riot gear, standing off against a lone, seemingly peaceful black male — thus reinforcing the false notion that underlies both the lies in this story, as well as almost all its other stories about police shootings of black males; specifically, that they had done nothing wrong, and were merely shot because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were standing up to police misconduct

UPDATE: September 30, 2017:Blue Lives Matter exposes major falsehood in allegations against Officer Stockley; HuffPost ignores

On September 30, 2017, the Blue Lives Matter blog, run by current and former police officers, published this blockbuster refutation of one of the central allegations that drove the riots:

We Were Lied To: Most Damning Evidence In Jason Stockley Indictment Was Revealed To Be False, by Andrew Blake, Blue Lives Matter, September 30, 2017.

HuffPost, once again, completely ignored this story, as its own search engine proves. An October 2, 2017 search using the title of this article returned zero results:

(1.19) September 2017: HuffPost falsely claimed that “riot police suppressed a peaceful demonstration” — when in fact its own “story” debunked this deceptive, inflammatory headline

Previously: Case studies 1.1, 1.4, 1.18

Continuing its pattern of inciting hatred against St. Louis, MO police officers, based on lies and deception, on September 21, 2017, HuffPost published this headline near the top of its front page:

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page:

ST. LOUIS POLICE SUPRESS PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION; Riot Cops In St. Louis Cracked Down On A Peaceful Protest Before The Sun Set, by Ryan J. Reilly, Huffington Post, September 21, 2017. Excerpt: And after police blocked demonstrators who were headed in the direction of a nearby highway, a St. Louis Metropolitan Police sergeant — who is a partner in a police tactical company and who helped lead the mass arrest of demonstrators and journalists in the downtown area on Sunday night ― declared the whole protest unlawful and threatened to lock up anyone who didn’t leave the area. In an email, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department explained: “When they [were] ordered to leave the roadway, they went onto private property. The owner of that property did not want them on their property, so they [were] given the order to disperse.”

HuffPost even featured a picture of the police blocking what it admitted was the “demonstrators'” intent to march down a roadway, towards the St. Louis Galleria shopping mall — the caption of which reads:

Riot police block Brentwood Boulevard by the St. Louis Galleria in Clayton, Missouri, as protesters attempt to march down the road Wednesday.

Note the similarity between the lie that undergirded this case study’s incendiary headline, and the lie that HuffPost told in Case Study 1.5, in which its headline alleged, “Rabbis Arrested After Reciting Kaddish For Eric Garner” — without mentioning that the rabbis were blocking a New York City street, and were only arrested after they refused police instructions to get out of the street.

UPDATE: PROTESTERS BARGE INTO HOTEL, TERRORIZE GUESTS

On September 21, 2017, the Gateway Pundit blog posted the following:

Black Lives Matter Protest Mob Busts Into STL Hotel – Walks Halls Chanting, Bangs on Doors (VIDEO); A #BlackLivesMatter group busted into the historic Cheshire Inn in St. Louis on Thursday. The protesters banged on doors and walked the halls chanting!, Gateway Pundit, September 21, 2017.

HuffPost completely ignored all of this data, as shown in this screencap of its front page, taken at 12:00pm on September 22, by the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive).

(1.20) August 2017 [belated discovery]: HuffPost published a front-page “news” story that claimed “police killed at least 233 black Americans” in the past year — and omitted all context for how these killings occurred

On August 24, 2017, HuffPost published this “news” story on its front page:

Police Killed At Least 223 Black Americans In The Year After Colin Kaepernick’s First Protest, by Travis Waldron, Huffington Post, August 24, 2017. Excerpt: Police and law enforcement officials killed at least 223 black Americans in the year after Kaepernick first began to protest, according to a HuffPost analysis of data compiled by The Washington Post and The Guardian. […] Two days after Kaepernick’s initial protest, police in Los Angeles shot and killed 18-year-old Kenney Watkins, a black teenager who, according to officers, was armed with a gun. Over the next 365 days, as numerous NFL players joined Kaepernick, police across the United States killed at least 222 other black Americans ― culminating with the death, on Aug. 13 of this year, of Patrick Harmon, a 50-year-old black man shot and killed by police in Salt Lake City.

Throughout the article, the general theme that HuffPost presented was that:

All or most of these black Americans were killed by police officers without justification

Or, as in the case of Kenney Watkins, because “according to officers” there was justification — not actual, factual, documented justification

We’ve addressed the means by which HuffPost maliciously deceived the public in this regard in the previous 19 case studies on this page. But in the case of Patrick Harmon, even after video evidence emerged as to why he posed such a threat to police officers who shot him, HuffPost once again completely ignored it.

