The Startling Image of a Blood-Spattered Victim of the Virginia Beach Shooting

By Michael Luo @ NewYorker.com, June 1, 2019

[....] There is something undeniably startling about the photo that Andrews took. For all the images that have been broadcast from mass shootings—scenes of children scurrying from their schools in single file, with their hands in the air, of heavily armored police with assault weapons stalking buildings, of long trains of ambulances queuing up to take victims away—it is unusual to actually see blood. We are more accustomed to seeing these kinds of images from war zones, where news photographers are often able to witness the carnage of combat up close. By contrast, the setting of Andrews’s photograph is visibly suburban. A sidewalk stretches behind the injured man. On the car next to the officer is a barely legible sticker of a ball, with the word “Fastpitch.” A no-parking sign is prominent on the right. It makes for a jarring composition.

In 2013, the Connecticut state legislature voted overwhelmingly to block public access to graphic images of those killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, as well as future homicide victims, owing to privacy concerns. Dan Malloy, the governor at the time, quickly signed the bill into law. There is a case to be made, however, that the country needs to be exposed to these kinds of images, if we have any hope of being jolted from our collective inurement to the ravages of gun violence [....]