In a video posted Saturday at Real Clear Politics, Karl Pierson, the alleged Arapahoe High School shooter, was described by a fellow student as being a “very proud Socialist.”
“He was friendly enough. Very proud of being a socialist. He was very outspoken on his political views,” said student Angie Mock. “To him, it just meant economic — more economic equality.”
Mock was not the only person to describe Pierson as a Socialist.
According to the Denver Post, Thomas Conrad — a student who attended an economics class with Pierson — described the alleged gunman as a “very opinionated Socialist.”
The Post, however, scrubbed Conrad’s description, saying only that Pierson was “very opinionated.”
Lee Ann Colacioppo, a senior news editor at the Post, explained the reason for the edit in a tweet.
“We decided not to have another student apply a label to the shooter — a label the student likely didn’t even understand,” she tweeted.
But, as one person said in response, the entire article was about Pierson’s views.
Twitter users did not buy Colacioppo’s explanation.
“It’s not up to you to decide anything if it’s a direct quote. That’s called reporting,” one person said.
“Does @denverpost think high school seniors can truly label Karl as a ‘good political thinker’? That’s in the article,” another person added.
Ironically, the headline of the Denver Post article reads: “Arapahoe High gunman held strong political beliefs, classmates said.”
While the editors at the Post were able to scrub the reference from their pages, they were not able to edit the video that ended up being played on MSNBC, nor were they able remove it from the Internet.
Video of the statement can be seen here.
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