Specifically, on October 5, 2017, BlueLivesMatter, a website run by current and former police officers, published the following story:

VIDEO: ‘Black Man Shot While Running Away’ Is Really A Felon Getting Taken Out Before He Kills Cops, by Officer Blue, BlueLivesMatter, October 5, 2017. Excerpt: Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has determined that the officer-involved shooting of Patrick Harmon, 50, on August 13 was legally justified. Body camera footage of the shooting has been released (multiple videos below.) “Activists” are now leaving out the details of the shooting and spreading low-quality body camera footage from the worst angle in an effort to convince people that the shooting was unjustified. Activism writer Shaun King called the shooting a “brutal execution.” Before the investigation was complete, KUTV 2 news reported that Harmon was a “victim” of a police shooting.

Blue Lives Matter described the key bodycam video as follows:

You can see the body camera footage from the shooting below. There are multiple videos, so keep scrolling to see the different angles. The first video provides a better angle of the encounter and is not the video that the activists are showing. After you see the video, please share this article and help spread the truth about what happened. WARNING: Graphic footage.

The Blue Lives Matter story was sourced from one at the Salt Lake Tribune (UT):

Bodycam footage shows SLC officer fatally shooting fleeing Utah man; D.A. says the killing was justified, by Mariah Noble, Salt Lake Tribune (UT), October 5, 2017. Excerpt: Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has cleared a Salt Lake City police officer who fatally shot a man on Aug. 13, after the man allegedly pulled a knife and threatened to injure officers trying to arrest him. Patrick Harmon, 50, whose most recent address, according to court records from November 2016, was the Road Home shelter, was shot about 10:20 p.m. at 1002 S. State St. […] Harmon pleaded with the officers to not take him to jail, an officer told investigators, and as police put the man’s hands behind his back to handcuff him, Harmon “bolted and ran.” As the three officers pursued him, the man “turned quickly” back toward them. The officer who originally contacted Harmon drew his stun gun, and another, Officer Clinton Fox, drew his gun. All three officers reported hearing Harmon threaten to cut them. They saw him reach toward his right pants pocket and that he had something in his hand, the report said. Fox later told investigators he saw a knife in Harmon’s hand with the blade exposed. He believed another officer was dangerously close to Harmon, he said. In the footage, Fox shouts, “I‘ll f—— shoot you!” before firing three rounds at Harmon. Simultaneously, the other officer fires his stun gun. Fox felt “terrified by how close Mr. Harmon was to the officers,” he told investigators. “Fox said that in ten years of law enforcement and two military deployments, it was the scariest situation he had ever been in,” according to the report.

HuffPost’s search engine proves it completely ignored this development

An October 7, 2017 search using the string “Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill cleared Patrick Harmon video knife” returned zero results.

Instead, here’s a sampling of five of the “news” stories that appeared on HuffPost’s front page in the following three days:

29 Couples Boudoir Photos That Are Almost Too Hot To Handle

Trump’s ‘P***y’ Tape Is Playing All Day In The Shadow Of A Giant Phallus

Miley Cyrus Shares Why Liam Hemsworth Literally Could Not Quit Her

Woman Takes Selfies With Her Catcallers To Show How Often It Happens

The One Person It Always Pays To Have An Affair With

(1.21) October 2017: HuffPost published a front-page story that claimed “U.S. Government Drastically Undercounted The Number Of Civilians Killed By Cops In 2015” — with zero context, and no accounting for how many police officers were killed by such “civilians” [UPDATE: Less than 24 hours after this story went live, a New Orleans police officer was ambushed and shot to death]



On October 12, 2017, HuffPost published this story on its front page:

That headline led to this story page. Several things to note: As in the front page headline, HuffPost matched this incendiary allegation, which contains zero context, with a picture of a black person with their hands in the air, and “Don’t Shoot” written on them — continuing to spread the completely discredited allegation that Michael Brown was begging for his life, and said that, before he was shot:

U.S. Government Drastically Undercounted The Number Of Civilians Killed By Cops In 2015; U.S. police killed 1,166 people – more than three a day – in 2015, but an official government count missed a majority of the deaths, a new study shows, by Ronnie Cohen, Huffington Post (via Reuters), October 12, 2017. Excerpt: U.S. police killed 1,166 people – more than three a day – in 2015, but an official government count missed a majority of the deaths, a new study shows. The Guardian, a U.K.-based newspaper and media company with U.S. and international editions, counted 93 percent of the U.S. police-related deaths, while the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics counted only 45 percent, the report in PLOS Medicine found. “It is kind of absurd that a British newspaper is able to do a better job counting the number of killings by police than the CDC or the Department of Justice,” said lead author Justin M. Feldman, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “If we as a society want to improve policing and have fewer deaths, we need better data about the circumstances of these deaths to improve training, policies and to hold police departments accountable,” he said in a phone interview.

Notice that neither HuffPost nor the Guardian — a notorious, far-left British newspaper that has been caught repeatedly propagating anti-Semitic libels — provided any context for why police officers killed even one of these civilians. The way the article is framed, as in the previous 20 case studies on this page, is that police officers are indiscriminately murdering “civilians” (as opposed to… whom?).

