In 1955, African American 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten to death by two white men in Money, Mississippi. Till's crime was that he may have flirted with or whistled at 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant in a store owned by her husband, Roy Bryant. Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam abducted Till and severely beat him before shooting Till and dumping his mutilated body in the Tallahatchie River. The two men were exonerated but Roy Bryant eventually went bankrupt due to a boycott of his store.

What made this case dramatically different is that Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open casket showing what the two men did to her son. The photo of her son's unrecognizable face in the coffin became a galvanizing moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Bob Dylan wrote a lesser-known song about Emmett Till's unspeakable end.

This use of an open casket showing the brutality inflicted on the victim raises a serious issue. When is it appropriate to show the true savage nature of a crime? Will this cause the friends and family members even more pain? Is it emotional pornography? Could it prejudice a jury? Emmett Till's mother insisted that the world see what Bryant and Milam did to her boy.

With the recent murders of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the issue surfaced of whether or not the effects of AR-15 rounds on a child should be shown to the public. If one wanted to ban this weapon, a strong emotional persuasive technique would be to show just what an AR-15 high-velocity round does to the human body. Some trauma physicians have argued that the public should see what they see in the operating room after these violent incidents. DNA testing was used to identify the slain children when their clothes or shoes weren't enough.

There is also the sad fact that the massacre might have been stopped.

Here is a report by NPR citing Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety: "There were enough armed police officers wearing body armor to stop the late May shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, three minutes after it began," McCraw said. "They also had bulletproof vests."

An hour and 14 minutes passed before police breached the door and ended the standoff with the gunman.

We have all seen the disturbing surveillance footage of officers standing in the hallway, one using hand sanitizer. The edited footage doesn't include the sound of the screaming children and the gunfire. This is understandable. Why should parents have to hear that, adding to the horror of losing their children? There is also the consideration that if they showed the footage with the audio, it would certainly prejudice any jury if the gunman was arrested and went to trial. I can only imagine the intense animosity the hesitant officers would face if the public heard what they heard while failing to act.

The mother of Emmett Till, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, made a bold decision to have an open casket for her son's funeral, and it worked. The parents of the Uvalde children would have to give a collective consent to show the morgue photos of the children or release the audio of the surveillance footage. Perhaps the Uvalde tragedy is just too personal even for the general public. I would decline to view those photographs or hear the audio.

There still remains the question: how far should authorities and journalists go in presenting the facts of a violent crime?

Michael Corrigan graduated from San Francisco State with a Master of Arts degree in English and creative writing. He was active in theater and attended the American Film Institute. He retired from Idaho State University as an instructor of English and speech communications. He has written several books, including "Confessions of a Shanty Irishman," "Mulligan" and "These Precious Hours." NPR broadcast his play for two readers: "Letters from Rebecca."