“I Feared for My Life”: Law Enforcement’s Appeal to Murderous Empathy

Media, Race, Shootings

Callais (2016) shows that riot coverage accounted for 81% of all coverage of police killings since the shooting death of Michael Brown. This is critical being that “media have become popular tour guides for people in their process of learning about social problems” (Berns, 2004, p. 35) as they rely on it as their main source of information and sometimes their only resource for reflecting on social problems. Moreover, representation in news media “creates an interpretive framework for solutions to the social problems of crime that favor some social action and/or reaction over others” (Gillespie, Richards, Givens, & Smith, 2013, p. 227). Thus, if news media presents riots as the major problem, removed from its motive and rationale, it influences social (re)action to be geared toward these riots, as opposed to what ignited them in the first place. Particular frames used in news media tend to highlight “certain kinds of criminals and their victims, while ignoring or downplaying others, thereby transmitting messages about who matters most in society” (Gillespie et al., 2013, p. 227). News media is important for understanding the general public sentiment, opinion, and reactions to social issues and events, especially since they have the capacity to legitimize particular views while marginalizing others (Gillespie et al., 2013, p. 227).

Media coverage on shooting victims “more intensely covers cases where victims are indictable” (Callais, 2016). For example, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland, two African American individuals, were framed as hostile and dangerous and received higher coverage than Tamir Rice and Walter Scott, a child and a man running away, respectively. National and online coverage was also low in the shootings involving then 22-year-old John Crawford, who was shot on sight at a Wal-Mart after police received false reports that Crawford was waving a gun at customers, along with the case of Sam DuBose, who police killed and then falsely reported him dragging an officer with his car (Callais, 2016). Although state-sanctioned killings of people of color is not new in the slightest, the media attention to the onslaught of slayings by police have assisted in the increase in public discussion on its use of brute force and militarization as well as smaller discussions on the morality of police, questioning if there is such thing as a “good cop.” This media framework is due, in large part, to the changing social relations in news media as it increasingly comes from those outside the news conglomerates and professional reporters (Curran, 2005).

Shortly after Martin’s death and the not guilty verdict of his killer, George Zimmer-man, the Black Lives Matter Movement emerged, further enhancing and amplifying discussions of racialized police brutality. Simultaneously, police brutality and murders of young Black men and women have remained ongoing with many captured on video from bystanders and nearby surveillance that activists and community members worked diligently to obtain. Though, not all were so visible. There were others that were not captured and hidden in the back of police wagons like in the case of Freddie Gray. Though this is not to say that police always attempt to avoid these murders being captured on video, the slaying of Michael Brown resembled a public execution or psychological terrorism (or “vicarious trauma” Downs, 2016) as law enforcement left his dead body lying in the street for hours.

The Master Narrative

In this recurrence of police killings of Black people and its public presence, law enforcement began to form a master narrative (Muldoon, Taylor, & Norma, 2015) of fear. Muldoon, Taylor, and Norma (2015, p. 6) describe master narratives as a “narrative that conveys a common felt experience.” The interpretations of the master narratives are not necessarily those of individual police involved in these killings, “nor reflective simply of their psychological reactions, but rather sociological conceptualizations” developed using abductive processes. The most salient single narrative in these cases is “I feared for my life,” however, other narratives and accounts are not as direct and may use other language. For example, Darren Wilson, the officer acquitted in the killing of Michael Brown, described his vision of Brown as a “demon” (Davidson, 2014, p. 1). Jurors in this case empathized with Wilson’s “persistence of fear” (Davidson, 2014, p. 1) and thus declined to indict him. While Wilson does not necessarily use the word fear, he invokes perceptions of being afraid by describing Brown as demonic—constituted by and constitutive of this master narrative of fearing for one’s life. At the sociological level, a master narrative is then understood in the broader social context—linked to various spheres in society—becoming a social product in which “fundamental aspects of life and the social structure are revealed to us in an indirect manner” (Ruiz, 2009, p. 11).

