Update: Or not.
What's courage? When the Fort Hood gunman turned and shot at her, she ran toward him. She ran toward the bullets, firing. NYT profiles firearms expert Kimberly Munley.
Courage (and training) defined.
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What's courage? When the alleged Fort Hood gunman turned and fired on her, she ran toward him. She ran toward the bullets, firing. NYT profiles firearms expert Kimberly Munley.
I'm glad you changed the post to take out the 'alleged' in that post. Alleged is one of those silly words that seems to get chucked in automatically by lots of people even when it's not accurate.
I regret the error.
Even though Officer Munley is no longer in the military, I hope someone gives her a purple heart at the very least.
The only silver lining in all of this is the thought of how many people she saved by choosing to act quickly and decisively.
Barely counts as an error when you change it before even the most pedantic people can comment :)
Now that's training.
Instinct would have most of us cowering for cover...
pics or it didn't happen
This is what Law Enforcement is trained for. She is a hero, although she was just doing her job. Congrats to her for ending the shooting quickly and wishes for a speedy recovery.
Bascule, I have to disagree. It's actually completely accurate to say "alleged". This is a civil rights issue. Even if common sense says we absolutely know this guy committed this crime, we aren't the jury of his peers. He's innocent until proven guilty, not innocent until the press/internet/etc decides it's obvious he's guilty so whatevs.
You may disagree with that logic. But "alleged" is definitely not a word that gets chucked in automatically. They teach us to put it in there in journalism school because, sometimes, common sense is wrong.
I'm going to bookmark this for the next time someone comes flaming out of the night screaming about how "ALL COPZ IZ EVEL!"
Rushing towards someone who has just shot and killed a dozen people and is firing wildly? That's a level of training and courage that commands respect.
Nancy Grace is what happens when the press stops treating suspects as innocent until proven guilty.
@mgfarrelly - It is good to see pro-Law Enforcement here on BoingBoing! Thank you!
mg: i'd rather rush someone firing wildly than one firing precisely.
OK, last reply from me here.
Talking to Xeni about this, I think I'm actually wrong on the use of "alleged" in this case. Not because using "alleged" is stupid, in general. But because, in this context, we're talking about a situation where a woman is running at a shooter. Nobody is questioning that the shooter exists. We're just giving the specific guy the legal right of innocent until proven guilty. But in this story, we're not talking about any specific guy, just the shooter, so not using "alleged" is fine.
But I do think that the use of "alleged" makes perfect sense--for anyone concerned about civil liberties--in any context where the identity of a suspect is being referred to and the suspect hasn't yet been convicted.
This copy editing "Inside Baseball" moment brought to you by the letter "M".
Total +1 to Maggie's thoughts there.
A few points/questions.
The sentence as it stood at the beginning did not name the 'Fort Hood gunman' so what is the use of preserving the civil rights of somebody that hasn't been named. Someone did the shooting.
And similiarly the police officer in this case ran towards a person who shot her 5(?) times before that gunman stopped shooting. Now you could use the word alleged a few times but they would rob more and more meaning from the reported story. It is totally preposterous to say that 'the police officer was shot 5 times by the alleged gunman' because this sentence ignores the fact that she was shot by someone and that someone was therefore a gunman.
I don't have a philosophy degree so I'm possibly missing a loose thread in my reasoning but there are some times when common sense and logic says don't use the alleged word as it just isn't correct. IMHO ;)
@bascule, i think you wrote this before seeing Maggie's last comment. I think the three of us are actually on the same page here now.
He clearly wasn't firing wildly - he hit her, while she was running, at least three times.
The fact that he hit her in both thighs would seem to indicate that he was pre-flinching and pushing the gun away and down in anticipation of the "bang". The bullets coming toward him couldn't have helped though.
Something tells me that she, on the other hand, hit him COM repeatedly until he went down.
