A paper that has a history of making the news is facing an investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs over a fatal police shooting in 2015.
The Sun newspaper was involved in the investigation into the death in San Antonio in March 2016 of a 22-year-old Australian, Michael Jetta, who was shot by a San Antonio police officer after an altercation outside a bar.
The officer who shot Jetta has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and faces up to five years in jail.
The Sun newspaper has also been the subject of allegations of bias in its coverage of the case.
In the wake of the shooting, the paper released an editorial which criticised the investigation.
“The Sun has a long history of reporting on sensitive matters such as police brutality and gun violence, but this latest investigation appears to be designed to intimidate us and the community,” the editorial said.
The department said it was aware of the Sun’s editorial and had referred the matter to the police watchdog.
A spokesperson for the department said the investigation was currently ongoing.
In a statement, the department added that the department “is committed to a safe, inclusive, and transparent reporting environment”.
“As a result of the investigation, the Sun has ceased publishing and will no longer be publishing any material, including news stories, in the print editions,” the spokesperson said.
Sun newspaper’s editorial: ‘I was an Australian soldier’The editorial in question has been published in two print editions and is available on the website.
It said: “It is hard to imagine a more tragic and distressing incident than the killing of Michael Jett.
Michael Jett was an American citizen, and he had served in Afghanistan for nearly two years.
He was killed in the line of duty by an American police officer.
The officers began to walk towards him, but then pulled out a gun and fired.””
The officers ordered the group to put their hands up and show identification, but Michael refused.
The officers began to walk towards him, but then pulled out a gun and fired.”
Michael Jetta was shot to death.
The police officer has pleaded not guilty.
Earlier this year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation published a report that found the newspaper’s coverage of Jetta’s killing had been “particularly damaging”.
The report said the newspaper had wrongly accused the man who killed Jetta of having been a drug dealer and that the paper had been reluctant to publicly condemn him because it did not wish to antagonise police.
A report by the ABC’s Law and Investigative Unit found the paper’s coverage was “particularly damning” because it had “included repeated inaccuracies” and “incorrectly reported the facts of the matter”.
A Sun editorial on Michael Jette, a former soldier who was killed by a US police officer in San Antonio in 2016, has been retracted.
The paper has retracted its article.
Topics:police,law-crime-and-justice,social-media,dallas-nightclub,texasFirst posted April 22, 2021 12:36:13Contact Adrian McWilliamsMore stories from Northern Ireland