In making these connections, we have to examine not only police rhetoric but also how this discourse is (re)created in other spheres. In the political sphere, for example, Hillary Clinton, in her description of (Black) youth involved in crimes stated: “[t]hey are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘superpredators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel” (Mackey & Jilani, 2016). Here, she reinforces the idea that Black individuals are more dangerous and violent in three different ways. First, although she is referring to minors she attempts to remove the public from perceiving them as such. Then, she uses the term “superpredators,” which invokes the idea that their so-called ruthless behavior is innate or natural—animal-like—which is why they must first be restrained and controlled before trying to figure out the cause of their so-called bestial nature. Finally, she asserts that they lack moral aptitude, which further shapes the idea that they are dangerous and animal-like. This discourse becomes all the more problematic given that young Black people are more often the victims of these police shootings.

While the master narrative works to reveal a theme that runs across the accounts of law enforcement, it also allows for an examination of its use and what it does. At the sociological level, discourse does more than say things, but it also does things. I argue here that the master narratives used by these officers works as a strategy to reinforce racialized fear, avoid blame, and invoke empathy. Hansson (2015) developed a framework for analyzing the discursive strategies of blame avoidance in government, noting various uses and linguistic approaches. Receiving blame can “ruin personal or organizational reputation and result in the loss of power, finances, and job security for particular officeholders” (Hansson, 2015, p. 298), thus a lot can be on the line, especially for government organizations. Subsequently, it becomes crucial to avoid blame and strategies used to do so have the capacity to “encourage or discourage social learning, that is, the processes by which people both inside and outside of government make sense of each other’s perspectives and attitude, gain moral insights and reproduce shared meaning” (Hansson, 2015, p. 298). Furthermore, the sociopolitical landscape may potentially be altered as these strategies attempt to control public discourse, political agendas, and legitimate particular agents while disempowering others (Hansson, 2015). Part of understanding the use of these strategies in full requires a historical approach to discourse. For example, we must make connections between the “negro rapist” in the Victorian era, the myth of the bestial Black man in the later 1900s, and again to the superpredator or “thug” prevalent today, bringing these together to understand how they worked to justify traditional lynching in the “unwritten law” (Wells-Barnett, 1995) in the context of current policing and the use of the so-called “blue shield.”

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Discourse is the broader idea communicated through language in any given context that functions on a level higher than grammar and semantics in an attempt to reveal the consequences of particular language forms as they operate in various sociopolitical and cultural arenas (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 20). CDA works to “develop ways of analyzing language which address its involvement in the workings of contemporary capitalist society” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 1). In current capitalist society, text is a crucial technology of ruling used to “mediate social organization, transporting power in ideologies and practices across sites and among people” (Peet & Hartwick, 2009, p. 246). Thus, analyzing discourse for its ideological underpinnings help to “reveal how reality is selectively framed, subjects and objects are positioned, and issues are masked, silenced and written out of the picture” (Bauer, Bicquelet, & Suerdem, 2014, emphasis added). Just as it is important to determine what words, phrases, and meanings are present in the text, “it is also important to question what is missing; discourse is neither neutral nor transparent” (Hamilton, 2009, p. 40).

If we understand that language is constitutive of and constituted by social life, and if we are to accept the argument that text analysis is more capable than other methods at understanding sociocultural processes as they occur, then it seems critical for sociology to be more inclusive of textual analysis as a major method of study. The (critical) study of language can be useful for micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of research. It is also well suited for studies at various scales (nation-state, regional, global), which “refers to the arenas in which political, economic, and social processes and practices are imagined and investigated as occurring,” (Cohen & Frazier, 2014, p. 254) or spaces, in the Lefebvrian sense in which they facilitate the production of meaning. Discourse analysis is of great value when examining phenomena occurring in a particular temporality or across various epochs. It has the potential to demonstrate how discourse is used by ideologues to shift thinking and imaginings along with other phenomena. More importantly, it has the unique potential to see these processes in the course of their occurrences.