@Maggie - He's normal people are innocent until proven guilty, however the "alleged" shooter in this case is a military officer and did it on a military base, so I believe he is actually treated as guilty until proven innocent, so I guess "alleged" is completely unnecessary in this case.
On the use of 'alleged', even though it seems clearly not the case here she could have fired on someone else who was engaging the actual gunman (not an uncommon story - what if the perceived wounded soldier had been the real gunman and the person she fired upon had just taken him down and then returned fire on her in self-defense) thus she went for an alleged gunman and it looks like she got the right guy
Adding "alleged" is a safe move for journalism, but it's still along the same lines as anti-science people who talk about, say, the "alleged" theory of evolution.
But getting back on topic, I will gladly affirm that officer Munley is an alleged hero. :)
sometimes I see actions described as "brave" and I wonder whether they were more "foolhardy", but certainly not here.
This was a calculated courageous act carried out with a full understanding of what was at stake. Her willingness to accept her potential death and stay cool and focused almost certainly saved several lives.
I disagree entirely, Ted. Maggie's reasoning is sound. She -- we -- are not using the word in an attempt to disguise a passive-aggressive assault on an idea or person. We're using the word to remain in line with what we know to be fact, and steering clear of emotionally-driven speculation. Mr. Hasan is alleged to be the sole gunman who attacked at Fort Hood (we are identifying a specific individual, and discussing the fact that he is personally accused, but not proven, to be responsible for a specific crime). But from widely reported facts, I think we're safe in saying that Sgt. Munley acted in response to a gunman (by all witnesses' accounts, she was not defending herself against someone who was not a gunman, or against a hallucination of a gunman). Where does the hair-splitting end, though? Different organizations and different editors have differing opinions.
"They teach us to put it in there in journalism school because, sometimes, common sense is wrong."
Funny, when I went to journalism school, and it hasn't been that long, they specifically taught us that wasn't the case. And I did get an A in communications law.
You can't be sued for libel for reporting what a government official tells you in his official capacity. But just slapping "alleged" on an allegation doesn't protect you from an otherwise libelous statement.
He was a man driven to this by constant and illegal harassment, being forced to go and serve in an illegal war. The officer did the right thing by her lights, but the shooter is a victim also and the real criminal is Bush. But of course no one will say that, even here, because he's an Evil Muslim (tm).
This isn't about legal defense or pre-emptive best practices to prevent lawsuits, Inkstain, it's about wanting to be as accurate and fair and responsible as we can.
I know, but the word "alleged" is still bad writing and often inaccurate.
There was a Fort Hood gunman. We know that. It may not have been the person who has been arrested for it, but there definitely was one.
The officer didn't run at the alleged gunman. She ran at the gunman.
Inkstain, perhaps you missed it, but Maggie and I are now in agreement on that point. Please read the entire thread, and note Maggie's later comment on that fine but important point.
I originally wrote this blog post using the phrase "alleged gunman," and realized that very point about a moment later, and removed "alleged," and republished.
Maggie has been defending her use of the word "alleged" in another thread which names Mr. Hasan and discusses specific actions attributed to him. We chatted together offline about whether the word was helpful to use in this thread, and she rethought things, and I thought more about her arguments, and we all pretty much agree on an approach now.
So, dude, the point's been made in the thread. We're all good here.
On the original topic of the post: she is definitely my hero. Duty or no, knowing that there are people who can and do remember their training and their calling while in grave personal danger is what keeps my wavering faith in humanity alive.
On the alleged use of the word "alleged" (it was gone before I saw the post, so...) - I think Xeni was over-cautious, but technically correct, in using it in the first place; I admit that I do like the sentence better without it. Despite "Anonymous"'s comment above, when Hasan goes on trial it will be the prosecution's job to prove that he was the guy doing the shooting; until then he is merely the prime suspect.
