A now-former employee at a Michigan middle school allegedly choked a 14-year-old student with a shirt, in an incident captured on surveillance footage.
The teen’s parents are calling for charges against the now-former coach.
Any news article reporting on such an event must use the qualifier “allegedly” until the perpetrator is convicted of a crime. This is just literally correct as until they’re convicted they’re only alleged to have committed a crime. Media complies with this because even if they have a video maybe the case goes south and the guy in the video ducks the charge. Then he could bring legal action against anyone who definitively said he did something as opposed to using allegedly.
The article is scarce on details but it sounds like police and public prosecutors have woken up to the case and are investigating avenues of prosecution. Definitely not a lawyer, don’t believe anything I say at face value.
That covers half of it. Read the article. They really are couching it in media-speak.
Almost as if they like the guy.
Watch the video. It’s pretty clear an assault took place, yet that too is “alleged”. The implication there is that the attack never happened- when it very clearly did.
Yeah, not sure if we read the same article. It definitely uses media safe terms like allegedly, but only on actions that would be legal definitions of crimes. After that it refers to it as “the incident” (and not as “the alleged incident”). They never hedge around whether the attack happened, and the rest of the article even strongly takes the side of the family. I see nothing that makes it seem like the news agency likes or is siding with the ex-coach.
I guess maybe taking all of the “allegedly” and “appears to” at face value you could get the impression of them being dodgy, but it’s just how they have to report it until facts are discovered in a trial. Actually, they even later quote the family’s attorney calling it a “horrific assault and battery”, no “allegedly” in sight, because it was a quote referencing what was being investigated.
they literally put scare quotes around “assault” like it’s a dubious statement that an assault took place. Even if you want to try and somehow argue that the school got the wrong guy, that it really wasn’t the coach, there’s enough evidence to say that an assault took place.
(this is a screen grab from the linked article above.)
Yes. Assault is a legal term. Even if it is on video, if there is an open case in court about this incident they need to phrase it that way. The quotation marks aren’t scare quotes, this is part of what the family’s attorney, Jordan Vahdat, said. Probably deconstructed from a sentence like “and we are seeking to file for assault charges against the formerly trusted coach”, because trusted coach was also in quotes.
The assault absolutely took place, and the article never infers that it didn’t.
It’s possible. There was another case recently of someone faking a phone call to make it sound like this guy was going off on a racist tirade. But, after investigation, it was found to be fake.
Yeah, faking a recording of a phone call that’s floating off in the nether is one thing.
Faking recordings that can only come from one specific camera, and can be matched to that specific camera, pulled from a presumably secured dvr is not something even the best AI can do. Certainly it without extensive access to those systems.
Every digital camera creates random and consistent artifacts in the video. Every police department in the nation has access to the necessary tools to do that analysis and it takes ten minutes.
Not that there’s a reason to check, because again, the cops presumably watched the video get pulled from
The DVR minutes after it happened.
The presumption of innocence is a very important part of protecting civil liberties of the accused
It is not a statement of fact. You don’t get convicted and suddenly become guilty. The jury finds that you have always been guilty, based on the evidence shown at trial. And that doesn’t even necessarily mean you’re truly guilty or not.
And while I get they’re trying to avoid lawsuits, but they’re taking it to pedantic extremes. The school found sufficient evidence to immediately terminate his employment, they throw the “allegedly” qualifier on there and scare quotes on “assault” at least once even though it’s patently obvious that an assault did happen.
No, no. You’re right maybe it was staged. Maybe the kid that got choked out asked for it…
At worst, it’d be defamation, which is a civil tort. And only then, if a) it was in fact a false statement, b) fault amounting to negligence or worse (ie they didn’t do due diligence in fact checking, or it was intentionally false.) and c) some harm occurred.
Any news article reporting on such an event must use the qualifier “allegedly” until the perpetrator is convicted of a crime. This is just literally correct as until they’re convicted they’re only alleged to have committed a crime. Media complies with this because even if they have a video maybe the case goes south and the guy in the video ducks the charge. Then he could bring legal action against anyone who definitively said he did something as opposed to using allegedly.