Scholars utilizing CDA view language as a social practice that is connected to our actions and the construction of society. Central to this view is exploring how language naturalizes world views, giving them a taken-for-granted foundation. In other words, “[t]hrough language, certain kinds of practices, ideas, values, and identities are promoted and naturalized” (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 3). CDA links language, power, and ideology and also tends to have an orientation toward social change and political intervention, avoiding distorted understandings of what it means to be objective. It also looks at how ideological elements seek to shape events, persons, and processes in certain ways. For example, when news reporters/commentators utilize a gender-neutral linguistic strategy to describe instances of violence or homicide against women, it hides the masculine character of such violence through the appearance of being neutral. Whether this is an ideological goal or not, it blinds readers and viewers to finding more precise solutions.

Present Study

In the present study, I argue that the master narrative formed in this context appeals to public empathy and avoids blame. In doing so, the utilization of the master narrative further reinforces the implicit bias or macroaggression toward people of color (Black individuals, particularly) as being more dangerous than other groups. The goal here is to demonstrate how these fictional narratives form what Muldoon et al. (2015) call a “master narrative,” which helps them avoid blame while also reinforcing the notion that Black people are dangerous.

…we all know that when the police put out a statement, it is—it’s a fictional narrative. It’s a narrative that is adjusted to the legal standards, which is basically that they felt a threat and they feared for their lives. So, what’s really important is sometimes to hold them to those accounts, because, over time, as evidence comes forward, that narrative will fall apart. (Goodman & Camarena, 2016)

Another contribution to this issue, however, could be the lack of textual analysis in disciplines like sociology. Textual analysis is critical, especially for sociology and criminology because it has a larger capacity to examine social processes as they occur (Fairclough, 1995, p. 186). This temporal aspect, I believe, is critical to sociology as a whole, although it is generally comparative—historical sociologists who tend to focus on large structures and central processes. Speaking of the historical aspect as part of the very roots of sociology, Theda Skocpol (1984, p. 1, emphases added) notes that the main characteristics of historical sociology (read sociology) are inquiries concerning social structures, processes over time, the “interplay of meaningful actions and structural context,” and highlights of the “particular and varying features of specific kinds of social structures and patterns of change.” She asserts that the task of the historical sociologist (read sociologist) is to “analyze the relationships between these epochal processes and to probe their consequences for forms of group action” (Skocpol, 1984, pp. 16–17), and for problem-oriented scholars to make sense of “historical patterns, using in the process whatever theoretical resources seem useful and valid.”

With the ability to regulate, build, and maintain various ideas and values in a society, language can also be used to legitimatize particular social practices. In other words, language has the ability to produce and reproduce social life. This makes it critical to question what kind of social life is being created by texts and images and what types of inequalities and/or interests are being generated, reinforced, and legitimized (Machin & Mayr, 2012).

Using high-profile cases, I gathered newspaper articles, press releases, and court transcripts and testimonies to examine the comments, discussions, and interviews of the offending officers and others involved (e.g., officers, spokespersons, judges, jurors). After deciding on the particular cases, I searched for the initial news reports that included direct quotes from the parties involved. Left and right leanings were not taken into account when selecting the news articles. While each case utilized one primary article, supplemental articles were also used to extend the analysis. Once selected, I performed repeated readings of each article and coded them accordingly. After the initial coding, I conducted thematic coding, which came to generate categories of blame avoidance and discourse that make up the master narrative.

As MacMillan (2005, p. 7) points out, there is no single approach to discourse analyses. Quantitative methods can be used to count lexical items, while qualitative methods are used to examine how language works by focusing on its use in particular context. Furthermore, “deep qualitative analysis on a smaller selection of data will generally yield much more insight.” In order to gain a richer insight into this phenomenon, I limited the number of news sites and articles in the final analysis. The goal here is to show how the master narrative is formed and works in this particular context using various discursive strategies.

