Jason Harrison's Father Sues Dallas and the Police Officers Who Killed His Son

"The two-inch thick report also chronicled Brown's brief stay at a psychiatric hospital in 2006. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, admitted smoking marijuana daily and thought God was talking to him. The report said Brown stopped taking his medication."

Chief Brown's son was killed last year by police after he killed two, including the officer who shot and killed him.

I think Chief Brown has some relatable experience in this matter.

Cops = cowardly trigger-happy homicidal Neanderthal scum

@holmantx 

I feel sure it was because of the marijuana.

Or God.

@GatoCat 

Dallas Observer's writers are not journalists; they're commentators - like Rush Limbaugh,  Bill O'Reilly and the AM radio talk show hosts.

@GatoCat

A tragedy even.

@bvckvs @GatoCat I (somewhat reluctantly) come to the defense of DO's writers.

I'd love to know what you thought you were saying, bvckvs, as you were typing that DO's "writers are not journalists; they're commentators"? Comment is journalism -- last time I looked -- and informed comment is journalism of a very high order. Bad commentary, shoot-from-the-hips commentary, is punditry.

Jim Schutze is an excellent journalist and commentator when he's not being a pundit. A number of other writers who have passed through DO's staff have become very fine journalists. 

But DO grabs them when they're very young and fresh out of school, milks them for copy for a couple years, then discards them for fresher (and cheaper) meat. It's very cynical. For a young journalist, weeklies like DO were about the only ladder up into the business. Now that ladders being reeled in.

Due to a number of circumstances all alternative weeklies are in a sad decline. When it was still good, DO did important stories that nobody else in town (read DMN) would touch. Now its usually a yawn, something to idly scan over your migas at Cafe Brazil, then forget. I don't know where young journalists will go in the future to learn the craft. Probably online, where they'll get no guidance or instruction and only their mothers will read them.

Mindless criticism of the DO or the DMN or D or any other medium will not solve the problem. In fact, it exacerbate the problem because it shows that you are not really reading, just mindlessly reacting. ("...are not journalists; they're commentators.")  Journalism needs all the intelligent critical readers it can get. Instead it's getting neither readers nor intelligence. 

@bmarvel @bvckvs @GatoCat 

Seriously?  You honestly don't know the difference between "journalist" and "commentator"?  Just when I think I've got a bead on how uninformed you are, you take it down another notch.

I was talking to a shrink the other day who told me I need to tone it down - that most people aren't as smart as I am and that I need to be more sensitive to their feelings.  And a few years back, a girlfriend broke up with me and in a shrieking fit yelled, "Why do you always have to be right?!".

I've always thought of myself as average, but I'm beginning to think the dumb people are right about me.  It certainly goes a long way toward explaining why I'm so much more comfortable in a teacher's lounge or at the student union, than in a sports bar.

@bvckvs 

LOL. You always bring the laffs.

So you think that because your (no doubt, crazy) ex-GF thinks you have some sort of pathological need to always feel like you are in the right, that you are indeed always "right"?

Trust me, you are faaaaaaaar from average.

@bvckvs #TQATDA

@bvckvs In a previous life, journalists might have often been exclusively writers, but our own Benjamin Franklin broke that mold.. He was a journalist, a writer, a commentator, a humorist, etc. 

There are a number of journalists who are commentators.  Some are from print, some are from broadcasting, 

As a news discipline, journalists are reporters, but also write editorials. Editorials are part opinion, part commentary, and part Ouija Board.  But, the lines blur in these areas.  Yet, the writers of same are usually journalists. 

Heck, there are even journalists who are PR people with companies. 

That said, glad you're getting treatment. 

@bvckvs "I was talking to a shrink the other day who told me I need to tone it down - that most people aren't as smart as I am and that I need to be more sensitive to their feelings"

He was using reverse psychology.

hth.

@bvckvs Yeah, bvckvs, seriously.

I do know the difference between journalism and commentary, which was original my point, had you grasped it.

But after five-plus decades of being a journalist, of teaching journalism from time to time, and of studying the historic roots of journalism, I am no longer -- if I ever was -- able to draw a firm line between those journalists who write commentary and commentators whose work is based firmly on reporting. 

If you are able to draw such a line, I'd welcome the enlightenment.

But I doubt you are, judging from some of the things you've said in your comments. You might be comfortable in a teachers' lounge. (Question: would the teachers be comfortable with you?) But you wouldn't last two weeks in a serious journalism class, nor two minutes in a conversation with real journalists.

@TheCredibleHulk @bvckvs

Confirmation bias? ... or a textbook example of the normative fallacy?

@noblefurrtexas @bvckvs 

Education, not treatment.  I'm majoring in Math Ed., minoring in Psychology.

@DonkeyHotay @bvckvs 

So, you think he really meant that my posts are too muted, and that I should be more aggressive about verbally bitch-slapping half-wits, eh?

@bmarvel 

Oh, OK - so when you said "Comment is journalism" - what you really meant was they're different things and that you know the difference because you're a trained professional journalist who doesn't actually work in that, or any other, field.

Got it.

btw - I'm a graduate of the Defense Information School for Public Affairs and worked for both the military, and a Voice publication as a journalist.  I've also been published in a variety of tech journals and wrote a textbook on computer programming.  So your speculation about that was about as wrong as your speculation on just about everything else.

@DonkeyHotay @TheCredibleHulk @bvckvs

I'm not sure what those big words mean, but if you're saying Bucky is a doofus, I agree.

@bvckvs ... did he mention delusional egomania and narcissism? 

@bvckvs

...wrote a textbook on computer programming.

Such a fast-food phony. Ever read the reviews by the three people who bought your re-written instruction manual? Your brother gave it 5 stars, though.

Your resume is a list of failed endeavors and pure bullshit.

@bvckvs I know the difference between comment and journalism, bvckvs, because I'm a reader. You don't need journalism school or even college to be a reader. Try it sometime. 

"Defense Information"and "Public Affairs" and "tech journals" and "computer programming" are no doubt good preparation for something. They are not necessarily good preparation for reading.

@DonkeyHotay @bvckvs 

You sure do ask a lot of stupid questions.

@bvckvs ... Strength Through Truth!

@Donk

Truth, LOL.

bvckvs, aka Sanders Kaufmann is a known and proved liar, but watch out, he also threatens physical attack online. A real badass.