Story of the Week -- Aug 6-10

No Style Points

NEWARK -- (AP) Three friends were forced to kneel against a wall behind an elementary school and were shot to death at close range, and a fourth was found about 30 feet away with gunshot and knife wounds to her head, police said.

Hmm, if only there was a word that could sum up this horrific tragedy:

Three victims, two males and a female, were shot to death execution style around 11:30 p.m. Saturday on steps behind Mount Vernon School in the city's Vailsburg section...

N.J. Police Seek Clues To Execution-Style Shooting

AP/Jennnifer Brown Police in Newark, NJ, said this morning that no arrests were made overnight in the execution-style shooting that left three dead, ...

"This appears to have been an execution-style type of murder," said a spokesman for the Essex County prosecutor...

They were made to kneel before they were shot execution style...

Newark police don't have a motive or any suspects in an execution-style shooting that left 3 friends dead...

By the time they arrived, three of the four young students were already dead, shot execution style in the back of the head...

Three pals shot execution-style behind Newark school

Police say they were lined up and shot execution style....

While police continue to await the recovery of the sole survivor of Saturday night's execution-style shootings outside of a Newark elementary ... *

I'm sorry, how did they die?

Elocution-style? They were forced to speak perfectly until they passed out?

By the way, I'm not making light of this tragedy, my beef is with the media buzz word. I heard the phrase "execution-style" so much this week that I don't know what it means anymore. You know what? Three teenagers were forced to kneel down on hot asphalt and then were shot from point-blank range in the back of the head. There's no style involved. The buzz word reduces the act to something you hear on "Iron Chef":

"The lobster is prepared execution-style, and I've put it on a bed of arugula and alfalfa sprouts..."

"Triple Homicide and assault with a deadly weapon" doesn't get the point across? "Triple murder" not good enough? How about some alliteration: "schoolyard shootings" "cold-blooded killings"? What caused the media to grab on to "execution-style" and never let go?
The lack of creativity and variation cheapens the incident, makes it seem like these are just three more Newark murders to go along with the other 60 or so this year. It makes it sound as ridiculous as Newark mayor Corey Booker sounds when he says the murder rate is down this year because it's not over 100.

I think it's time to go with another phrase for a while. Time to take "execution style" out back and shoot it. But how?



*all above story pieces came from various news outlets via Google News