'Tragic Family Situation' - murder of children, apparently by their father.

[Northernlurker]

There is a horrible case in the news today. A father and three children disappeared from the home. Today the children were found stabbed and the father appears to thrown himself off a nearby quarry edge.
The police have confirmed they aren't looking for anyone else and one officer commented ''It appears to be a tragic family situation.' Now I have a problem with that description.

What's tragic about this is that three children have been robbed of their lives. It appears that the person who should love and cherish them has planned their removal from the home and then killed them. This isn't an accident. There is nothing inevitable about this crime. It occurred as a result of one person's actions and choices and it's not a 'family situation' at all. It seems to me that describing it as such detracts from the true violence of the situation. The police describe it as a muder investigation. Why not leave it at that? Why the need to soften it?

drjohnsonscat - your sister's remark sounds beyond absurd.
But I still don't see what is to be gained from picking apart the phrase 'tragic family situation' in this instance. Should the press have said 'another example of male infanticide'?
Believe it or not, the press to have legal duties when reporting crimes. Whatever readers/viewers choose to read into press reports, it's fairly clear that this situation is tragic and involves a family. A 'political' reading into it would be dangerous and irresponsible.

But where DV was regarded as a 'family matter' (and therefore not one for the police and courts to address), it wasn't reported by the press, SQ.

Most of the 21 men murdered by a partner each year will prob have been killed by male partners, Edith. Just wanted to point that out.

These crimes are overwhelmingly committed by men - and usually on women and children - so discussing it here and the language used is useful I think.

Like I saw another headline today "body find is missing prostitute" rather than "woman". The way these things are talked about, referred to, reported on, all feed into how the public perceives these things.

a tragic situation would be one in which all were mysteriously and unluckily struck down by a lethal virus or swept away by flood waters or something

this was a deliberate, violent act - surely the media usually prefer to use terms like brutal murder or savagely slain or something where people are stabbed to death?

Plumpdog most people know what "family matter" means, don't interfere, private, not anyone elses business.
Describing this as a family situation is very similar.
Rather than a crime, or a murder, or anything that sounds like someone has actually done something wrong.
What they have said makes it sound like they were killed in a pile-up on the motorway or similar.

Reading the article on the BBC again - the comments they quote are all people sounding as if what has happened is a terrible accident.
It's not a terrible accident.
Well unless it does turn out that they were all killed by a falling tree or something. but the police would have said so if that was the case, surely?

Sardine - you haven't heard about Lianne Smith's trial in the papers? She was found guilty less than three weeks ago.

I can understand your point, OP, in terms of press reporting. But it doesn't suprise me the police using that kind of terminology - they generally would use some kind of term to denote that it wasn't a 'stranger' attack.

FWIW, I know someone who lost a child in these circumstance, and they referred to it as a family tragedy as well. I guess it was quicker than explaining the whole terrible situation. Terrible that there even has to be a 'shorthand term' for these kind of situations

Oh yes of course I have seen that case. Certainly it was very widely reported although I haven't been following it closely or anything.

The language is interesting again.

You say your friend lost a child, which sort of cuts out the crime and the perpetrator.
I can't remember what it's called - is it the passive voice or something? Where crimes are spoken about in such a way that it cuts out the person who did it.

The police should say it wasn't a stranger attack then rather than use the"family situation" phrase which harks back to the days of dv being seen as a family matter, ie none of our business

All the police have to use is the word 'murders' and 'not looking for anyone else in connection with these murders.' The use of 'tragic' is not acceptable. End of. Police need a lot more media training in these areas.

or 'deaths' and not 'murders' if there is any legal implications at all. 'Tragic family situation' is not acceptable. It's lazy and dumb. There are always police media liason officers on these cases and they should choose their words more carefully and correctly. 'Tragically' the police choose to remain lazy and simplistic when it comes to describing such murders.

SardineQueen it's sort of the passive voice, but with the subject removed altogether. So the same event could be described as:

Politicians made mistakes (subject-verb-object)
Mistakes were made by politicians (object-verb-subject)
Mistakes were made (Object-verb-no subject)

The last version is favoured sometimes for 'obscuring agency'. There are lots of academic analyses of this sort of thing - Norman Fairclough's Language and Power would be one. But the overall point and effect is, as you said, often noticeable anyway.