The net effect of this article, matched with the inflammatory, lie-based image that HuffPost chose to run with it, can only be to incite more worldwide hatred against American police officers, by depicting them as murderers — and governments at all levels trying to conceal their murder sprees of “civilians.”

UPDATE 1: Less than 24 hours after this story went live, a New Orleans police officer was ambushed and shot to death



On October 13 at 4:41am, the Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) published the following story:

NOPD officer shot and killed in New Orleans East, by Laura McKnight and Emily Lane, Times-Picayune, October 13, 2017 at 4:14 AM. A New Orleans police officer was shot and killed early Friday (Oct. 13) in the 6800 block of Cindy Place in New Orleans East, according to the NOPD. The shooting took place near an apartment complex about 12:14 a.m., said Superintendent Michael Harrison. Four officers were on routine patrol when they were fired upon and one of the officers collapsed, he said. The officers returned fire and the suspect, who was struck, fled to an apartment, Harrison said. The officer who was hit was taken to University Medical Center, where he died, he said.

UPDATE 2: HuffPost completely ignored both the murder, and the officer’s identity; see Case Study 2.23

(1.22) March 2018: HuffPost depicted an illegal alien who was arrested for running a human trafficking operation as a victim of wrongful, cruel police action



On March 10, 2018, HuffPost published this story on its front page:

Clicking on that headline led to this page:

Border Patrol Rips Undocumented Mom From Daughters In Emotional Video; Officers in California tore a mother from her crying daughters in broad daylight, by Carla Herreria, Huffington Post, March 10, 2018. Excerpt: Border Patrol officials in Southern California are defending their actions after a dramatic video of agents arresting an undocumented mother as her daughters watched on went viral this week. The video, filmed last Saturday, shows agents pulling 36-year-old Perla Morales-Luna away from her crying daughters on a street corner in National City, California. The agents drive off quickly after placing Morales-Luna in the backseat of a Border Patrol vehicle, and her daughters appear to be left on the street confused. Judith Castro-Rangel, who identifies herself as a teacher of one of Morales-Luna’s daughters, posted the video on Thursday to Facebook, where it has been viewed more than 10 million times. The violent and insensitive nature of the arrest has outraged human rights and immigration activists.

But is that really what happened? Did the agents of the U.S. Border Patrol really do anything wrong here?

Judge for yourself — here’s the actual story, from the local CBS affiliate, which was published on March 9 — one day before HufffPost published its “story”:

Woman Arrested In Emotional Viral Video Is Part Of Criminal Smuggling Operation, Says Border Patrol, by CBSLocal.com (Studio City, CA), March 9, 2018. Excerpt: An emotional video of a woman getting shoved into a border patrol vehicle as her children look on helplessly has gone viral, but authorities say the woman is part of a criminal organization. The video of the woman being apprehended by Customs and Border Protection agents in National City near San Diego was posted to Facebook Thursday morning. […] Despite the emotional response to the video, Customs and Border Protection officials said the woman is an organizer for major, “transnational criminal smuggling organization,” and that she was arrested for being in the United States without legal documentation. In a tweet, they identified the woman as Perla Morales-Luna.

Perla Morales-Luna was identified as an organizer for a transnational criminal smuggling organization operating in East County, San Diego. She was arrested as a result of a targeted operation on March 3, 2018, in National City for being in the country illegally. — CBP San Diego (@CBPSanDiego) March 9, 2018



Also from March 9, from the Washington Examiner:

The ‘scandal’ of Perla Morales-Luna’s arrest is fake news, by Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner, March 9, 2018. Excerpt: The arrest of Perla Morales-Luna on March 3 in San Diego is an absolute nonscandal. Yes, at first glance the video looks a little concerning. It shows a mother being separated from her screaming family as Customs and Border Patrol officers struggle to put her in the back of a vehicle. But only at first glance. Because if you watch again you’ll see that the CBP officers use proportionate force and good efficiency in getting Morales-Luna off the street and into custody. That’s the best way to ensure no one is harmed and the situation isn’t escalated unnecessarily. Moreover, the CBP wasn’t simply detaining Morales-Luna because she was just a random illegal immigrant. As the CBP notes:

More — also from March 9, which HuffPost included near the end of its article, prefaced by this copy passage:

Border Patrol spokesman Theron Francisco told the Los Angeles Times that Morales-Luna was being held on suspicion of being in the country illegally.

Just one tiny problem: that is only a small part of what the CBP actually said, in the Tweet that HuffPost itself cited. The rest stated:

“Perla Morales-Luna was identified as a human smuggling facilitator who recruited drivers to transport illegal aliens from a remote border area in eastern San Diego County to a stash house in National City as part of a larger transnational criminal organization. Other individuals associated with this criminal organization were arrested shortly after a smuggling event transpired in January of 2018 near Boulevard, California. “Ms. Morales-Luna eluded arrest at that time, and despite direct phone conversations between her and U.S. Border Patrol agents, she refused to self-surrender to authorities.” “The video clearly shows the arresting agents carried out their duties appropriately, even when faced with a barrage of insults and confrontational agitators.”

