The Case of the Active and Passive Shooting Language

An amusing (except where it's not) look at the different language used by the police when a civilian shoots another person vs a police officer shooting another person. The language in the former is always active ("X killed Y") while the language in the former is always passive ("Y was killed in an officer-involved shooting") and even sometimes inhuman ("Y was killed when the officer's gun discharged").

Wonder why that is? 

(On a side note, isn't it interesting that the police will always release the name of a civilian accused of shooting someone, but will often — sometimes with force of law — withhold the name of an officer involved in an officer-involved shooting? See http://goo.gl/PN4XTZ)

We enable the police with awesome power — the ability to shoot someone with the protection of the law — because we know that they face a lot of dangers. But when they get treated, subtly and overtly, in a very different way than non-police, it weakens the very foundation of civil authority in a democracy.

(h/t +George Wiman)