Bloomberg’s Robinson Provides a Perfect Example of a Biased Framing of a Police Shooting (A Deep Dive)

On September 30, the Supreme Court took on a bunch of cases, and recently they officially told us what cases they chose. Kimberly Robinson of Bloomberg Law started a thread where she announced what cases were taken up:

We got 15 new #SCOTUS grants from the Court's Sept. 30 "long conference." Term kicks off on Monday.
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

What she means is that the Supreme Court granted ‘petitions of certiorari,’ often just called ‘granting cert’ and all of it is a complicated way of saying that they agreed to take a bunch of cases. Just to provide some background, in all but a few cases, the Supreme Court can choose which cases to take—it has near-total discretion over what cases to hear or to ignore. In fact, in those discretionary situations, it only takes four justices to agree to take a case and many factors go into deciding whether or not to take a particular case, including (allegedly) strategy and politics.

Chris Geidner has the raw list:

NEWS: The Supreme Court granted 15 cases out of its long conference on Monday: https://t.co/BrPOzGC3Ds pic.twitter.com/OJz3d7t0cG
— Chris “Law Dork” Geidner (@chrisgeidner) October 4, 2024

And Robinson goes on to briefly summarize each one:

#SCOTUS will consider whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s has the authority to license temporary facilities for spent nuclear fuel. No 23-1300 & 23-1312.
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

That first one is probably very significant. Geidner has more:

Democrats have wanted for years to try to literally blame guns for shootings, legally, basically hoping to use lawfare to drive gun manufacturers out of business but Congress passed a law preventing such suits. This tests the limits of that law, although it appears to be concentrated on the interpretation of the law, rather than its constitutionality.

And not for nothing, but bear in mind, this is the country of Mexico, coming into an American court, and trying to blame American products for the actions of criminals acting in Mexico. Why the actual frak should our courts even have jurisdiction over this issue? Why shouldn’t we tell Mexico to sort out their dispute with these companies on their own? If they don’t want American guns crossing the border into Mexico, maybe they need to get control over their own border?

Moving on:

#SCOTUS will consider what’s the burden to make prima facie showing of discrimination under Title VII. 23-1039 Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. Background: https://t.co/UsSvr8hQUD
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

Cornell University workers on Friday convinced the US Supreme Court to review of a circuit split over how relationships between benefit plans and their service providers can be challenged under ERISA. https://t.co/MNqV0Dptm3
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

As you probably know, America is divided up into a number of ‘circuits’ and for each circuit, there is a mid-level appellate court called a circuit court. A ‘circuit split’ is when one of the circuit courts set up one rule, and another sets up a different one. This happens quite a bit and it is one of the major reasons why the Supreme Court will take a case—to decide which circuit courts got it right.

The US Supreme Court agreed to take up a Texas death row inmate’s appeal challenging the state’s DNA testing statute as unconstitutional. https://t.co/dhDpZKV0bl
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

The US Supreme Court Friday said it would review a challenge to a decision decertifying the class in a suit against McKesson Corp. alleging that two chiropractic practices improperly received marketing faxes. https://t.co/MVKOLNAmHS
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

And then we get to the one that is sticking in my craw:

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the mother of a man who was shot and killed by a police officer in Texas after he was pulled over for allegedly failing to pay a highway toll.https://t.co/lH20OVj3hp
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 4, 2024

It even led me to respond to her directly:

Bad link and why do you guys always frame it like this?

You make it sound like as if the officer got so enraged over the toll that he shot the person, when I’m willing to bet the story is a little more complicated than that https://t.co/eE3FWkkqjJ
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) October 4, 2024

As noted in my post, her link is to the wrong story, but I seem to have found the right one:

FYI this would seem like the right link https://t.co/Fbcsq3hquO
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) October 4, 2024

The article even uses the same kind of dishonest framing:

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the mother of a man who was shot and killed by a police officer in Texas after he was pulled over for allegedly failing to pay a highway toll.
In an order Friday, the court said it will consider the standard for analyzing whether an officer’s conduct was a reasonable use of force under the Fourth Amendment when their safety is threatened.
Janice Hughes Barnes sued a Texas police officer and the County of Harris for violating her son Ashtian Barnes’ constitutional rights. She said Officer Roberto Felix Jr. used excessive force when he shot her son to death after pulling him over for failing to pay a freeway toll outside Houston in April 2016.