More — from March 8, two days before HuffPost’s article:

Border Patrol: Viral video shows agents nabbing smuggling ‘organizer,’ not separating family, by Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times, March 8, 2018. Excerpt: Facebook videos showing Border Patrol agents arresting a woman in San Diego went viral Thursday, with immigrant-rights activists saying they show a woman being torn from her children — but the agency said she was actually an “organizer” for a major smuggling operation. Activists seized on the videos as evidence of overbearing enforcement. But the Border Patrol said the woman was a justified target, given her involvement with a smuggling operation and her unauthorized status here in the U.S. […] At the end of one video, a man insults the Border Patrol agents by referring to them with a homophobic slur.

Knowing all that, let’s review the headline that HuffPost chose to construct for this “story”:

“Border Patrol Rips Undocumented Mom From Daughters In Emotional Video; Officers in California tore a mother from her crying daughters in broad daylight”

Notice certain things about this “news” headline:

HuffPost refers to the woman not as an illegal alien, which according to the federal government’s code since the 1950s, she is.

HuffPost completely ignored the reason that it knew, or should have known, why the Border Patrol arrested her.

HuffPost implied that the Border Patrol officers used excessive, unnecessary force in arresting the woman; what were they to do, if she refused to comply with their orders?

Instead, HuffPost turned the accused perpetrator into the victim, and the Border Patrol officers into the position of the bad guys — which is part of its long-term pattern of such reality-inversion “journalism,” as documented in the more than 60 case studies on this page.

(1.23) December 2014: HuffPost published an incendiary, front-page headline that claimed a police officer shot and killed a black teenager in St. Louis, MO

On December 24, 2014, HuffPost published this headline on its front page. This screencap was taken at 6:46am:

Notice that HuffPost’s headline provided no context; why was the black teen fatally shot? Given the previous case studies on this page of HuffPost’s relentless incitement against police officers, and its chronic racist bias and incitement, one might assume that this was another alleged incident of a police officer shooting a black person for no reason.

The reality is that HuffPost knew exactly why he was shot, at the time it published this incendiary headline — but decided to remove that essential context.

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page. Note that in the second paragraph, HuffPost admitted why police say the man was shot:

Antonio Martin, Black Teenager, Fatally Shot By Police 2 Miles From Ferguson, by Sebastian Murdock, Huffington Post, December 24, 2014, 03:07am EST. Excerpt: A black teen was fatally shot by an officer on Tuesday night just two miles from Ferguson, Missouri, police said. Antonio Martin, 18, who police say pointed a gun at the officer, was shot late Tuesday night at a Mobil gas station in Berkeley, Missouri, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The alleged victim’s mother, Toni Martin, confirmed to the Post-Dispatch that her son had been shot by police.

Further, HuffPost included video footage of the incident — at the bottom of its “story” page:

The St. Louis County Police released some video footage Wednesday from the gas station’s security cameras of the police officer arriving on the scene and the movements leading up to the shooting:

Several hours later, the Guardian (UK) sprovided actual reporting on the incident, backing up the police officers’ account of what happened, and why they were forced to shoot the teen. Note the fundamentally different, accurate headline that the Guardian chose to employ:

Antonio Martin shooting: surveillance video shows victim raising a gun, by Matthew Weaver and Ed Pilkington, The Guardian (UK), December 24, 2014 (13:18 EST). ♦ Police say teenager was shot dead after drawing a gun in Berkeley, Missouri ♦ Video footage appears to back police version of events ♦ Angry protesters clashed with police at the scene ♦ Four arrested for assaulting police officer ♦ Antonio Martin named locally as man shot dead

HuffPost’s pivotal role in inciting racist hate and violence on the ground where this shooting occurred

[Coming]

(1.24) April 2018: HuffPost gave top coverage to its depiction of four NYPD officers as racist murderers, on what it knew was a false and grossly decontextualized basis, then ignored, downplayed and whitewashed information that exonerated them



Summary:

HuffPost published a front page splash headline that claimed NYPD officers “Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Man On Brooklyn Street.”

HuffPost knew at the time that he was shot only because numerous people called 911 to report he was pointing a gun in people’s faces, then when confronted by NYPD officers, assume a “shooting stance,” pointing what appeared to be a gun at them, at which point they opened fire.

Soon after the NYPD released surveillance video of what preceded the 911 calls, which confirmed what witnesses and police reported — but HuffPost did not publish a new headline to indicate this for another 30 hours. Instead, it continued depicting the man as a victim of white police officers’ racism, and gave top coverage to his family calling the officers “murderers.”

