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Beiruty wrote:

MedicMan218 wrote:Y'all see this?
Why am I not surprised by the family's response that is the headline for this story.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/family ... kid-041012" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good kid and invading and burglarizing a house? eating dirt? You decide.

Actually, the article doesn't say he was a good kid...the headline is a distortion. The statement in the article is conditional, the headline is declarative. The Uncle says "to me he was a good kid"; he's not denying his nephew did wrong or the possibility that others saw a different kid --at least by what he's quoted saying in the article. The is one of the typical ways the media manipulate stories to fit certain narratives. They know that many people merely read the headline and the first sentence or paragraph of and article, so they write a misleading headline to fit their narrative then bury the actual information they're supposedly quoting several paragraphs down in the article. Many people will therefore read this headline and come away with the notion that a "good kid" was killed, probably for little or no reason. This is a more subtle version of propaganda but serves the same effect -to condition people to believe that "good kids" are losing their lives to violence.

10mmillie wrote:I hate the media. Calling them youngsters and Middle school students. How about calling them what they are? Criminals. Glad the homeowner didn't hesitate.

Note also, the article uses the active voice when referring to the home owner and the passive voice when referring to the criminals --as in:

The school sent a letter home Monday afternoon letting parents know a student had died.

The use of the passive voice here, whether originated by the school or the media, suggests a natural or accidental death, or in other words, has the effect of dismissing any responsibility for student in his own death; whereas the active voice applied to the home owner makes him entirely responsible for a "killing." The home owner "killed" and the student "died," instead of a student was killed breaking into someone's home. You'd think the school would want to discourage other kids from taking the same path, but apparently the politics are more important than the kids.

mamabearCali wrote:A case of lethal stupidity. Why would you break into a house into a house that has a person in it that has stated he has a gun? That is beyond dumb. I would like to feel sorry for them and their parents, but for goodness sakes. A man told you he had a gun, and you broke in anyway. Now the homeowner has to deal with the mess these dumb dumbs made. That is who I feel really sorry for.

Because the school system and the media and the government, have taught them that they are entitled to live at the expense of others, they probably assumed that their age would prevent the home owner from shooting them out of fear of prosecution. Or another way to express it may be because they figured he had more to lose than they did.