Recently I’ve been wondering why the mainstream media is so terrible at reporting accurate or concerning details of supposed criminal activity. There never seems to be any real ‘story.’ No background information, no character description, no follow-up – just vague details in politically-correct language. With so much controversy between law enforcement officers and civilians recently, why wouldn’t a reporter, editor, or publisher want to get to know the whole story? When people die, are arrested, or stolen from, it’s a tragedy. Fellow citizens deserve to know the humanity of it all – right?

On Saturday, March 14^th, I was able to see some of the bigger picture.

That evening, the local mainstream news in Dayton, Ohio reported on a police stand-off in West Carrollton, a neighboring suburb. I paid particular attention to it because earlier the same day, another standoff had occurred in Dayton. The ‘breaking’ story I saw on my News Feed read,

“Officers from multiple departments are assisting West Carrollton police at the scene, including the [SWAT team].

A man inside the home reportedly has access to weapons and body armor, according to dispatch reports.”

A friend who is a local journalist for several alternative news outlets encouraged me to go and inquire further, as the initial report was too ambiguous. Having multiple encounters with police officers before, I knew that a press release so vague could mean anything. I’ve seen friends arrested for bogus charges, only to see him/her made into a ‘bad guy’ later on. The first thing I thought was, “Is the man in that home going to be ok?”

Since I lived nearby, I grabbed my phone and went to the scene of the standoff. After briefly talking to a group of neighbors who were standing by the blocked-off street, I proceeded to walk up the half block to talk to one of the officers. Immediately I was approached by a sergeant who strutted menacingly toward me, telling me to leave. I asked him who I could talk to instead, and was given a made-up answer. I walked back and a (much friendlier) volunteer firefighter repeated the same information I already had.

About 30 minutes later, the standoff ended with the man being arrested, and no shots fired. As the mainstream media was preparing an interview with the lieutenant, the same sergeant who asked me to leave the scene earlier came down the hill and starting chatting up the locals and media personnel like he was Barney Fife, while ignoring me, the one with a camera pointed at him. I then watched the reporter interview the lieutenant and was appalled. There was no meaningful questions being asked about the man in custody, no concern whether or not the arrest was legitimate, and no skepticism at the necessity of sending multiple police departments and a SWAT team to surround a suburban home. It was frankly pathetic.

The lieutenant said the man had called a suicide hotline, and threatened to harm himself. After a tip by the hotline, West Carrollton police sent a patrol to the home to conduct a welfare check. When the man refused to allow the police entry, the other units were dispatched. The initial report of weapons and body armor appeared to be a farce, as the “peace” officers had now acquired a search warrant and were looking inside the residence for weapons, unsure if there were any to begin with. When asked what charges were to be filed, the lieutenant only specified “inducing panic.”

I could prattle on about the stupidity of arresting a man for “inducing panic” when it was law enforcement who sent out an armored truck full of men with assault rifles. I could take this opportunity to chastise the West Carrollton Police Department for imprisoning a man who had not committed a crime. I could mention the psychological harm jail could cause to a person in need of counseling or medicine for mental sickness. But that’s not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing this because the world needs to know their reporters, news anchors, editors, and publishers are cheating them. When information is presented to us so casually, so methodically, so absent of detail, it enables us to become calloused and indifferent to our fellow man. It is the excuse people need to scapegoat innocent victims for their own problems and shortcomings. It fuels the inexplicable hatred for the John Crawfords, Tamir Rices, and Eric Garners of the world when they deserve justice so badly. When humanity is omitted from these tragedies, when aggressive journalism is replaced with press releases, when our “news” is nothing more than a police department write-up designed to omit law enforcement accountability, your local and national news persons rob the rest us of dignity.

The state’s law enforcement agencies exist by fiat, not for justice. Likewise, mainstream media exists for revenue and power, not news. Fortunately, we are all the solution to this. Any one of us with some amount of confidence and a smartphone can change the face of news and law enforcement as we know it. Alternative media is the solution, and all of us are the journalists. It’s no longer enough to share the right Facebook posts anymore, but instead we must get our hands dirty and risk something to show the rest of the world the humanity – and truth – of every encounter a police officer has with a citizen. This is the only way to stop the injustice and collusion of the police and media together.

I regret not performing my own interview with the lieutenant, but I have to start somewhere. It has been a long process in my life to go from a LEO apologist to where I am now. However, I would not have made it to this point without the right people pushing me to be a voice for truth, and it is not going to stop here. I encourage you to do the same. We all must recognize that if any of us can accurately see the problem, then we have no choice but to apply the solution ourselves.

Go out there and record the cops. Buy a police scanner and dispatch yourself to protect the lives of others. Get connected with like-minded people and work together whenever possible. Mainstream media is as much Leviathan as your local PD, and together we can cut the head off the beast.