{"id":575,"date":"2007-03-14T05:45:03","date_gmt":"2007-03-14T11:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/03\/14\/good-thing-we-have-gatekeepers\/"},"modified":"2007-03-14T05:54:15","modified_gmt":"2007-03-14T11:54:15","slug":"good-thing-we-have-gatekeepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":"Good Thing We Have Gatekeepers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week,Joel Rosenberg highlighted a piece<\/a> from the Blue Earth Daily Democrat about a fatal shooting.<\/p>\n

Let’s flip through the piece and find the bits and pieces of atrocious style, editorial malfeasance, and error in fact; I’ll highlight them and put explanations in square brackets.<\/p>\n

No fair looking at Joel’s piece. Yet.<\/p>\n

A Richfield man was charged Tuesday with unintentional murder for shooting his half- brother to death in their home last Friday.<\/p>\n

Jerome H. Bartlett, 40, allegedly got into an argument with his half-brother who went out with a friend to get takeout food and found the front door locked when he returned about 9 p.m. Friday [Leaving aside that it’s a bit of run-on – who found the front door locked, the half-brother or the friend? Who were these half-brothers and friends? Do they turn up in the future?<\/font>]. Derek Storrusten, 36, had left it unlocked and got angry at his brother for locking it<\/strong><\/font>, said the friend, according to second-degree murder charges filed in Hennepin County District Court [Huh?<\/font>]. The charging document continued:<\/p>\n

Storrusten pounded on the door and called his Bartletts cell phone [Whose? His? Huh?<\/font>] before getting in through a back door. He started arguing on the basement stairs with Bartlett, then went down stairs to Bartletts bedroom. Then the friend, who was identified only by initials, heard a loud gunshot.<\/p>\n

“You killed me,” Storrusten yelled a few times, the friend told police.<\/p>\n

“Talk to Jesus,” Bartlett replied several times.<\/p>\n

The friend [Was this the same friend as above?<\/font>] ran outside and called police, as did Bartlett. He said Bartlett appeared in his underwear and yelled at him to go home.<\/p>\n

Bartlett initially told police he was awakened by noises he thought were made by an intruder and accidentally shot his brother. Then he said he knew it was Storrusten, but he fired in self defense [Brother? Storrusten? The usage is confusing<\/font>].<\/p>\n

Bartlett was waiting for police and directed them to the basement where they found Storrusten dead<\/font>, with a 50 mm handgun a few feet away. He was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died that night<\/font>. [What? Both times?<\/font>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, yeah. And that “50mm handgun”? Fifty millimeters is two inches – almost five times the bore of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum:<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Would it be this kind of handgun?<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, that’s only 27 milllimeters!<\/p>\n

Here’s the only “50mm handgun” I know about…<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and it’s not technically a “hand” gun.<\/p>\n

Oh, and I lied. The story wasn’t from the Blue Earth Daily Democrat. It was from the Minneapolis Star\/Tribune<\/a> – the place with the gatekeepers that make them so much better than bloggers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week,Joel Rosenberg highlighted a piece from the Blue Earth Daily Democrat about a fatal shooting. Let’s flip through the piece and find the bits and pieces of atrocious style, editorial malfeasance, and error in fact; I’ll highlight them and put explanations in square brackets. No fair looking at Joel’s piece. Yet. A Richfield man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}