Let's call a murder a murder
daringfireball.netJust found:
"The agent who shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday was pulled about 100 yards by a car last year while firing a stun gun at the driver."
So, this is a trend.
Considering the behavior of ICE, it seems like they hired some folks just desperate to find legal cover to shoot someone. There are numerous videos of them casually drawing their weapons on protesters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Raids/comments/1q7u4kz/ice_agen...
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1q7y43s/cbp_poin...
The whole MO of ICE is that of intimidation. That's really their raison de être in the agency's current format.
They are effectively a paramilitary enforcing the agenda. Parallels with the 1930s Germany are really explicitly uncanny.
I feel like this is a problem that is going to be inherent to any position of power that allows people to use weapons; you very heavily selection-bias towards people want power and to use weapons, especially if the people who do abuse their position of violence are consistently allowed to do it with impunity.
Not saying that every person in law enforcement is bad, obviously; there are plenty of cops and people in the military [1] that are responsible with their weapons and do genuinely want to help people, but if you create an institution where people don't have to pay the consequences for their actions, then of course you're going to attract people who want to commit those actions.
The Catholic Church with their abusive priests is one of the most obvious examples. They create a situation where an adult male can be surrounded by kids unsupervised, not be married, and when abuse does happen it is covered up and the priest is moved somewhere else. Combined with the fact that they're paid shit, there's going to be a very strong selection bias of pedophiles.
[1] and who knows, maybe even ICE!
My dad has a story from the late fifty's. He was at a party at his cousins house in Stockton. And the cousins brother in law had just been hired as a country sheriff and was boasting about how he was looking forward to killing his first nagger.
These kind of people exist.
His failure to do his job correctly multiple times isn't justification for the murder of a 37 year old mother and the orphaning of her child.
Most sane government agencies would make sure he knew and started following the required protocol so that he would be safe/competent the next time before putting him back on the street. Yet he again failed to do his job and follow protocol, and stood in front of a vehicle. Seems like repeat government/leadership/agent failure.
The quote is 'We live in a world where trained cops can panic and act on impulse, but untrained civilians must remain calm with a gun in their face.'. Random americans in unusual situations can't be expected to not stress/freak out, that is realistic human nature. That is why officers are trained and required as part of their job to never place themselves in front of vehicles.
It is on the trained officers, initiating the situation and experienced with it, to keep things under control. That is literally their job. The obligation shouldn't be on a mom that just dropped her kids at school that isn't the 'trained professional' in the scenario.
If my buddies' ex (a hair dresser) is required to have more schooling and education than US law enforcement officers, I feel it's safe to say that none of these officers are "trained".
Agreed! Why wasn’t he removed from duty when he fucked up the first time! Like I said, it’s now a trend the the makes bad decisions when cars are present.
Yeah, he broke open the rear window and tried to unlock the door.
It doesn't make any sense to me why an agent would deliberately put themselves at the front of a car if they'd previously been in such an incident (presumably they weren't hurt by the previous incident). Anyone with a functioning brain would surely have much better awareness of their positioning and should be following the guidance to approach from the side.
Also, I thought there was very clear guidance about not discharging guns towards unarmed drivers as it doesn't tend to stop them and is likely to result in the vehicle being accelerated into someone/something.
> why an agent would deliberately put themselves at the front of a car if they'd previously been in such an incident
One reason would be that after the first time he fucked around and found out with a vehicle, he resolved to shoot the driver the next time. This would explain why he tried to box in the metal car with his squishy body while keeping an exit strategy - being positioned at the right place to claim he was worried about being hit without actually getting hit. It would also mean this incident was premeditated murder.
I feel like posting this up top for context [1]. This is an example of someone actually getting hit by a car, from an ICE agent driving with clear intent to harm someone while laughing about it. I would assume that everyone who believes Renee was committing vehicular assault would agree that this is also a case of vehicular assault, and the agent in question should be charged with attempted murder.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1pjye82/ice_agen...
The more I see of those videos, the more I am starting to understand previous generations' contempt for hippies. The difference is hippies actually believed in something.
If you see these kind of things and immediately jump to a conclusion like this then I'm going to have to agree with SpicyLemonZest in their earlier discussions with you. I hope you stay as the 'right citizen' per your own argument lest the boot comes for you too.
If you actually look at that conversation then you know it is not exactly immediately, but based on evidence as it trickles down. I personally think your 'side' is missing forest for the trees.
Since that is the case, allow me to spell it out for you. Antics of middleaged, overindulged woman, who was so comfortable that they thought she was virtually untouchable have gone mainstream. Do I get to stop ATF or IRS from performing their operations? No? Why is ICE different then? Because you don't agree with them?
So, the choice is now to either normalize those antics, normalize excessive police force or some sort of reasonable middle ground.
But what do I get? Insults and thinly veiled threats that once dems get into power, I will rue the day.
Get off your high horse and realize that you are encouraging civil war for a retard, who thought they could do whatever they want and face no consequences. Welcome to the real world.
Thank you for proving my point. In one scenario, you argue that ICE has the right to perform an extrajudicial murder because he felt threatened by a car. In this scenario, you defend ICE hitting someone with their car whose only crime was walking nearby. Your only consistent belief is that anything that ICE does is justified. The kind of person you are is incredibly clear.
