 Viewers of local Oakland news station KTVU are expressing outrage after the station used a photo of slain teen Nia Wilson holding what appears to be a gun during a broadcast about her murder. On Sunday night, 18-year-old Wilson died after she and her sister, 26-year-old Lahtifa Wilson, were stabbed in the neck by 27-year-old suspect John Lee Cowell while they were attempting to get onto a BART train. “Why did they share that image? What were they trying to convey? And, as it turns out, she wasn’t holding a gun in that image, it was a cell phone case with a gun handle. It was a [sic] basically a gag—and the local news showed it like it said something about Nia’s character. She literally posted nearly 1,000 wonderful photos of her life on Instagram and Facebook, and they chose that one,” writer Shaun King, who has boosted Wilson’s story throughout the search for her murderer, wrote on Facebook. “Even in death, local news media finds a way to demean us. It’s why I believe so much in having our own outlets, our own platforms, our own morning shows, where we define our own stories and narratives without that type of ugliness.” 
 
 In previous high-profile murders of Black teenagers, such as Trayvon Martin and the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, the media used photos that portrayed the teens negatively. This is the literal reason that #IfTheyGunnedMeDown was created… as many pictures as there are of #NiaWilson that @KTVU would choose to use this photo of the VICTIM is not only irresponsible- it’s malicious, it’s cold- it’s what we’ve come to expect with black lives & media. As you may know, on late Sunday evening, while riding the train in Oakland, a white man targeted two young Black women on the train, without ever saying a word to them, and killed one – a beautiful young soul named Nia Wilson, an 18 year old high school student, and critically injured her sister – stabbing and slashing them both with a knife – then simply walking away.
– Sisters Nia and Lahtifa Wilson were headed home from a family gathering Sunday night when the unthinkable happened: Police say 27-year-old paroled felon John Lee Cowell fatally stabbed 18-year-old Nia in a "prison-style attack" on an Oakland train station platform; her 26-year-old sister was injured. Police have framed the attack as random, though many have speculated over whether there was racial motivation involved. And in the aftermath of Nia's death, a national conversation has emerged around race that has reeled in some big-name celebs and brought a thoughtful post from Anne Hathaway that's generating headlines. The timeline: Outrage erupted and F-bombs got lobbed over Oakland news station KTVU's coverage of Wilson's death. Its report featured a photo of Wilson from her Facebook page; in it, she appears to be holding a gun. The Daily Dot notes Wilson's page featured "tens of other photos" that could have been used in place of that image. Many said the choice fueled a larger trend involving the criminalization of black victims. And it wasn't even a gun. As Shaun King explains in a lengthy Facebook post, it was just a cell-phone case with a gun handle, "basically a gag– and the local news showed it like it said something about Nia’s character. ... Even in death, local news media finds a way to demean us."