Other information emerged about the man, as having had nearly twenty years of severe mental illness, resulting in bizarre, violent criminal behavior, in which he threatened to attack his mother, and laid in the street, eating rocks. HuffPost completely ignored all of this information

APRIL 4, 10:00pm ET: HuffPost published original splash headline regarding this incident

At approximately 10:00pm on April 4, 2018, HuffPost published this as its splash headline:

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this “story” page — an original item written by one of its “journalists” (as opposed to publishing a wire story). Notice the inflammatory wording of this headline:

“New York Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Man On Brooklyn Street”

What conclusion could the uninformed reader who stumbles across this headline reasonably come to, except that several white racist police officers with the NYPD were driving around, bored, looking for a black person to shoot, and then murdered this poor, unarmed victim?

This is especially true given the fact that for years, HuffPost has been using its front page to deliberately, maliciously incite racist hatred, and hatred against police officers.

Just one tiny problem: HuffPost’s own story proves it knew that this headline was grossly decontextualized, and could only result in the incitement of racial hatred against the NYPD on false grounds, before it hit the “publish” button.

Here are the facts, cited from HuffPost’s own story. Note that the following copy is validated via the screencap pasted below it, which was taken at 11:32pm on April 4:

New York Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Man On Brooklyn Street, by Antonia Blumberg and Nick Visser, Huffington Post, April 4, 2018, 8:18pm. Excerpt: NYPD received several 911 calls of a man described as a male black, wearing a brown jacket, pointing what is described as a silver firearm to people on the street,” Monahan said. When officers arrived, they saw a man matching that description. “The suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers,” the police chief said. Four officers, three in plainclothes and one in uniform, fired 10 rounds among them, striking the man.

APRIL 5, 12:16AM EST: SaveTheWest editor exposed HuffPost’s decontextualized headline and racist anti-police incitement on Twitter; Soon after, it slightly modified its sub-headline to reflect some of the reality

At 12:16am EST (9:16 PST), Jon Sutz, SaveTheWest’s consulting editor, posted the following Tweets, the first of which contained a HuffPost tag, to expose its naked effort to incite racist hatred against the NYPD:

Apparently, @HuffPost is on a new jihad to get police officers killed, based on lies and raw incitement. Is this true? It ought to be, it’s the front page splash headline. See the answer in the reply comment. pic.twitter.com/GGLfxQaqIu — Jon Sutz (@JonSutz) April 5, 2018

Well no, it’s not exactly true. From HuffPosts own “news” story: “[T]he NYPD received several 911 calls of a man described as a male black, wearing a brown jacket, pointing what is described as a silver firearm to people on the street,”https://t.co/zSTpty4wp9 — Jon Sutz (@JonSutz) April 5, 2018

“When officers arrived, they saw a man matching that description. The suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers,” the police chief said.https://t.co/zSTpty4wp9 — Jon Sutz (@JonSutz) April 5, 2018

“Four officers, three in plainclothes and one in uniform, fired 10 rounds among them, striking the man. The officers then called for an ambulance, Monahan said, and the man was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.”https://t.co/zSTpty4wp9 — Jon Sutz (@JonSutz) April 5, 2018

Soon after these Tweets, HuffPost edited the sub-headline of its story, from “The shooting comes just two weeks after the killing of Stephon Clark by police in California” (documented earlier, and here), to provide some reality-based context:

Before:

Sub-headline: “The shooting comes just two weeks after the killing of Stephon Clark by police in California”

After:

Sub-headline: “The man was pointing a pipe at people that police and 911 callers mistook for a gun”

Note that Tax Act appears to be visibly enabling and legitimizing HuffPost’s deliberate, continuing pattern of turning reality on its head in order to incite racist hatred, and hatred against police officers. If, after reading the rest of this case study, you’d like to let its senior executives know your thoughts on this matter, click on the link. Please be polite and concise.

Soon after, the perpetrator was identified as a Muslim man



The perpetrator was identified by family members as Saheed Vassell. According to several Muslim websites, his first name, “Saheed,” means “lucky, blissful.”

APRIL 5, 11:45AM: HuffPost published a new story that was similarly deceptive, and made the NYPD officers look both incompetent and racist



At 11:45am on April 5, HuffPost published the following story, mid-way down its front page. Notice that it still was denying the NYPD’s description of what happened, and actually made it worse, by implying that Vassell had done nothing wrong, was just “holding a pipe when he was fatally shot”:

Clicking on that headline led to the following story page. Notice that HuffPost falsely depicted both the witnesses’ and police officers’ claims, by claiming Vassell “was possibly holding a gun” — instead of the fact that both articulated a clear belief that (a) he was holding a gun, and (b) he was pointing it at various people and threatening them:

State Attorney General Launches Investigation Into NYPD Killing Of Black Man; The man was holding a pipe when he was fatally shot, by Sebastian Murdock, Huffington Post, April 5, 2018, 11:45 am ET. Excerpt: The New York attorney general’s office is opening an investigation into the police killing of a black man in Brooklyn that occurred Wednesday afternoon. Four New York City Police Department officers confronted the man, 34-year-old Saheed Vassell, after receiving 911 calls about a man possibly holding a gun. It was later found he was holding only a pipe. After officers arrived, “the suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers,” Police Chief Terence A. Monahan said in a news briefing Wednesday.

