This story in the Sun Shopper, er, I mean the El Paso Times, by ace reporter Aaron Martinez leaves a lot to be desired.
The man shot by a police officer Wednesday night in the Lower Valley has died, officials said Thursday.
The man was identified as Erick Emmanuel Sanchez, 22, from Mexico.
He was shot by one of two officers who responded to a report of a burglary about 9:10 p.m. at a home in the 300 block of Jesuit Drive, El Paso police officials said.
Who reported the burglary? Was it a burglar alarm? Was it a 911 call? Was the home in the 300 block of Jesuit Drive the house being burgled?
Sanchez allegedly grabbed a metal object and threatened to kill the officers, officials said.
What kind of a metal object? An earring? A Saint Christopher medal? A silver candlestick? A gold ingot?
One of the officers used a Taser on Sanchez, but it had no effect, officials said.
Sanchez allegedly still had the metal object and charged the officers.
When he charged the officers, a 10-year veteran with the El Paso Police Department shot him, authorities said.
Is this guy Sanchez the Incredible Hulk? Or is he a skinny little kid? (My understanding is that the El Paso Police only shoot bodybuilders when they’re handcuffed.)
This is El Paso’s premier (only) English language daily, doing a story about a police shooting of a (relatively) unarmed man, and it’s inexcusable for them to feed their readers a police press release and claim that it bears any resemblance to real news reporting. I understand that times are tough for print media, and that national enterprises like Denver-based MediaNews, the company that owns the El Paso Times, don’t send their best and brightest to El Paso, but isn’t this report a little below even the low standards of the Times?
How can El Pasoans make informed decisions when we’re so poorly informed?
The best part is where the reporter, apparently in the only original thing he did, added the word “allegedly” in the part where he says the man was shot after he “allegedly” threatened the cops with a metal object. Journalism 101: Use “allegedly” when someone has been accused but not convicted, because if they’re later determined to be not guilty, they can sue you if you didn’t use the qualifying word. Journalism 101.1: Dead people can’t sue. This man is dead, per this EPPD press release masquerading as news.
One less Mexican on welfare.
You mean the cop that shot him?
Because cops shoot people all the time for possessing earrings. Maybe if anyone is ever assaulting you, don’t call the police, because you make it sound like all they do is run around shooting people for little or no reason. I don’t see any similar remarks by you about criminals, so I guess you are good with them. You should run for mayor while you still know everything.
Mr. (or Ms.) Dumb,
Because of the lack of quality in the reporting, we don’t know what kind of “metal object” the dead man possessed. Is it too much to ask for a more precise description?
Are you familiar with the case of Danny Saenz, who was shot by a uniformed El Paso Police officer in the sallyport of the of the El Paso County Jail? Mr. Saenz was handcuffed. Handcuffs are a metal object.