So, today I was taking a look at Second City Cop’s blog when I saw their post about Ruben Ivy and Devonte Smith. The headline read, “Angels, One and All,” the dek, “Honor students and future heart surgeons, each and every one.”
 
Then, SCC goes on to quote a Chicago Sun-Times article that describes how Ivy and Smith’s mothers defended them in court, saying that they were good boys despite their lengthy criminal histories.
 
It’s always interesting to see the cop’s side of the coin. When I was working the highly truncated grad school crime beat last quarter, I went down to one of the stations to try to talk to the officers. The first officer I met started off our conversation with a lengthy denouncement of the media. (This was around the same time as the whole Michael Mette fiasco, so it was warrented). Then, he told me that whenever a kid is shot, the paper always runs an angelic high school graduation photo and quotes his parents as saying that he was a “good boy.”
 
Are these good boys? I don’t know. Are they bad boys? Probably in some respects. Is the media at liberty to decide? Probably not. So how do we handle situations like this? Do we keep our mouths shut? Put the kibosh on the glamour shots? What do you think?