On June 26, 2021, a police officer in Massachusetts fatally shot Nathan Allen. Too many killings by police have been unjustified, and some were frankly murder, so it’s necessary to look carefully into each one. Investigators found that this one was justified. Allen had just shot and killed two people without provocation, apparently just because they had dark skin. Just before that, he had shot into an unoccupied car and stolen and crashed a truck. Allen then advanced on the officer while holding a gun. After telling Allen to put the gun down and being ignored, the officer shot him. After handcuffing Allen, the officer tried to treat his wounds, but Allen died.

Assuming everything happened as described, I’d have to say the officer acted properly. He had to shoot because Allen was an ongoing threat to his life and the lives of others in the vicinity. This is miles removed from, for example, Daniel Pantaleo’s killing Eric Garner for illegally selling cigarettes. (Pantaleo was punished by being fired and losing his pension, which he claimed was a horribly excessive punishment.)

The deciding factor isn’t Allen’s ideas or even what he had just done. It’s the danger that he posed when he was shot, the available alternatives, and the officer’s situation. Police aren’t supposed to be executioners; they’re supposed to stop crimes, with punishment left to the courts. News coverage should look at whether the shooting was necessary to save lives. Some reports did much better than others.

A New York-based source, the Times Union, had one of the best reports I’ve seen. It describes the sequence of events in detail, including the critical moments:

At that time Bettano arrived on the scene, was able to move other bystanders out of danger and told Allen to put down his gun. When he refused and lifted his gun, Bettano shot him four times, investigators said.
 

I have to take off a couple of points for inconsistent capitalization of skin color adjectives, but that’s a sadly common feature of reporting today. If you don’t want your articles to look biased, capitalize both “White” and “Black” or don’t capitalize either.

Reports shouldn’t give the impression that Allen was a martyr for his ideas. The invention of martyrs has helped some horrible people to gain power. Unfortunately, some stories I’ve seen can give the impression that the officer was let off the hook because Allen was a white supremacist. Take a look, for example, at the local coverage by WHDH. The WHDH description of the shooting of Allen is just one short sentence: “Allen was eventually taken down by police.” More emphasis goes on Allen’s twisted thoughts:

Investigators said they later found journals at Allen’s home full of racist and antisemitic writings they said suggested a motive for the attacks. …

[District Attorney] Hayden said this was “a terrifying incident for Winthrop, rooted in Nathan Allen’s deep White Supremacist hatred.”

Contemptible as Allen’s ideas may have been, they have no bearing on the shooting. In ugly corners of the world and the Internet, I’m sure people are claiming Allen was gunned down for being a white supremacist, or that the court went easy on the officer because of Allen’s beliefs. They can point at articles like this one to reinforce that notion.

I first heard about the result of the investigation from a TV report I overheard while waiting for a sandwich. That report was even worse in ignoring the circumstances of the shooting and talking only about Allen as a person. The idea that it’s OK for government officials to do bad things to bad people, no further questions necessary, can discourage attention to actual injustices. There have been many accounts of brutality by prison guards and probably many more cases that have never been reported. Some of those prisoners were undoubtedly pretty brutal themselves, but that excuses nothing.

While I haven’t studied the evidence, I’m inclined to think the investigators were right in saying the officer who shot Allen acted properly. But if you’re reporting on the investigation of any kind of killing, whether it’s by a cop in Massachusetts or a soldier in a distant country, please keep your eye on the events leading to the killing more than the personalities of the people involved.