Hello everyone!

     For my copy editing class we were assigned to read an article called "Michael Brown Spent Last Weeks Grappling With Problems and Promise" in The New York Times about Michael Brown's life before his death. To me, there were a lot of things wrong with the article especially looking at a sensitivity angle for his family and friends. As a reader, the article was written with a sense of negativity towards Brown. I would have taken out the parts about him being into "vulgar rapping" and when he was violent towards others in different situations. There was also an unnecessary detailed part when the writer talked about the scene of his death where he said Brown was lying in the middle of the warm pavement for hours with a stream of blood flowing down the street. That part of the story also made the cop look even worse than the public already thinks he his.
      The author mentioned multiple instances when Brown put himself in terrible situations that it did seem like he was putting the victim on trial. The kid was shot and killed and the majority of this article is only talking negatively about him. He even mentions a time when he used his mother's money to buy a playstation instead of shoes and how he was punished for it. That is not something that I think needed to be stated in this article. Every child is rebellious in some way and at some time in their life.
       In the fourth paragraph the author states that Michael Brown "was no angel." The author regrets those choice of words now and I do not blame him. He thinks that saying Brown "was not perfect" would have been the better route. I agree that it may sound better because nobody is perfect but  I do not think that is appropriate to say about someone who is no longer living. I see how he was tying the sentence into the beginning of the story but it is just wrong to say that someone, who is dead, was not an angel when his family probably considers him an angel now.