"Children getting hit on sidewalks, sitting on benches" don't threaten anyone, and nobody calls any car driver upon them. The car driver is clearly the culprit, source of the danger.
At least in some cases (more often than not, as far as I know) a police officer is called by someone who noticed a dangerous/chaotic situation, and the officer isn't the cause of it.
Thank you for linking to the article showing that they improved the headline (possibly as a result of people pointing it out) to the significantly-better "A state trooper shot and killed.."
Are you suggesting that they shouldn't have changed it, because the kid was at fault?
"A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old" could mean anything. It could mean that someone shot at a trooper, missed, and hit the kid. It could mean that a trooper shot at a dog in self-defense, and a kid was accidentally killed by the ricocheted bullet. It could even mean that someone shot at a trooper and the kid died of a heart attack from the noise.
"A state trooper shot and killed.." describes what happened. It's factual. It doesn't assign fault. If you think it creates too much of a gut-reaction that a trooper killing a 16-year-old is a problem, well, maybe that's a good thing because it suggests we should have more options to prevent that from happening. And if you think it's a good thing that the trooper shot him, well, the headline satisfies that as well.
> Are you suggesting that they shouldn't have changed it, because the kid was at fault?
No. "A trooper-involved fatal shooting..." is indeed blurry, and in my opinion the active voice isn't much better because for many (most?) readers it conveys that the cop action was fully intentional, however in such a context things are much more complicated than that.
It doesn't assign fault, indeed, but a more adequate title may be "In a chaotic situation a trooper shot and killed..." because when someone points a gun at you the danger grows as you take time to assess the situation, there is no way to assess from a distance if someone is or isn't able to mount an attack, the "Tueller rule"...
The act is fully intentional. When you pick up a gun, aim it at someone, put your finger on the trigger, and pull, your intent is to kill. That's like one of the first things they tell you in any gun safety course.
That intent may have been an overreaction. It may have been a mistake. It may have been based on an incorrect understanding of the situation. It may have even been justified. But regardless, the trooper did intend to kill.
Indeed, and I didn't deny it. We all call for a more objective and neutral way to concisely describe the facts. In my opinion it implies to state any pertinent element. Here: the context, which always has a major influence on intentions/choices.
My point is that a press title "In a chaotic situation a trooper shot and killed..." seems more appropriate to me. Do you agree?
> the active voice isn't much better because for many (most?) readers it conveys that the cop action was fully intentional
This looks like a denial to me. And no, I don't agree that softening a factual sentence with a single sided context is more appropriate. The entire point is to stop privileging the police's perspective as if their choices are completely circumstantial, as they have been abusing that trust.
"THEY have been abusing that trust" seems weird to me. In my opinion SOME (not "they", meaning "all") policemen have been abusing that trust, and it makes a world of difference.
Is stating that the situation was "chaotic" privileging police's perspective (which is sourced: "Col. Woodrow Jones, the state police secretary").
Dismissing every police statement because some of them were lies may be dangerous if it leads to even more "esprit de corps" (the very cause of many of such lies) among cops, or to less good guys in the police force (they usually don't want to join a despised group).
Stating that the situation "was chaotic" discounts the agency from the actors (passive voice, yet again). If that killing was justified, then meet the bar of justification - don't explain away the situation as if the trooper isn't responsible for having created it.
I see your point about othering and it's valid even for just balancing my own views. But the larger issue is that trust in the entire institution is failing.
When you have one cop murdering someone, three more standing around watching, a entire department that doesn't arrest the murder squad, a union that protects the whole lot, and a wider community that defends the whole miscarriage of justice - you don't have "one bad cop", but rather a popular culture of corruption.
Now certainly it isn't the case that every police department has had a case like that and reacted the same way. But all too many have, and if the actual good cops want to stop their institution from being indicted with a uniform brush, then they need to start speaking up about their criminal colleagues and actually enforcing the law even when the perp is wearing a uniform.
Any form (passive/active voice...) or description (especially of a wide array of attributes, for example of the context) can be interpreted in various ways, either discounting or condemning an actor.
"Chaotic", for me, conveys that there is no known way to always adequately solve this sort of problem ("911 calls ((...)) about a 'guy acting suspicious' who the callers thought had a gun"), however I reckon that interpreting it as some pseudo-justification is possible.
In a similar vein one may interpret the George Floyd case as exposing a "popular culture of corruption". One may also think that such cases have many causes, just like most major technological disasters result from a chain of causes (multiple and redundant safeties, however in some rare cases something isn't properly handled).
A main cause may be that speaking up about a criminal colleague is only possible if you know for sure that he is guilty, meaning that you probably are a witness, and in such a case a colleague of the culprit. There are many reasons for teammates to cover-up each other. For example they may all be guilty of something (establishing a "popular culture of corruption"), or they may think that their colleague is guilty but should be pardoned given his merits (somewhat acting as judges). Some configurations of the rotten apple's team forbid any upper stratum (department, union, community...) to work adequately, as they will systematically amplify the testimony of those teammates.
You don't have "one bad cop", but rather a non-neglectable probability for his teammates to avoid speaking out about his reprehensible acts, and also unreasonable hopes about the ability of upper strata to attain to the truth.
In theory we may alleviate this by establishing larger teams and/or frequently changing (rotating) their members, hoping that it will reduce complicit distortions. In practice this leads to a new set of problems, not only related to cost but also to sheer practical efficiency: a team larger and/or populated with members not used to work with each other cannot be as efficient as a small (but sufficient) and more tightly made one.
The most recent one I saw: "A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old."
Both the "trooper-related" and the "ended in" passive voice to avoid saying "a trooper shot and killed a child."