What bugs me, though, is the use of "suspect" and "alleged" before anyone has been arrested or even named. Over and over I hear "the suspect opened fire" or "the alleged burglar stole" and it PISSES ME OFF. Somebody definitely did it: but until you have arrested somebody (or issued an arrest warrant with a name on it), that person is not the "suspect". Up until trial, you can have a definite crime and indefinite doer; or a definite suspect who may or may not have done the crime. Only after trial can you definitely put crime and doer together; at the same time, you shouldn't create confusion by seeming to have uncertainty about both crime and criminal.
This usage - and I hear it nearly every day, either from cops in press releases or from news anchors - seems to me to be an accidentally-on-purpose over-use of the presumption of innocence, seeking to make it absurd. Or to put it another way: if we talk about the "suspect" as the guy who definitely did it when we don't know who he is, it makes it much easier for a jury to convict once we actually do have a suspect in the dock.
MT_Head, I think those are all good points. Just as jumping too quickly to declarative statements about an individual is foolish, so is the promiscuous and sloppy use of wiggle words.
A woman's place is in the home.
(that was sarcasm)
In my experience, in cop speak, an unidentified perp gets the "subject" label, not the "suspect" label. Jargon-y, yes, but not waffly or overcautious.
--Beryl
She is definitely a hero on that one. A hero that was well trained and took care of business.
It is counter-intuitive to run and attack your attacker in an ambush but only by doing the unexpected do you have a chance.
One thing I haven't seen people talk much about is how much the Army doesn't care if you are mentally ill or not when sending troops overseas. The Army has been proven to send mentally ill people overseas. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12777489/
Thanks Magi and Xeni, regarding the word alleged. On a tangent...
As a law student who has volunteered a lot for a public defender, it irks me when prosecutors and sometimes judges blow past the presumption of innocence in the (legitimate) effort to protect alleged victims, particularly in initial bail hearings.
Consider for example allegations of domestic assault. The defendant may have seconds before the judge to decide where else to live until the next hearing, often away from his or her kid(s). He or she may not be able to afford a hotel, but that's never the court's problem. All this may be based on no more than a sometimes sketchy police report whipped up over the weekend.
I do not oppose playing it safe, do not dislike honest cops, and maybe most of those in jail are to some degree guilty of something (who isn't?), but imagine spending a weekend in jail after an argument in which you can't recall any threats or abuse, then told you cannot go home. Imagine how much worse to be falsely accused of terrorism and disappear for days, weeks, in some cases years.
Any major government, whatever its merits, has the power to destroy the innocent. It is up to us as voters, as officers of the court, as citizens and observers to prevent that, and it's more than pedantic to be careful. Our Constitution and particularly the fourth and fifth Amendments were created to protect us from ourselves, from our natural tendency to get sloppy and convict without proof.
I applaud Kimberly Munley's apparent bravery. My father and grandfather were both Minneapolis cops and both served in major wars. We need good, smart cops as much as we need good, smart judges, juries, members of the press, and other citizens.
Can anyone explain why the first armed person to the scene (on an army base) was a civilian police officer?
Why not MPs?
p.s. what's wrong with the word heroine?
I found this article interesting. I was shocked about the incident, of course. I wonder how much of an impact this will have on current political agendas and opinion..
I'm from .au so perhaps a bit behind with it all, though the article in today's paper raises interesting points about "softly softly" explanations given by media.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/unwilling-to-face-the-truth/story-e6frezz0-1225795547620
>Can anyone explain why the first armed person to the scene (on an army base) was a civilian police officer?
Why not MPs?
Oh, I can! Non combat roles stateside (Cooking, security, vehicle operation, maintenance) were all converted to civilian contractors in the 90's to save money, and free up soldiers to deploy. It actually makes some sense.
Sure. Because she was already there, and the MPs weren't, and since she was a cop but not a serving military member she was legally carrying heat and the soldiers present weren't.
At least we've had a lengthy discussion about the most important aspect of this story of heroism: an incredibly minor journalistic writing standard.