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So @TheAtlantic published a powerful, vivid story of a cop shooting to make the case for defunding the police.
The problem is: there's no record it ever happened. https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/16/im-at-a-loss-for-words-the-unraveling-narrative-behind-the-atlantics-defund-the-police-shooting-tale/
The problem is: there's no record it ever happened. https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/16/im-at-a-loss-for-words-the-unraveling-narrative-behind-the-atlantics-defund-the-police-shooting-tale/
The Federalist made Sunlight Requests to the St Louis PD and found nothing like what was described.
"The shooting of a young boy by a cop in a St. Louis Rec Center, even if it had happened 20 years ago, I feel like that would be in my mind somewhere," said the current mayoral spokesman, a former reporter during the period in question.
We could find no record, no news report, no file, and no one who remembered such an incident. The Atlantic did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Perhaps the author, @dereckapurnell, has an explanation. But it's not in a police file or record, a Lexis Nexis search, the St Louis Post Dispatch, or in the memories of multiple law enforcement and reporting sources at the time.
"Based on a Federalist investigation of newspaper archives and the police department records, and questions to The Atlantic, the police union, and the office of the mayor, it does not appear to have ever happened." https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/16/im-at-a-loss-for-words-the-unraveling-narrative-behind-the-atlantics-defund-the-police-shooting-tale/
Keep in mind this article ran under the "Ideas" section at The Atlantic - it's not clear they fact check those pieces.
It's incumbent on @TheAtlantic to clarify what happened here. Did they fact-check this vivid tale for accuracy? How so? If not, why not? And why does no one else seem to remember it?
Follow @CBedfordDC - his diligent reporting on this made it clear that St Louis does not recall the story @TheAtlantic put front and center.