The article is scarce on details but it sounds like police and public prosecutors have woken up to the case and are investigating avenues of prosecution. Definitely not a lawyer, don’t believe anything I say at face value.
That covers half of it. Read the article. They really are couching it in media-speak.
Almost as if they like the guy.
Watch the video. It’s pretty clear an assault took place, yet that too is “alleged”. The implication there is that the attack never happened- when it very clearly did.
Yeah, not sure if we read the same article. It definitely uses media safe terms like allegedly, but only on actions that would be legal definitions of crimes. After that it refers to it as “the incident” (and not as “the alleged incident”). They never hedge around whether the attack happened, and the rest of the article even strongly takes the side of the family. I see nothing that makes it seem like the news agency likes or is siding with the ex-coach.
I guess maybe taking all of the “allegedly” and “appears to” at face value you could get the impression of them being dodgy, but it’s just how they have to report it until facts are discovered in a trial. Actually, they even later quote the family’s attorney calling it a “horrific assault and battery”, no “allegedly” in sight, because it was a quote referencing what was being investigated.
they literally put scare quotes around “assault” like it’s a dubious statement that an assault took place. Even if you want to try and somehow argue that the school got the wrong guy, that it really wasn’t the coach, there’s enough evidence to say that an assault took place.
(this is a screen grab from the linked article above.)
Yes. Assault is a legal term. Even if it is on video, if there is an open case in court about this incident they need to phrase it that way. The quotation marks aren’t scare quotes, this is part of what the family’s attorney, Jordan Vahdat, said. Probably deconstructed from a sentence like “and we are seeking to file for assault charges against the formerly trusted coach”, because trusted coach was also in quotes.
The assault absolutely took place, and the article never infers that it didn’t.
If they can’t verify the authenticity of the video, it too is alleged.
They have an interview with the victims mother.
They know the coach got fired immediately.
They have the video and a statement from the school acknowledging that an assault took place.
The video is just icing on the evidentiary cake.
The victim’s mother and the school were not party to the assault, so that’s hearsay.
Yeah….
Lemme guess next you’re going to say that the security tapes, which were provided by the school, were deep fakes.
… the mother got it from the kid and everyone else saw it happen on the tapes.
They can at the very least state that the kid was assaulted (with a deadly weapon, at that.) nobody is denying that much.
It’s possible. There was another case recently of someone faking a phone call to make it sound like this guy was going off on a racist tirade. But, after investigation, it was found to be fake.
Thus, alleged.
Yeah, faking a recording of a phone call that’s floating off in the nether is one thing.
Faking recordings that can only come from one specific camera, and can be matched to that specific camera, pulled from a presumably secured dvr is not something even the best AI can do. Certainly it without extensive access to those systems.
Every digital camera creates random and consistent artifacts in the video. Every police department in the nation has access to the necessary tools to do that analysis and it takes ten minutes.
Not that there’s a reason to check, because again, the cops presumably watched the video get pulled from The DVR minutes after it happened.
As you said, that’s a presumption. That just further shows why they say “alleged”.
And all of that can be presented as evidence to obtain a conviction, but until he’s convicted it’s all just allegations
The presumption of innocence is a very important part of protecting civil liberties of the accused
It is not a statement of fact. You don’t get convicted and suddenly become guilty. The jury finds that you have always been guilty, based on the evidence shown at trial. And that doesn’t even necessarily mean you’re truly guilty or not.
And while I get they’re trying to avoid lawsuits, but they’re taking it to pedantic extremes. The school found sufficient evidence to immediately terminate his employment, they throw the “allegedly” qualifier on there and scare quotes on “assault” at least once even though it’s patently obvious that an assault did happen.
No, no. You’re right maybe it was staged. Maybe the kid that got choked out asked for it…
So open your own newspaper and type it up how you want.
They’re not a court. They can’t call anyone a criminal. Doing so is a criminal offense in itself.
Criminal offense?
No. It most certainly is not a criminal offense.
At worst, it’d be defamation, which is a civil tort. And only then, if a) it was in fact a false statement, b) fault amounting to negligence or worse (ie they didn’t do due diligence in fact checking, or it was intentionally false.) and c) some harm occurred.
If it’s reasonably true, it’s not defamation.