HuffPo Headline Calls Allegedly Armed Baton Rouge Victim “Unarmed”

BATON ROUGE – Left-wing megablog The Huffington Post wasted no time in spinning the narrative as hard as possible in the Baton Rouge police shooting of Alton Sterling with a blaring headline this Wednesday morning calling it an “execution” and a sub-headline that referred to Sterling as being “unarmed.”

The shooting of Sterling grabbed headlines around the world after protests erupted in Baton Rouge and Black Lives Matter activists seized on the death of 37-year-old Sterling as another example of what they say is a wave of racist police brutality.

Despite the “unarmed” headline from HuffPo, initial reporting, available to the Huffington Post at the time, indicated that a witness saw the police remove a gun from Sterling’s pocket. There is also new video emerging that appears to show the police remove a gun from Sterling’s pocket. Additionally, there were reports that police were called after a 9-1-1 call saying that Sterling had aimed a gun at someone.

Many details of the shooting were still not confirmed as this article goes to press, but that’s exactly the point: the left and mainstream media, including the Huffington Post, are trying to use the shooting as part of a wider narrative, as Breitbart News outlined this morning.

Other articles on HuffPo demonstrate this, such as the front-page featured emotional and agenda-driven 13 Painful Facts About Alton Sterling’s Life (And Death) which includes “facts” such as: “Alton Sterling was the father of five children,” and “Alton Sterling didn’t deserve to die.” The article also includes a pre-defense of the messy facts – actual facts – surrounding Sterling that are already beginning to emerge, saying:

Alton Sterling’s history will be used in heinous attempts to vilify him and justify his death.

Sterling had a past criminal record and that information will likely be used against him in conversations — as if his life didn’t matter because of his less-than-perfect past. As if previous wrongdoings justifies him being killed.

Meanwhile, with all the facts still unknown, Baton Rouge is having a vigil for Sterling tonight and more protests are expected.

Ominously, the attorney for the man who owns the store that Sterling was shot in front of told local reporter Maya Lau “I don’t know whether there will be violence. Violence was already perpetrated, on Mr. Sterling. They took his life.”