But as I suspected, there was more to the story. For one, there is dashcam video (with a language warning):

The encounter that led to the violence starts at about 1:30, or you can read the summary of what happened in the Fifth Circuit case that is being appealed, Barnes v. Felix, 91 F. 4th 393 (5th Cir. 2024):

Officer Roberto Felix, Jr. fatally shot Ashtian Barnes on April 28, 2016, following a lawful traffic stop. The facts leading up to the shooting are undisputed. At about 2:40 p.m., Officer Felix heard a radio broadcast from the Harris County Toll Road Authority giving the license plate number of a vehicle on the highway with outstanding toll violations. Spotting a Toyota Corolla with the matching plate on the Tollway, he initiated a traffic stop by engaging his emergency lights. Ashtian Barnes, the driver, pulled over to the median on the left side of the Tollway out of the immediate traffic zone. Officer Felix parked his car behind the Corolla.
Officer Felix approached the driver's side window and asked Barnes for his driver's license and proof of insurance. Barnes replied that he did not have the documentation and that the car had been rented a week earlier in his girlfriend's name. During this interaction, Barnes was ‘digging around’ in the car. Officer Felix warned Barnes to stop doing so and, claiming that he smelled marijuana, asked Barnes if he had anything in the vehicle Officer Felix should know about. In response, Barnes turned off the vehicle, placing his keys near the gear shift, and told Officer Felix that he ‘might’ have the requested documentation in the trunk of the car. What happened next was captured on Officer Felix's dash cam. The district court found:
• At 2:45:28, Felix orders Barnes to open the trunk of his vehicle. At this time, Barnes's left blinker is still on, indicating that the keys are still in the ignition.
• At 2:45:33, Barnes opens the trunk of the vehicle.
• At 2:45:36, Barnes's left blinker turns off.
• At 2:45:43, Felix asks Barnes to get out of the vehicle.
• At 2:45:44, Barnes's driver side door opens.
• At 2:45:47, Barnes's left blinker turns back on.
• At 2:45:48, Felix draws his weapon.
• At 2:45:49, Felix points his weapon at Barnes and begins shouting ‘don't f—king move’ as Barnes's vehicle begins moving.
At this point, Officer Felix stepped onto the car with his weapon drawn and pointed at Barnes, and—as Appellants claim and as supported by the footage—’shoved’ his gun into Barnes's head, pushing his head hard to the right. Then, the car started to move. While the car was moving, Officer Felix shot inside the vehicle with ‘no visibility’ as to where he was aiming. The next second, Officer Felix fired another shot while the vehicle was still moving. After two seconds, the vehicle came to a full stop, and Officer Felix yelled ‘shots fired!’ into his radio. Officer Felix held Barnes at gunpoint until backup arrived while Barnes sat bleeding in the driver's seat. At 2:57 p.m., Barnes was pronounced dead at the scene.

(Footnotes removed and mild censorship added.) In other words, Barnes tried to drive off while the Felix was attached to the car, so the cop shot him.

I mean, the way these reporters framed it ‘shot and killed by a police officer in Texas after he was pulled over for allegedly failing to pay a highway toll’ isn’t technically false. But it is also technically true to say that Felix shot Barnes after Barack Obama won the 2012 election. Or after the September 11 attacks. Or after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Or after Columbus landed in the New World. Or after Jesus was crucified. Or after the Earth was created. That’s sort of how time works: The shooting happened after everything that occurred before it.

But what actually led up to the shooting was Barnes driving off with Felix stuck in his car with Felix worried he might get run over. Or if you want to be more neutral, I think it is fair to say Felix shot Barnes after a ‘scuffle’ or ‘altercation.’

In case you are wondering, the legal question that apparently the Supreme Court is focusing on is whether you focus on the threat that exists at the moment the deadly force was used, or if you look at what led to that moment. As you can see in the video, shortly before Barnes pulled away, Felix stepped into the vehicle and put a gun to his head, allegedly because wouldn’t follow instructions about keeping his hands in sight.

But that is a much more complicated state of affairs than Robinson’s simplistic framing. And indeed, I see people all over the world make this kind of framing even worse. For instance, this is a pretty typical take on the Trayvon Martin killing:

Trayvon Martin was murdered 4 years ago today, for wearing a hoodie and having Arizona and skittles, rip angel pic.twitter.com/38wxBvrstn
— venecia (@ebonyangeI) February 26, 2016

I presume Venecia meant ‘having Arizona tea and skittles’ but not even the prosecutors claim that George Zimmerman flew into a rage because he was angry about hoodies, ice tea and skittles. The undisputed evidence shows that the violence started when Martin threw a punch at Zimmerman and Zimmerman shot him during the fight that followed.

Indeed, I use that incident to argue that you really should never start a fight, because you never know how it might go. Even if you think Zimmerman was wrong and belonged in prison, guess what? Even if you got your wish, Martin is still dead and no amount of civil damages will bring him back.

In the end, these dishonest framings are used to try to smear the police and any private citizen who dares to defend him or herself (especially with a gun) and generally to paint the police and private citizens as unsuited to be trusted with a gun. And that is why it needs to be called out every time it happens, to push back against this anti-self-defense agenda.

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