Given the objective to explain the “how,” I utilized a theoretical sampling strategy, “a method of data collection based on concepts/themes derived from data. The purpose of theoretical sampling is to collect data.…that will maximize opportunities to develop concepts in terms of their properties and dimensions, uncover variations, and identify relationships between concepts” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 143). Theoretical sampling takes a responsive approach where it is responsive to the data as opposed to being established before the research. In this way, according to Corbin and Strauss (2008, p. 144), sampling becomes open and flexible. Continuing, “concepts are derived during data analysis and questions about those concepts drive the next round of data collection” (2008, p. 144). Using this sampling technique allows researchers to more organically uncover phenomena, concepts and their dimensions in depth, rather than attempting to test or verify hypotheses about the respective phenomena and potentially being closed to discovering other aspects (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 144). Consistency and being systematic then takes on a different meaning than other types of research. As readers will see below, consistency does not tend to be a problem as the narratives generally show a form of consistency between them. In this case, the “basic script” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 148) is “I feared for my life” though the details may be different.

The cases sampled here tended to be found in various news outlets at the time of collection, which allowed me to gather as much information as possible and cross-examine that information. In addition, as high-profile cases, these cases were assumed to be more familiar to the readers, which may help in reading and understanding the arguments made.

The coding process, in some ways, resembles the theoretical approach. Like theoretical sampling, open coding avoids preconceived notions and expectations of findings. Instead, the data and interpretation of the data guide the analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 160). Given the level of abstract required (or learned) in thinking with open coding, the possibilities and potential of the data are many. This brainstorming process lays a path for more carefully examined and thought-out conceptualization, which in turn “not only reduces the amount of data the research has to work with, but at the same time provides a language for talking about the data” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 160).

Within this coding process there are lower level concepts, which can be explanatory concepts that fill in or provide details, and also higher level concepts, which are lower level concepts grouped together that share similar characteristics that describe concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 159). For example, a higher level concept could be “blame avoidance” while a lower level concept could be “I thought he had a gun.” The higher level concept of “blame avoidance” could be applied to each situation, while the lower level concept “I thought he had a gun” (a particular technique for blame avoidance) may be specific to one case.

I began coding after reading the very first news article included in the analysis. However, other news articles that covered related topics like the death of Trayvon Martin was also coded (more for brainstorming than analysis). For each article, I performed line-by-line coding and then coded the codes in order to create high-level concepts or categories. Following that, I separately created categories based on each technique of blame avoidance in Hansson’s (2015) framework. Once all the articles were coded using opening coding and coded again using the framework, I matched the cases to their respective strategy of blame avoidance. The open coding was used for uncovering the master narrative, while the categories established from the framework were used to reveal the blame avoidance. These cases are not mutually exclusive, but each one provided enough data to fit appropriately into their own technique or strategy.

Law-Enforcement’s Discursive Strategies for Blame Avoidance

Hansson (2015) reviews several linguistic approaches to blame avoidance, which includes approaches provided by Hood (2011). These approaches were then synthesized into one extensive heuristic model. Those include ways of arguing, framing, denying, representing social actors and actions, and finally, legitimizing and manipulating social cognition. I apply these approaches specifically to law enforcement in the context of unarmed killings. In doing so, I use the high-profile cases of Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, and Walter Scott. The power of the master narrative can be seen as it in some way or another fits into each one of these linguistic approaches. Thus, the master narrative is constitutive of and constituted by these blame avoidance approaches.

Examination of this master narrative and blame avoidance techniques are critical since they influence not only the perceptions of their audiences but also their decisions. In the Trayvon Martin case, for example, one of the jurors who acquitted Zimmerman said she “had ‘no doubt’ he feared for his life in the final moments of his struggle with Trayvon Martin, and that was the definitive factor in the verdict” (Ford, 2013, p. 1). Though Zimmerman is not a police officer, this shows that the power of this narrative pushes beyond the mere officers but is encapsulated in the criminal justice system as a whole at various levels.