HuffPost then depicted Vassell as a benevolent victim who had done nothing wrong:

Vassell’s father, Eric, told NY1 that his son had bipolar disorder and was a “kind” person. “He’s polite, nice, he’s kind. He just comes and he goes,” Vassell told NY1. He told The New York Times that his son would “just walk around the neighborhood and help people.”

Slightly more than two hours later, however, the NYPD released surveillance videos that showed this “polite, nice, kind” person doing exactly what its officers and witnesses alleged — which HuffPost completely ignored for the next 31 hours.

APRIL 5, 2:00PM EST: The NYPD released surveillance videos that clearly show the legitimacy of the reasons why citizens called 911, and why officers were in fear for their lives — which HuffPost completely ignored for the next 31 hours

At approximately 2:00pm on Thursday, April 5, the NYPD released surveillance videos from nearby stores that clearly show Vassell doing exactly what witnesses described, and which caused them to call 911 about a man with an apparent gun, pointing it at and threatening people.

This screencap, taken of a Google search at 9:50pm on April 6, using the string “nypd release video shooting,” shows how many (responsible} news organizations published these videos at the time:

CBS News, for example, published this story at 2:11pm on April 5:

NYPD releases surveillance video, 911 calls in police shooting of Brooklyn man, by CBSNews.com (with AP), April 5, 2018, 2:11 PM. Excerpt: In a somewhat unusual move Thursday, the New York City Police Department released surveillance video and partial 911 calls related to the fatal police shooting of Brooklyn man believed to be mentally ill. Saheed Vassell, 34, was shot by police after they received multiple reports of a man pointing what appeared to be a gun at people in the Crown Heights neighborhood around 4 p.m Wednesday.

APRIL 5, 8:17PM: HuffPost published a new story about the shooting, which included the surveillance videos — but its headline only said “protesters demand justice for … unarmed black man shot by cops; ‘They murdered my son’….”

At 8:17pm on April 5, HuffPost published this story on its front page: Note that HuffPost published this headline six hours after it knew that the surveillance videos and 911 call transcripts had been released.

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page. Notice that there is a video at the top of the page, which HuffPost produced for this story (that is its distinct typeface and underlining style):

Protesters Demand Justice For Saheed Vassell, Unarmed Black Man Shot By Cops In NYC; “They murdered my son, and I want justice,” his mother said, by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Huffington Post, April 5, 2018, 8:17pm ET. Excerpt: Hundreds of people rallied in New York City on Thursday evening to call for justice for Saheed Vassell, an unarmed black man who was shot by police the day before. Activists gathered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where New York City police shot at the 34-year-old father 10 times and killed him on Wednesday. Police were responding to reports of a man wielding a gun, but later determined that the object Vassell had allegedly pointed at them was “a pipe with some sort of knob on the end of it.” Standing on the corner where her son, who had bipolar disorder, had been killed the day before, Vassell’s mother, Lorna, gave an emotional address to the crowd. “He did not deserve [for] a piece of iron in his hand for a cop to kill him,” she said, adding that her son came from a good family and was well loved by all who knew him. “It’s unjustified, and I want justice. They murdered my son, and I want justice for him.”

Notice what is missing entirely from this headline and opening copy, all of which depicts Vassell as a pure victim of racist, murderous NYPD officers: any mention of the fact that surveillance videos emerged that confirmed both eyewitnesses’ and NYPD officers’ accounts: that Vassell was pointing what clearly appeared to be a gun directly at people.

Was HuffPost really unaware of the surveillance videos? No. We know this because HuffPost inserted clips from them into the video it produced for this story — the following screencap is from the 00:19 second mark:

Here is HuffPost’s own video, which it produced sometime between 2:00pm and 8:17pm on April 5; look at the portion from 00:15 – 00:22 seconds:

Thus, if one only casually read the headline of this story, and had been getting their “news” only from HuffPost’s front page, they would have absolutely no idea that these videos or 911 call transcripts emerged. They would only have the impression that Vassell was a victim of racist, murderous NYPD officers, for which his family and protesters were now demanding “justice.”

This impression was planted in their minds deliberately by HuffPost, to conceal the reality of what happened to Vassell — and why.

