Die Polizei sagt nun, sie untersuchen die Schießerei auf den Schauspieler Jonathan Joss als mögliches Hassverbrechen

A little too late for that… now that he is dead they want to take it seriously… ok

I’m glad they didn’t prematurely make a prejudicial statement. Had they gone out like a lot of people wanted and declared it was a hate crime before any kind of investigation on the words of one person, the end result is the person who did it would be able to point to the statements of the police to the media as influencing the jury. That can get a conviction overturned.

What the state is supposed to say when a person is accused of a crime and in investigation is underway is simply what a person has been charged with and that an investigation is underway. Even things that people might think are simple and obvious facts shouldn’t just be spit out in the immediate aftermath because appearances can be deceiving, witnesses might turn out not to be credible, if there are multiple witness accounts they may not match, maybe nobody’s accounts match what they find when they go looking into forensics and other physical evidence. It’s fine for people uninvolved in the investigation and the government to make assumptions, jump to conclusions and express whatever opinions and theories they have, but it’s a different matter for the government body responsible for doing a thorough investigation and giving someone a fair trial before a jury that is as unbiased as possible to do so.

About fucking time.