Ways of Arguing

The ways of arguing are typically characterized by the officer’s persuasion of the audience. Officers attempt to convince the public that they are not blameworthy and as Hansson (2015, p. 299) points out, “this involves making argumentative moves to manipulate the perception of loss…and the perception of agency by proposing that harm has been done unintentionally, unknowingly, involuntarily or by someone else.” In the case of police shootings, the latter is often the case. Shifting blame is common in this approach and may involve the use of “pseudo-argumentative backing of claims or argumentative fallacies that neglect certain premises of rational discussion” (Hansson, 2015, p. 300). These argumentative fallacies in the context of police shootings often hinge on the master narrative, especially as officers provide false analogies, appeal to audience feelings, or attack the others’ character. One other facet of this approach is the topic-specific conclusion rules or “topoi” (Hansson, 2015, p. 300). These are “quasi-argumentative shortcuts, content related warrants that connect arguments with the claim, but the plausibility of which can be easily questioned” (Hansson, 2015, p. 300).

The master narrative used among officers has itself has become a type of topoi. This conclusion rule in the context of police shootings is that officers should not be held accountable. As shown in the Rekia Boyd case, Officer Servin bypassed the analogies and character attacks and simply used this topic specific quasi-argumentative shortcut, “I feared for my life.” Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old Black woman, was shot in the back of the head by off-duty officer Dante Servin. Servin reportedly frustrated with a loud party going on in his neighborhood, dispatched police from home saying that he was “afraid something bad was going to happen” (Meyer & Morris, 2013, p. 1). Upon leaving his home about 10 min later, Servin strapped on an unregistered handgun. After an exchange between Servin and Antonio Cross, a member of Boyd’s party, Servin claimed that Cross aimed a gun at him and that he “feared for his life” (Runge, 2013). Servin then fired several shots, one of which struck Rekia Boyd in the back of the head (as the feared group was not facing him). The police spokesperson went on to claim that “the officer fired in defense of his life when a man approached his vehicle and pointed a gun at him…incidentally, no gun was ever found” (Runge, 2013, p. 1). It was later determined that the man accused of pointing a gun at Servin (and also shot by Servin) was holding a cell phone (Gorner & Dardick, 2013, p. 1). Servin, having “no regrets” did not need to appeal to public sentiment or show remorse for his actions because he simply used the master narrative.

This narrative is not only used to influence public sentiment but also judges and jurors. Servin remained on the police force during the proceeding trial for chargers of involuntary manslaughter and was later ruled not guilty by Judge Dennis Porter, stating,

Simply put, the evidence presented in this case does not support the charges on which the defendant was indicted and tried. There being no evidence of recklessness as a matter of law, there is no evidence to which the state could sustain its burden of proof as to the fourth element of the charge of involuntary manslaughter (Pathieu & Gallardo, 2015, p. 1).

Ways of Denying

There are various ways institutions deny or reject accusations. Hansson (2015, pp. 301–302) outlines five different method types, which include act-denial, control-denial, intention-denial, goal-denial, and mitigation or minimization. Included in this approach also is blame reversal/blaming the victim, which are regarded as stronger forms of denial than the other denying techniques.

While invoking the master narrative and topoi of fear-based shooting, Servin also utilized approaches of denial. Servin claimed that he was aiming for Cross, but Boyd and others were only a few dozen feet away from him (Meyer & Morris, 2013), implying that shooting was not intentional. After the verdict was determined, Servin stated,

I think it was a mistake for the state’s attorney to charge me, but I also explained to the family that if this is what they needed for closure—for me to be charged—I hope they got what they were looking for (Pathieu & Gallardo, 2015, p. 1).

Using these forms of denial, officers attempt to “alter the perception of the blame taker’s agency” (Hansson, 2015, p. 302). Intention-denial stands out among the various forms of denial because providing evidence that the officer had negative intentions can seem impossible, especially when it is an officer’s word in a criminal justice system in which he holds the institutional power and support. This makes intention-denial particularly effective (Hansson, 2015).

