They shouldn't be sharing the name of the Plymouth shooter

[OverTheRubicon]

In most terrorist incidents - and in shooting incidents in the US - the editorial policy has recently been to minimise press coverage of the aggressor, to allow for some background of why they did this and how they accessed weapons, but focus the attention on the grief and loss of the victims and not inspire further violence or adulation of killers.

Yet you can hardly move for coverage of the Plymouth shooter - he's the focus of most of the press and he's already being lauded on incel sites. He's the picture you see on every article, sometimes his mother, not other victims and grief stricken families even when they're names.

Aibu that we should be vastly downplaying him as the centre of this attention?

@AfternoonToffee

Your post seems to just be an opportunity to bash Boris Johnson. The killer's father is a violent racist who spent time in jail, so I suppose that covers your 'tackling crime' though. Your other points are not necessarily relevant to this case.

He was a terrorist, and yet the media portray him as a troubled young man.

Double standards because he is white.

@Badfootkk

I think it is important. He is not a monster.. His family tried to get him help. They were not heard. He was unwell ,unheard and cast aside. He was a person , that didn't ' fit in ' with an illness He did an awful awful action. I feel destroyed for those , but he was not well.

Of course he’s a bloody monster. Lots of people don’t fit in and are mentally unwell but they don’t go around gunning people down. We need to stop making excuses for people.

he is dead there is no trial

In this case yes, but the media are too quick to report the facts which causes problems when the suspect remains alive.

Happens all the time.

I'm operating on hardly any sleep too so obviously backpedaling as I forget he'd shot himself 😴

That strategy works well in the US doesn't it!!

Of course he’s a bloody monster. Lots of people don’t fit in and are mentally unwell but they don’t go around gunning people down. We need to stop making excuses for people.

This.

I agree that the media should have guidelines. Some twisted people will admire the idea that he has gained infamy, everyone knows his face, his name.

I ahree with OP that beyond stating the necessary facts of the case, the photos and focus should be on the victims.

He was a murderer. A human being who deliberately took the lives of other human beings including a child.

Why do people find it so hard to call a spade a spade?

He was a terrorist, not just a murderer.

There is nothing "just" about being a murderer. The investigation will determine whether it was also terrorism.

That’s not what I meant @Sockwomble and you know it

I didn’t say he was ‘just a murderer’.

Ah yes, wait for the investigation, by which time everyone will have moved on.

Funny because if he was brown or black he would have been called what he is straightaway - a terrorist.

He ultimately took that decision to murder. That was not a result of mental illness, that was a result of entitlement. Lots of people are bullied, have autism, can't find a partner etc. They don't make the decision to murder a bunch of innocent people. The difference is, Davidson felt entitlement - to women's bodies, to a better life etc. An entitlement encouragement by a misogynistic society and incel culture in particular. That entitlement made him feel angry and that's what caused him to kill, so whilst those other issues are ones he deserved help for, let's not confuse the matter an excuse his actions by saying he was depressed.

[quote BringBackThinEyebrows]@AfternoonToffee

Your post seems to just be an opportunity to bash Boris Johnson. The killer's father is a violent racist who spent time in jail, so I suppose that covers your 'tackling crime' though. Your other points are not necessarily relevant to this case.[/quote]
That is what you got from my post?

Keep thinking he is just a monster though rather than thinking about what needs to change to stop people getting to this point.

In terms of BJ his hypocrisy is in relation to gun laws.

@phishy

He was a terrorist, and yet the media portray him as a troubled young man.

Double standards because he is white.

The media I’ve read this morning are portraying him as a monster. And questioning what the fuck the police were doing restoring his gun licence.

His race has absolutely nothing to do with this. And neither was he a terrorist. He was a misogynistic thug who murdered five people in cold blood.

@AfternoonToffee

Yes, that's what I got from your post. I haven't used the term 'monster'.

You said that society caused this attack, so I was interested in why someone could think this (aside from access to the gun as I mentioned).

You mentioned gang culture, which is probably completely irrelevant to this incident. You also mentioned debt, but there's no apparent link.

In the past few weeks, the killer stated online that he was ENTITLED to a 16 year old girlfriend with large breasts. Did ~society~ cause his sense of entitlement and delusion? From what I could see from his online activity, people who engaged in discussion with him were questioning his beliefs and encouraging him to take responsibility for his life.

Blaming "society" removes responsibility from the adult who decided to carry out this horrific attack.

I highly recommend following Laura Richards - www.laurarichards.co.uk/ - she’s a criminal behaviour analyst who has worked with New Scotland Yard. She has a particular focus on violence against women and girls and helped lead the campaign to make stalking a criminal offence. She has a great podcast called Crime Analyst in which she picks apart the crimes committed by Peter Sutcliffe and how the investigation and subsequent reviews were botched.

To try and get to my point, she is very much “victim focussed” and advocates that perpetrators should not be given notoriety by using their names/nicknames more than is necessary, rather focussing on the stories of themselves. As an example throughout her podcast (which is ongoing and currently runs to about 30 episodes) she refers to Sutcliffe only as “PS”, except on a handful of occasions, and refuses to use his Press-given nickname, referring to him as “the Yorkshire R-Word” when reading materials containing the phrase.

Her Twitter feed over the last few days has been an informative read: twitter.com/laurarichards99/status/1426261827575377920?s=21

@TheAverageUser

Calling him a monster let's us distance ourselves from him. He did these things because 'he's a monster' means it can't happen to us and it's not our fault because he was born bad, is implicit.

Taking into account mental health, his life experiences etc...let's us really think about why this happened and potentially catching it next time before it happens, or not, but at least we can try to understand what happened.

Coverage wise you could be right but I'd imagine were, as usual, seeing what sells. A 'monster' who killed a bunch of people sells papers rather than seeing the victims. I'd imagine fear and anger trump sadness in terms of what emotions the media want us to have.

I think you said what I was thinking better. I agree totally.