Media headlines blare out “Tamir Rice killing ruled a homicide!” “Eric Garner killing ruled a homicide!”

Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica, upon hearing the grand jury decision not to charge anyone in her father’s death, tweeted out asking how could they do that, hadn’t the medical examiner ruled her father’s death a homicide?

Erica Garner, not being an attorney or in media, could perhaps be excused for not understanding what the legal term of homicide means. The media, who should know, cannot be excused so easily.

A ruling of ‘homicide’ from a medical examiner does not mean there has been a finding of a murder. It doesn’t even mean necessarily that there has been a finding of a crime. Homicide is a big category which includes a killing of another person. Within that larger category are smaller categories or subsets of types of homicides, including murder which is criminal and justifiable homicide, such as in the case of self-defense, which is not criminal.

Any time a police officer shoots and kills a suspect, it is in fact a ‘homicide’, it is axiomatic. The question is whether it is justifiable.

But not everyone knows this, and the media, rather than clarifying this point, seem to make use of the misunderstanding of the term to further inflame the already inflamed climate.

In the past day, there was reporting on the death of a mentally ill black woman who died apparently from asphxia after police held her down when she allegedly fought police in the back of a police car. I have seen Buzz Feed, RT America and Huffington Post all blaring “Homicide”, and seen it quickly picked up as yet another proof of the evil racist police.

This is utterly irresponsible reporting. The homicide may be justifiable. It may not. But the distinction is lost in the blaring headline. Of course, it’s from the same crew that trumpeted suspects as “unarmed” even after they attack the police, similarly irresponsible reporting.

Time to call it out for what it is…