This past week, I readily admit, some of you really disappointed me.

We have had conversations in this column — because that’s what this is, given the number of you that respond by calling or emailing me and chatting over something I’ve written — about what it’s OK to say and what it’s not OK to say on social media when it comes to tragedy and breaking news.

Over the years, I have grown and changed as a journalist because this has been my beat for nearly all of the 38 years I’ve been in this field. I write about the fatal accidents, the fires in which someone dies, the murders, the shootings — the deaths.

And when I was young and foolish, I was willing to confirm something was a fatality even when we didn’t yet have a name, because journalism was fiercely competitive and you needed to be first and right. I would also run photos of cars in fatal accidents, but at the time, there was no social media, no Facebook or Instagram, so I knew it would be 24 hours before anyone saw it, so it made it marginally better.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few things.

First, it doesn’t matter if the family knows or not when they see the photo. No one needs to see a picture of how a loved one died. I wouldn’t. I would fixate on it, never be able to get the image out of my head. I don’t want to put that weight on anyone. So I’ve stopped taking photos at fatal accident scenes. It lends nothing to the story and in truth it’s not news, it’s gratuitous.

With the advent of social media, I’ve also learned that it is more essential than ever that I wait, not just to post a name of someone who has died but to even confirm that there has been a death, until the police officials responsible for notification officially tell me family has been contacted.

Why am I so adamant? Because I do not ever, ever, ever want a mother, a father, a child, to read on a Facebook Post from us that their loved one has died.

I am not an official notification party. I can’t respond on Facebook when they need someone to hold them while they cry, scream, pound their fists. I cannot offer them the comfort and the reassurance they deserve. And I can’t be the uniformed person with training, for whom it is also incredibly hard, that can at least make a family feel respected and honored.

And you know what?

Neither are you.

And that is why I was so disappointed in some of you this week.

We had a young man killed in a motorcycle accident, and before I got notification, I didn’t confirm the death. I waited, as I do, for state police to tell me his family had been contacted.

And yet some of you wanted to post photos of the accident, you wanted to confirm the death, you wanted me to share his name. Some of you even tried to argue that the family would want to know in any way possible.

I’m sorry, I’m not buying that. You wanted to know. Because if you were truly thinking of the family, you would realize that reading it on a computer screen, with no one there to help you, is only second to finding your loved one right on the scene.

What kind of compassion have we lost that we are so insistent that we have information immediately? What is wrong with us?

And some of you wanted to be Constitutional lawyers and hammer me about censorship when I removed your comments. Let’s get one thing very clear. Until the police release the information to me, it is not public information. Police cases are not subject to FOI requests and laws the way other information is. If the investigation is open, they do not have to tell me one single thing. Over time, they have come to trust me, and they will share information with me, but even then, they share it in the proper time.

So I am well within our rights to hide or remove comments that post things that you may know from hearsay, from your scanners, or even from being there, but it is not OK for you to post it. One commenter put a picture of the bike up and noted we would likely take it down. Of course I did, and wish I could have done it faster. What were you thinking? When I talked with the young man’s mother, she said she was so grateful she had not seen it because she would have known immediately it was her son’s motorcycle.

It is well past time for everyone to slow down a minute.

We live in what I call a McDonald’s world. We want everything right now, just like fast food.

There is a place for fast food in our world, I know. But it is not in the moment of tragedy and grief.

When someone loses a loved one, especially in an unexpected and tragic way, we get one shot at how they find out. And how they learn of the loss is something that not only stays with them forever but it impacts how they process the grief. Imagine piling, on top of the loss itself, the hurt of finding out from such an impersonal way from strangers no less.

I have come to know so many of you. Sure we have differences but that’s OK. I still think you are all part of the wonderful quilt that makes up Rowan County and our readers and I am grateful for you all. You each have qualities that make you special to me.

But for God’s sake. Slow down.

And for those who say we should not run it at all, I will say tragic death is news, especially in small towns where we know one another. But it should be handled in the most gracious way possible. The reason I spoke with this fellow’s mother is I try to find every family in a loss and offer them something. I truly don’t like for the last thing (and sometimes only thing) I write about someone to be the way they departed. I would much rather give the family a chance to share their loved one’s life and personality with us and let that be their last shining moment. Some tell me to get lost, which is absolutely their prerogative, and some are happy for the chance. I was incredibly happy that this family shared their son, who was a beach lover like me, with me and by extension, you.

Hunter’s story is in our paper today and I am honored they wanted to share him with me.

Now here is what you can do for Hunter, and for those who will leave before their time in the coming days, weeks and years.

Before you start posting on social media about what you know, before you start sharing information about the scene, about names, about conditions of people in tragic situations, stop and think how it would make you feel if you were reading Facebook and suddenly saw a post telling you your child has died. It’s not from police, it’s not a family member or dear friend. It’s on a post from the newspaper in a comment from an absolute stranger.

I am willing to bet that if you sit with that for a minute, you’re going to at the very least get chills. You should get nauseated and your heart should hurt.

And you’re just imaging it. Guess how you would feel if it was real.

So yes, I’ll continue to hide comments that share information not yet public that could cause so much harm, and serve no purpose.

If that’s not what you want, scroll. That’s what arrow keys and that mouse are for.

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.