APRIL 5, 10:40PM: The NY Post published a detailed account of Vassell’s 19-year history of severe mental disturbance and violence, including against NYPD officers — which HuffPost completely ignored



At 10:40pm on April 5, two hours after HuffPost published its video, the NY Post published the following article, indicating how deeply disturbed and violent Vassell had been, for nearly 20 years, including against police officers:

Man killed by NYPD had bizarre run-in with cops in 2008, by Tina Moore and Bruce Golding, NY Post, April 5, 2018, 10:40pm EST. Excerpt: Saheed Vassell had three run-ins with cops as an “emotionally disturbed person” — including an incident during which he ate rocks in the street while not wearing pants, The Post has learned. Vassell was taken in for psychiatric treatment following that episode, which took place in 2008 and began when he was spotted running through traffic on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue clad in a pair of boxer shorts, a high-ranking NYPD source said. Vassell later lay down in the street, banging his head on the pavement and eating rocks, the source said. He was also hospitalized in 2011 when EMS responded to a 911 call from Vassell’s mom, who said he hadn’t taken his medication and was violent and irrational, the source said. […] Vassell’s rap sheet lists 28 arrests and dates to 1999, when he was busted on a charge of first-degree gang assault.

HuffPost’s search engine proves it completely ignored these facts

An April 7 search at 9:05am using the string “Saheed Vassell ate rocks 28 arrests” returned zero results:

Note that American Express and SonaBank appear to be visibly enabling and legitimizing HuffPost’s deliberate, continuing pattern of turning reality on its head in order to incite racist hatred, and hatred against police officers. If, after reading the rest of this case study, you’d like to let their senior executives know your thoughts on this matter, click on the links. Please be polite and concise.

(Note: A follow-up search at 12:20pm on April 8 reveals the same lack of any reference to Vassell’s criminal history — visibly supported by the New York Times and pharmaceutical maker Hologix)

APRIL 6, 8:00PM (est.): HuffPost published on its front page a sidebar item with a headline claiming the NYPD had released surveillance video of “Saheed Vassell’s Final Moments” — but nothing to indicate why he was shot

The following screencap was taken of HuffPost’s front page at 11:15pm on Friday, April 6; the arrow indicates this story (we’ll discuss the other stories indicated with solid lines, that HuffPost decided deserved higher positioning than this one, in a moment):

Note that the headline copy says nothing about why Vassell was shot, and the picture is too small to make anything out; he almost looks as if he is dancing on a sidewalk:

“NYPD Releases 911 Transcripts, Footage Of Saheed Vassell’s Final Moments”

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this story page, which HuffPost claims was published at 7:14pm:

NYPD Releases 911 Transcripts, Footage Of Saheed Vassell’s Final Moments; Police fatally shot Vassell, an unarmed black man, on Wednesday, by Antonia Blumberg, Huffington Post, April 6, 2018, 7:14pm.

Keep in mind, however, that such items normally do not immediately appear on HuffPost’s front page; there are reportedly several editorial reviews, and the front page editor must manually insert it into a specific position — whether as a sidebar item, or a feature item, which are placed along the center columns. It is for this reason that we estimate this item did not appear on HuffPost’s front page until 8:00pm, if not after.

The bottom line is that even though HuffPost knew at 2:00pm the previous day that the NYPD had released these videos, and that they showed what really happened, it refused to publish a story with that headline, until 30 hours later — at est. 8:00pm on a Friday night — long after its original, false narrative had become ingrained in its readers’ minds.

And even now, nothing in its headline or sub-headline indicated in any way that HuffPost had, once again, deliberately misled its readers, into believing that this was a case of racist white police officers who “murdered” an unarmed black man on a street, with no reason whatsoever.

It should also be noted that it is not until the end of the article that HuffPost bothered to mention any of Vassell’s mental health history:

The victim’s father, Eric Vassell, told NY1 on Wednesday that his son had bipolar disorder and had been “sick for a long time.” Neighbors and local police officers also said they knew Vassell to be mentally ill and to drink heavily. Vassell had been taken to the hospital several times in recent years for mental health treatment, according to The New York Times.

This acknowledgement begs the questions:

Why was he not an impatient in an appropriate facility?

Who was buying him the alcohol he was consuming so “heavily”?

Did these combined factors lead to him pointing what any reasonable person, or police officer, would believe is a gun at them?

HuffPost asked none of these questions. This jaw-dropping omission is almost identical to the fact that HuffPost also never gave top publicity to the fact that numerous mental health professionals in Parkland, FL had warned about Nikolas Cruz’s deteriorating condition, and many others had warned law enforcement personnel at both the local and federal level of his escalating threats, including that he was going to “become a school shooter.” Instead, HuffPost was on another one of its “propaganda jihads” to blame entire massacre on the NRA, which it depicted as “a terrorist organization” for two straight days at the top of its front page:

February 16, 2018: At the top of the front page

February 17, 2018: The splash headline

The above became a consistent theme at HuffPost in the following days and weeks: That the primary villains in the Parkland school shooting were (a) The NRA, (b) The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Similarly, in the case of Saheed Vassell, HuffPost constructed another false narrative: that the villains were the police officers who fired their weapons at a man who was pointing a gun directly at them.

