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Vol. 77/No. 37      October 21, 2013

 
DC cops, agents kill
Miriam Carey in cold blood
(front page)
 
BY EMMA JOHNSON  
Media across the country sought to rationalize a cold-blooded murder when Washington, D.C., cops and Secret Service agents put a hail of bullets through Miriam Carey’s car door Oct. 3. “Look how restrained they are,” said a reporter in a CNN video showing cops with drawn weapons surrounding Carey’s car outside a White House barrier.

When Carey, 34, a dental hygienist from Stamford, Conn., ran into the barrier, uniformed and plainclothes cops and federal agents surrounded the car with drawn weapons. She fled, and officers fired several rounds at the moving vehicle. At least 20 cop cars took off after her in a 1.7 mile high-speed chase. It ended when she crashed into a guard shack, was cornered and then shot to death through the windshield. Her 1-year-old daughter, who was in the back seat, survived.

From the very beginning media coverage was slanted to paint Carey as a deadly danger to President Barack Obama or Congress and to hail the police operation for amazing self-control and courage.

Cops put the Capitol on lockdown, ordering everyone to “shelter in place” or lay down on the floor.

The Capitol Police and the Secret Service came down on Carey in full force, mobilizing an expanding force of snipers and cop cars and firing some 17 shots.

It was almost immediately clear that Carey had no “connections” to anything. She was unarmed. No explosives, threatening letters or other weapons were found in her car. Authorities and their media flacks then shifted, painting her as a crazed woman and dangerous threat who got what she deserved.

Carey was said to have a “fixation” with President Obama. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the media she fit “a picture of a mentally disturbed woman.”

The media tried to turn the unarmed woman into an armed threat to provide a rationalization for her murder. “There was no other way. She had a 3,000 pound weapon she was striking at police officers,” said a CNN reporter, pointing to her car.

Her family has contested this effort to smear Carey as a mentally deranged murderous threat, saying she had been under doctor’s care for postnatal depression, but was taken off medication.

“What I see perhaps is that my sister was a little afraid of being surrounded by officers with their guns drawn,” Valarie Carey said on NBC’s “Today Show.” “If you hear gunshots, [she’s] like ‘I’m afraid, I don’t want to be here. I want to get out of here. I have a baby in the car.’ My sister was fleeing. She was trying to figure out how to get out of there.”  
 
 
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