Representing Social Actors and Actions

This approach uses various strategies for representing actors and actions, such as impersonalizing and minimalizing the victims and/or the perpetrators (Hansson, 2015). However, more salient techniques are also used in the context of police shooting such as “othering,” which establishes an “us” versus “them” context. The “other” often is portrayed with negative stereotypes, which helps blame to endure easily. Though, more importantly in this case, the harm that is done to groups who are represented as negative is less likely to generate blame (Hansson, 2015). In other words, if people of color are viewed as threatening or dangerous, harm inflicted on them is less likely to generate blame.

As mentioned previously, part of the master narrative here is the implication that Black individuals are dangerous. This membership categorization provides a foundation in which the master narrative can be legitimatized. Simultaneously, however, the deployment of this master narrative adds to the legitimation that Black people should be feared. This goes hand in hand with how officers (and their supporters) attempt to represent themselves. Officers attempt to evade accountability by focusing on and representing themselves through their reactions and mental processes that are invisible (e.g., I feared for my life) and avoiding the discussion of the material effects (Hansson, 2015, p. 303), in this case, the death of the shooting victims.

The news media plays a large part in this approach as it tends to focus on and negatively framed protests that follow police shootings. The images and video clips of protests presented by news media attempt to frame (Black) protestors and rioters as dangerous and threatening, negatively shaping and directing the public sentiment toward the protests and away from the incidents that gave rise to them in the first place. News media attempts to deter blame on the officers by reversing this representational approach. That is, the focus tends to be on the very visible material effects of the protests and riots and avoids discussing the mental processes of the rioters and protestors (e.g., grief, bereavement, social/procedural injustice).

Throughout the transcripts of Darren Wilson’s testimony, Wilson discursively portrays Brown as some kind of “superhuman demon,” a term that resonates with Clinton’s superpredator. At one point Wilson stated, “It [the gun] went off twice in the car. Pull, click, click, went off, click, went off. When I look up after that, I see him start to run and I see a cloud of dust behind him. I then get out of my car.” Wilson makes himself appear helpless until his guns finally fires after the third time he tries. Further creating the image of Brown as super or rather nonhuman, he implies that Brown was running so fast that he left a cloud of dust in the air, as one would see in a cartoon or movie. Wilson recalling his attempt to shoot Brown, he describes Brown:

He looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked. He comes back toward me again with his hands up. At that point I just went like this, I tried to pull the trigger again, click, nothing happened…

At that point I just went like this, I tried to pull the trigger again, click, nothing happened…I just saw his hands up, I don’t know if they were closed yet, on the way to going closed, I saw this and that face coming at me again, and I just went like this and I shielded my face…. So I pulled the trigger, it just clicks that time. Without even looking, I just grab the top of my gun, the slide and I racked it…still not looking just holding my hand up, I pulled the trigger again, it goes off…. When I look up after that, I see him start cloud of dust behind him. I then get out of my car. As I’m getting out of the car I tell dispatch, “shots fired, send me more cars” (State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, 2014).

Legitimizing and Manipulating Social Cognition

Legitimizing includes explanations and justifications of actions of law enforcement. Hansson (2015) reviews four categories of legitimations discovered by van Leeuwen (2008) and Wodak and Meyer (2009). These include authority legitimation, moral evaluation legitimation, rationalization legitimation, and mythopoesis, which involve using moral or cautionary tales where sanctions proceed legitimate or illegitimate actions. These legitimizing techniques are generally used to end discussions by evoking some kind of authority as justification and avoid critical discussion.

Critical linguists have outlined how manipulation occurs in various forms. Manipulation along with other approaches to avoid blame can be a “discursive abuse of power” (Hansson, 2015, p. 304; Van Dijk, 2006). Thus, CDA works as a “resource for people who are struggling against domination and oppression in its linguistic form” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 1). van Dijk (Hansson, 2015; van Dijk, 2006) has proposed a 3-fold approach to understanding manipulation in CDA. According to van Dijk, manipulation occurs when discourse is used by dominant groups to “(re)produce their power and to hurt the interests of less powerful groups” (Hansson, 2015, p. 304). Manipulation is also present when text and talk are designed to misinform, (re)create group polarization, and/or play on vulnerabilities (Hansson, 2015).

