Septuagenarian killed in Lausanne: police statement criticised for biased language
A 79-year-old man died in Lausanne after being struck by an individual on an electric scooter fleeing police. The official statement is heavily contested.
Lausanne: 79-year-old pedestrian killed by fleeing electric scooter rider, official wording sparks debate
A 79-year-old man died in Lausanne after being violently struck by an individual riding an electric scooter on a pedestrianised street. The fleeing suspect was attempting to escape from police officers who were pursuing him on bicycles for refusing to comply with orders.
Three days after the incident, the Public Prosecutor's Office of the State of Vaud published a statement, widely picked up by media outlets, which describes the event as "a traffic accident involving an electric scooter and a pedestrian".
It is this wording that the letemps.ch columnist contests in her weekly analysis. According to her, all the terms in the statement are biased. The expression "traffic accident" would direct readers towards an ordinary incident, whereas the context — a police chase — is fundamentally different.
She also points to the phrasing "involving an electric scooter", which designates the device rather than the person operating it. According to her, this formulation amounts to attributing autonomy and responsibility to the object itself, thereby erasing the human element of the act.
The Public Prosecutor's statement does not explicitly mention the police pursuit as the triggering element of the collision. The columnist considers that this lexical choice minimises the causal chain of events and raises questions about the authorities' responsibility in initiating the pursuit.
Source: Google News MA — Crime (fr)