So what kinds of news stories did HuffPost decide deserved higher placement on its front page than its headline about the surveillance videos that revealed the reality of the Vassell shooting?

Here’s a sampling (see screencap above, or here):

Anchorage Votes No On Anti-Transgender Bathroom Proposition

In An Extraordinary Act Of Defiance, Denver Post Urges Its Owner To Sell The Paper

More Than 100,000 California Teenagers Are Now Preregistered To Vote

APRIL 7, 1:40PM: HuffPost moved the story of the video footage release down to middle of page

The following screencap was taken at 1:40pm on April 7, containing the exact same headline wording in its story page — putting all the blame for Vassell’s shooting on the police officers, clearly intent on inciting racist hatred against them based on this false allegation:

So what kinds of “news” stories did HuffPost decide to position higher on its front page, at the same time — with big, clear pictures to accompany them?

Here’s a sampling; the following screencaps were taken from this full-page screencap, captured at 1:15pm on April 7 by the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive), moving down the front page:

APRIL 8: HuffPost removed the Vassell story from its front page — and put up an op-ed that made more explicit inflammatory, racist claims about police officers — based on what it knew was a false basis

The following screencap is from this full-page screencap by the Wayback Machine, taken at 8:15pm on April 8, which shows that the Vassell story had been removed, but this one was posted:

Clicking on that headline brought the reader to this page:

I Can’t Watch Yet Another White Cop Kill Yet Another Black Man; These videos function much like lynchings. They show black people that their lives are at the mercy of whiteness, by Brandi Miller, Huffington Post, April 8, 2018.

Notice how all context is absent from HuffPost’s headline and sub-headline, as to how and why these shootings occurred. With the facts that provide that context not present –after having been deliberately downplayed, if not suppressed altogether — HuffPost actually compares these police shootings, to roving gangs of corrupt white police officers in the Deep South during the early part of the 20th century, lynching black Americans due exclusively to racist hatred, and would conjure up historical imagery such as:

Notice also that HuffPost claimed the police officers in these recent shootings were white. Yet as HuffPost’s own stories regarding the Vassell shooting show, police have not released the racial makeup of the police officers who shot him. See for yourself:

New York Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Man On Brooklyn Street, by Antonia Blumberg and Nick Visser, Huffington Post, April 4, 2018, 8:18pm. Excerpt:

State Attorney General Launches Investigation Into NYPD Killing Of Black Man; The man was holding a pipe when he was fatally shot, by Sebastian Murdock, Huffington Post, April 5, 2018, 11:45 am ET.

Protesters Demand Justice For Saheed Vassell, Unarmed Black Man Shot By Cops In NYC; “They murdered my son, and I want justice,” his mother said, by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Huffington Post, April 5, 2018, 8:17pm ET.

NYPD Releases 911 Transcripts, Footage Of Saheed Vassell’s Final Moments; Police fatally shot Vassell, an unarmed black man, on Wednesday, by Antonia Blumberg, Huffington Post, April 6, 2018, 7:14pm.

So why would HuffPost publish such an incendiary, false editorial on its front page, after it had already stoked such anti-NYPD racist hatred — if not to continue turning up the heat, the hatred, and the potential for anti-police violence, across America, based on lies and egregious distortions?

That’s a question that only HuffPost’s senior management can answer. You can ask them here.

(2) Ignoring hate crimes, violence, threats and incitement against police officers (and police animals)



HuffPost has steadfastly avoided publishing any of the hate crimes and terroristic threats that were leveled against police officers, across America, which one can only presume, based on Section 1, it helped to incite.

(2.1) November 2014: Notorious hate preacher Louis Farrakhan told followers — on video — that if black protesters’ demands are not met, they should “tear this goddamned country apart, and instructed parents to teach their children to throw Moltov cocktails

(2.2) December 2014: New York City police reported that a domestic terrorist group threatened to begin murdering its uniformed officers

(2.3) December 2014: At a rally that HuffPost blogger Al Sharpton helped to incite, hundreds of demonstrators were captured on video, screaming “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”; Seven days later, two NYPD officers were assassinated



(2.4) March 2016, Kansas City, MO: An anti-Trump protester arrested for assaulting police horse

(2.5) November 2016, Austin, TX: Revolutionary communists, armed with assault rifles, openly call for police officers to be murdered; “What’s better than 12 dead cops? 13 dead cops!!”

(2.6) November 2016, Birmingham, AL: Two individuals were arrested and charged with attempting to set up an ambush with which to shoot police officers; later it was discovered their motive was to incite a broader, race-based series of attacks on police

(2.7) December 2016, Compton, CA: Black Lives Matter chapter defended barista who allegedly spit in police officer’s coffee

(2.8) November 2016, Harrisonville, MO: A police officer’s home was set on fire — with his children inside — in what police suspect was arson

(2.9) January 2017, Baltimore, MD: Anti-Trump protester arrested after spitting in police offic