The reporting here does something similar, since 'It is a tragic family situation' obscures what the 'it' actually represents = murder of children.

Plumpdog I'm not sure why you think it's absurd. It's a common phrase which underlines the OPs point which is that men who lose control are not excoriated by society and even in a horrible case like this the violence is glossed over or made 'private' whereas women's transgressions are the subject of public commentary and either amusement or vitriol.

But presumably they can't report it as 'murder' until it has been investigated and the outcome decided from a legal perspective?
Not because they don't want to, but because they can't ?

When i read about this on the computor today, i made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments section. This is roughly what i read - "yet anotehr father feeling that he couldnt protect his family from his exW" "until the law stops favouring women, this is going to continue to happen" i was flabberghasted and appalled. There was a couple of comments in reply to this post - i thoguht they would be telling him what a cunt he was - err, no, they were agreeing with him. I reported it, but when i checked later, the posts were still there this was on aol huffington post - which i know is mostly regurgitated drivel, my excuse is that aol is my email provider, but you couldnt make it up :(

I can only imagine that someone must be totally out of their mind to do something like this. I would feel the same anger if it were a woman who did it, but there is, deep down inside and i am not sure why, some compassion for people who do this as surely they must be profoundly ill - the alternative does not bear contemplation :(

Well quite, monkey. The family and friends are hardly going to be concerned about how they talk about it. Presumably they would use a passive voice, if that's what you want to call it, because they don't want to talk about it to all and sundry who ask. Because it's too painful.
You don't want to go through it to every person who asks, every time someone asks how many children you have or whatever

Mince that might be the case if the alleged perpetrator was alive and available for trial. In this case the reporting that I've read actually did say it was being treated as murder, they weren't looking for anyone else and then added in the 'tragic' comment made by the police and I do think that obscures the victims and the guilt and violence of the attacker. I certainly don't want to upset people with this discussion - which is why it's here not In The News or worse AIBU. Because it IS a political and feminist issue that goes beyond the circumstances of this one case.

Monkey - I'm very sorry to read of your experiences.

Lucyellen that's horrific and depressing and not at all surprising all at once. Also just underlines the point even more - this poor man was forced to kill an entire family but a mean woman made him do it.

Sorry that's a cross post. I was replying to your first post at 21.33

Hi, I don't venture into this section so excuse my lack of information on the subject
I do understand your point, but I do think the police (specifically) aren't able from a legal perspective to use more specific terminology. Therefore the furthest they can go is to imply (by saying it's a family situation) that the father is the perpetrator. I'm not sure they mean that in any other sense than factual

drjohnsonscat - if you read my post again you might notice that i was referring to what i understand to be your sister's response to similar stories to this one. Perhaps I should have said 'utterly fucking stupid' instead of 'beyond absurd'.

mince - you are absolutely right. The press are simply not in a position at the moment to state that this man murdered his children.

Lucyellen - those remarks sound very ignorant and presumptive too, but these are reactions - not the same as press reports.

Perhaps are rather wiser approach to this story would be to avoid making presumptions about what happened or what are the political implications of it?

But the thing is drjohonsonscat we don't know what happened. Apart from the fact that four innocent children lost their lives. We can surmise as much as we like, but i guess we will never know. Just the same as that idiot on aol.

I can't contemplate that men would murder their own children just to hurt their ex wives. Im not saying that isnt the reality, but that i just can't contemplate it.

Plumpdog - of course, and crossed posts, we just don't know what happened. Its just so horrible.

I would be interested to know if these incidents are becoming more common and if they are a result of the pressured times we live in - like we are all living in a giant pressure cooker?

The breakdown of gender when someone kills their own child is roughly even. Very very sad when it happens.

""Killings of children by a natural parent are committed in roughly equal proportions by mothers (47%) and fathers (53%), but where the child is killed by someone other than a [birth] parent, males strongly predominate".

nspcc