There was one circulating where the newspaper headline stated that "A man with no active warrants was shot by police." Which is just about the most nefarious way to say "an innocent man was shot by police".
Those don't mean the same thing at all, and the headline is weird for any possible set of facts.
The average mass shooter has no active warrants, but most people would consider it correct for the police to shoot him to end his killing spree. The average wanted fugitive, on the other hand is usually arrested without any shooting.
I read the article linked in another comment, and the headline I would give it is "Police kill man while raiding wrong house".
Isn’t it different? IANAL but having an active warrant issued for you doesn’t really have anything to do with you being guilty or innocent. It just means the police must conduct you to the juge, either because you’re a suspect or (in some countries) a witness.
"A man with no active warrants issued" also perfectly describes every single one of the 9/11 hijackers, but that wouldn't equate out to "innocent" either.
Careful. Presence or absence of warrants has almost nothing to do with getting shot.
Assuming you have no warrants out for your arrest, should you charge at a police officer with a knife or gun drawn while yelling that you were about to kill them, and then ignore any commands they issued, what would you expect to happen?
That one I actually understand. Calling somebody innocent is a very strong and contextual / scoped statement, and ultimately that's what the courts take their time to do (and even they I think kinda stop shy? I don't know if acquitted is the same as innocent. I feel it's more "not proven guilty").
In the US, what happens a if a newspaper calls someone innocent, who is then proven guilty?
That was a super high horse you rapidly jumped on, but where I'm going is, it may not be a risk reputable journalism takes lightly.
"No outstanding warrants" will have been true at the time whatever is uncovered later. "They shot a presumed innocent" is probably safe but meaningless. "They shot an innocent person" - what happens if the person is then found super guilty? And innocent of what - what if somebody says "they were clearly in the video driving without their seatbelt" or "they had expired license plate"? USA has a lovely constitution yes, but also a nicely profitable legal industry.
Put the moral notion aside: In the USA, I don't think it's an easy risk to take, and clearly newspapers agree.
Newspapers also need to be careful to not spout facts about a potential crime that doesn’t have a guilty verdict. They’d have to throw an allegedly or something in there to write it as you described which I don’t know would read as well. The way they wrote it let them put the facts first (woman hit by pepper ball shot by police) and then hedge the intent with an “appeared to.”
That example seems fine to me. There is clear attribution ("by an officer"), and the "appeared to be aiming" could be to emphasize that the officer was not just generally shooting into crowd, but targeting individuals.
A well-known example from the NYT:
> A reporter was hit by a pepper ball on live television by an officer who appeared to be aiming at her
https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2020/new-york-times-twe...