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Notes -
And per the toxoplasma hypothesis, I'll bet you a hundred quatloos both sides focus on the 'fleeing and resisting arrest' part.
How so? For the anti-police folks, anything that might hint at the notion that the police officer didn't just shoot a random guy for no reason whatsoever is radioactive to their cause, they ignore it to the greatest extent practical.
It's not that simple: anti-police cause celebres that draw national attention have a strong tendency to be the least sympathetic possible subjects.
But I think the mechanism is a bit different than toxoplasma. Pledge fealty to someone who tries to stab a cop, and you show that you're a true believer in the cause, unlike all those half-hearted people who only object to ambiguous cases not involving violence. And publicly the worst parts are ignored or censored: fights over those parts, although something that happens, don't seem to be their primary vector of spread.
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