You’d never know it from some media headlines, but Cmdr. Jason Bagshaw risked his life to stop a gun-wielding criminal last month in Washington, D.C.
Bagshaw confronted Lazarus Wilson as he pointed a gun at someone while in front of a restaurant along Washington, D.C.’s waterfront, according to authorities. As the patrons ducked for cover, fearing they were involved in another active shooter incident, Bagshaw leaped into action. After Wilson allegedly refused multiple requests to drop his gun, Bagshaw fatally shot Wilson.
Yet, the media wanted to crucify the heroic police officer instead of the gun-wielding criminal. Why? Mainly because the suspect was black and the police officer was white. Later reports said that Wilson used the gun to steal $30,000 shortly before his encounter with Bagshaw. But, it doesn’t matter if Wilson was a criminal, threatened people’s lives, or endangered restaurant patrons. The media wanted to tell a different story.
Consider some of the media’s headlines regarding the incident.
NBC 4 titled its story “Video Shows Moments Before, After Off-Duty DC Officer Fatally Shoots Man at Wharf.” Notice it does not mention the officer acted after someone pointed a gun. NBC 4’s headline suggests to readers the police officer was in the wrong and killed a man for no reason. It’s disgraceful.
The Washington Post, whose slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness,” looked to keep its audience in the dark with the headline “D.C. police shooting of man at Wharf reignites old debates.” But since those debates weren’t about how police officers routinely risked their lives to save others, the article was just another manipulated headline to portray the officer negatively.
Another outlet, DCist, published an article titled “D.C. Police Commander Who Shot Man At Wharf Is Known For Aggressive Tactics.” This outlet researched Bagshaw’s background in an attempt to smear him because of his actions at the restaurant. This outlet thought it was more important to try to vilify an officer fending off a criminal than perhaps to investigate the criminal. This is how bad the anti-police sentiment is in the media.
“It’s been kind of astonishing, especially the media coverage,” a witness at the restaurant from the night of the incident told me. “The headlines are ‘Cop kills a man at the Wharf’ instead of ‘Cop saves people Saturday night at the Wharf.’”
“It was an off-duty cop, he didn’t have any body armor on, and he just came to the rescue,” the witness said. “Especially to do a background check on his track record and categorize him as using excessive force, they’re doing whatever they can to say this guy is bad. It is extremely upsetting.”
The effort to drag Bagshaw through the mud is indicative of the anti-police climate that the left wing has created. Even when police officers confront criminals endangering innocent people, the media twisted the story to make the police officers the bad guys. The Left is so obsessed with protecting criminals who prey on the innocent that heroic police officers are still villains in their warped minds.
Something tells me that if the media members who vilified the police were in this exact situation, they would be the first to beg for a police officer to come to their rescue. But sitting behind a computer, in the comfort of their office or home, they can craft a different agenda-driven narrative. It’s cowardly and disgraceful.