The following case involving Walter Scott (Schmidt & Apuzzo, 2015) is exemplary of the use of authority legitimation and also demonstrates manipulation components of the accounts given in the defense of Slager. Officer Slager, killer of Walter Scott, claimed that he was responding to a traffic stop when Scott attempted to obtain Slager’s Taser and use it against the officer. According to Slager’s narrative, he then shot Scott while defending himself. Later, Slager’s lawyer stated:

Slager thinks he properly followed all procedures and policies before resorting to deadly force. When confronted, Officer Slager reached for his Taser—as trained by the department—and then a struggle ensued.

The driver tried to overpower Officer Slager in an effort to take his Taser. Seconds later, the report added, he radioed that the suspect wrested control of the device. Even with the Taser’s prongs deployed, the device can still be used as a stun gun to temporarily incapacitate someone. Slager “felt threatened and reached for his department-issued firearm and fired his weapon,” his attorney added (Knapp, 2015, p. 1).

Beyond these linguistic approaches to blame avoidance, two others remain salient in the context of police shootings. The first one is “drawling a line,” which occurs when officers open with a “preemptive apology calculated to disarm critics and attract sympathy” (Hansson, 2015, p. 305) and “changing the subject,” which attempts to shift the public agenda to other issues such as “Black on Black violence.”

Ways of Framing: The 5-Year-Old Overcomes the Hulk

Utilizing cognitive linguist George Lakoff’s work, Hansson (2015) discusses framing as another linguistic approach to blame avoidance. Framing is one of the most common techniques used by media, law enforcement, or any individual or institution with a communication component. Framings are usually based on some type of narrative. One of the common frames for blame is the “rescue narrative” coined by George Lakoff (Hansson, 2015, p. 300). This narrative includes a hero, villain, and victim. There is also the so-called bad apple framework where institutions or organizations argue that the problem is not the barrel, but one bad apple and so simply getting rid of that one bad apple, the barrel (institution/ideology/authority) will function properly. This saves the organization itself while targeting someone else for blame. It is common for institutions to respond to “accusations by convicting a person rather than by changing their dominant beliefs or their possibly flawed system of operation” (Hansson, 2015, p. 301).

As one of the most salient linguistic approaches among law enforcement, framing is essential. The following is from the court transcripts of the State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson case (2014):

On the one hand, Wilson infantilizes himself, painting an image of himself as a “five-year-old.” On the other hand, he compares Brown to former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, provoking images of strength, masculinity, and the ideation of a skilled fighter. This image of a five-year-old trying to hold onto Hulk Hogan works to invoke empathy among the public and courts. In this analogy, he omits the weaponry and tools the “five-year-old” is equipped with. Wilson’s infantilization further aided his created representation and the audience’s imaginary of a deepened fear. Wilson portrays himself as childlike and Brown as demon, slightly altering Clinton’s earlier rhetoric that deemphasized the youth of Black juvenile delinquents and described them as superpredators. Enhancing the imagery of fear, Wilson instead made himself appear child-like, but maintained a domineering image of Brown as a superpredator.

There is a theme that strings throughout Wilson’s testimony that continually gives the impression of Brown as dangerous, evil, and super in various ways. Each of these descriptions not only characterizes Brown, but works to create a perception of fear Wilson himself must have experienced. “As I’m getting out of the car I tell dispatch, ‘shots fired, send me more cars’” (State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, 2014). Telling dispatch that shots were fired leaves open to interpretation who was doing the firing with the implication that it is not the officer himself.

Deepening the fear of this “five-year-old,” Wilson describes Brown using the word “demon” (State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, 2014). At this point, Brown is now like professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (who stood bigger than The Incredible Hulk himself), with Roadrunner speed, and the look of a demon who’s “grunting” and “aggravated.” As he begins to wrap up his retelling of the incident, Wilson again depicts Brown in ways to provoke fear amongst listeners, portraying him as having desire to kill and the strength to do so:

I’m backing up pretty rapidly, I’m backpedaling pretty good because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me. And he had started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me. (State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, 2014)