(BTW, I was on the other end at one point in my life… I was a suspect)
This is for all my law enforcement readers… this stuff is just crazy! Via LAW OFFICER:
When Seattle police officers write use of force reports they no longer call a suspect a suspect.
“Community member” is the new term. Several officers say the term is offensive, explaining their work with violent suspects.
Sources point to the suspect who shot three officers last month after a downtown Seattle armed robbery. When officers involved in that incident were writing their use of force reports they were required to refer to the shooter, Damarius Butts, as a “community member,” not a suspect, police sources said.
Police fatally shot Butts after they said he shot the officers.
[….]
The online use of force reporting system, called Blue Team, is used for more than just use of force reports and while the terminology changed for multiple forms, it’s only in the use of force reports that officers find offensive.
One commenter said this:
- As a former Chief there is no way I would ask, order, demand, expect, or permit my officers to use the term “community member” when writing any report. I would also refuse any such request from any civilian who happened to be an elected official and then try to educate them that using such terminology is an insult to all members of the community since using the term in the manner requested suggests every citizen has committed a criminal act or is a criminal. Besides, what if this “suspect” was from out of town? Since they were not a “Community Member” would they then be labeled a “suspect” which would then indicate discriminatory bias on the part of the city?
MOOBATTERY says this:
….They were going to use the word “citizen” to describe suspected criminals, but that would discriminate against illegal aliens, who comprise a high percentage of criminals I mean “community members” in most cities. Says Seattle Police Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey, “we don’t know or inquire about citizenship status, so labeling someone a citizen is arbitrary.”
After the community members have found their way to prison, they continue to be referred to with euphemisms:
Last fall, the Washington Department of Corrections stopped calling inmates “offenders” and instead use the term “student.”
“The term ‘offender’ does have a negative connotation and significantly impacts a broad group of people and communities,” Acting DOC Secretary Dick Morgan wrote in an internal department memo, obtained by KIRO 7.
When the terms “community member” and “student” are no longer regarded as sufficiently obsequious toward criminals, the Newspeak Dictionary will need to be updated again. Maybe they will be called SPORSes, or Special Persons Oppressed by the Racist System.
Another example of Newspeak.