<< The kind of person you are is incredibly clear.
Oh? What kind of a person am I? Or maybe more interestingly, what kind of a person should I be? The second question is more interesting as it is intended to elicit your hopes and dreams.
What I find even more horrifying than the murder is the response from people in power. Lying. Calling the victim a terrorist. Claiming she deserved it. Expressing unequivocal support for the killer. Threatening more of the same for the opposition. Posting fucking memes! Not even a hint of sympathy anywhere to be seen.
These people are animals. They should be in chains in front of a tribunal, not running the country. And they dare call themselves Christians?
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command" - 1984
I've found the reaction from most people in the US horrifying since the "grab em by the pussy" days...
I personally think that the more appropriate quote from 1984 is this one, because the cruelty is the whole point :
“The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.” He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?[...]”"
1984.
The whole “was it justified or not” is a huge distraction from the principles of the matter, which ironically is a huge benefit to those with fascist ambitions. Classic America getting caught up in reviewing the tapes like it’s Monday morning after a controversial NFL Sunday.
The principle of the matter is that the fascist apparatus of the US government has made it clear that should you have a grievance against them, you have no recourse, even if your grievance is legitimate. Their immediate response to deny wrongdoing and establish immunity is de facto fascism, which should be no surprise to those who have read Carl Schmitt and Decisionism, and paid attention when Miller slipped up about “plenary authority”.
Spade is a spade at this point.
I'm not sure this will play well for them politically. A fair bit of what got Trump elected was saying they'd protect ordinary Americans from immigrant criminals. Now they have footage of a white middle class mum in an suv, pretty much their median voter, being shot dead by their thugs and saying don't believe you eyes and clear video evidence, she tried to run an officer over when she obviously didn't.
You may be correct (and I hope you are), but speaking anecdotely, I have several friends & acquaintances on the right who justify pretty much any actions taken by the admnistration (including this one). Many of the supporters of this administration are religious zealots who see left wing thinking and people as just about the most evil thing out there. To them, the end (fewer “radical” left wing thinkers) justifies the means.
For the next elections, we need to convince swing voters and inconsistent voters to turn out for Democrats next election. Not reprogram the terminally MAGA.
The next onion layer will be credulous Fox viewers. But I’m even less clear on how we do that.
Man is the only animal to claim a God, and the only animal to behave as if there is no God.
That relies on absolving other animals of responsibility for their behaviors because they don't have higher order thought, no? Animals can be pretty violent to even their own species.
edit: Chewing on this a little more, this viewpoint almost feels like the dual of a common justification that people drunk on religion use to justify the killing of other human beings - "animals kill each other so it's natural behavior, and God sorts us all out in the afterlife"
Yep. Bad use of force by police is tragic, but it’s happened before and will happen again. This is federal support for murdering liberals.
ALL humans are animals.
And most animals typically act much less indiscriminately violent than we do.
JD Vance, man. What a mendacious piece of shit.
Something that isn't being addressed is why/how the ICE agents prevented medical treatment for the victim which may or may not have been life-saving. That seems like a level beyond war-crimes (e.g. sides usually agree to allow medical personnel access to wounded soldiers).
The sharpest (and scariest) analysis I've encountered is this: the administration governs as though no government will ever follow. The blanket pardons for January 6th insurrectionists, the revocation of Secret Service protection for political enemies—these are not the actions of someone who expects to face accountability from a future administration. And that's precisely the point. Trump is not governing recklessly; he is governing with a specific end in mind: to be president for the rest of his life. That project requires dismantling the judiciary, hollowing out independent institutions, muzzling the press, and having his own goon squad. By all appearances, he is on schedule.
My baseline (as an outside observer) is still that they are too stupid and uncoordinated to do a facist take-over. But that a significant possibility even exists that there will be a facist take-over is awful.
(The main ingredient for a facist take-over is control over the military and media and he is not creating many loyalists in either)
Mussolini was not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed, but it worked for him.
He served in the military, though. Idk if he obviously was not loyal to anyone like Trump is, I'd guess not.
If you're a fan of sharp scary analysis, try
Maduro in Minneapolis (Murderous Lies) by Timothy Snyder - https://snyder.substack.com/p/maduro-in-minneapolis
The abduction of Maduro was not about naming his crimes, but about ignoring them. The worst thing that Maduro did is just what Trump is beginning to do: killing civilians and blaming them for their own deaths. After Minneapolis, Maduro’s lies are being repeated: in American English, by American authorities. The thousands of extrajudicial killings in Maduro’s Venezuela were carried out by organized death squads. These actions were described as defensive. The Maduro regime claimed that the people they murdered were resisting government authority, and that the men who pulled the trigger had been provoked by those whom they murdered. Minneapolis has just witnessed an extrajudicial killing, at the hands of ICE, which looks more and more like a presidential paramilitary organization. The action was, horribly, excused by the president, the vice-president, and the director of homeland security, using the same lies as those told by Maduro’s Venezuelan regime. The victim was resisting government authority, they said. The man who pulled the trigger had been provoked, they said. It was not the killer who was a terrorist. It was the mom who had just dropped off one of her six-year-old at school.Even if the democrats win, they will face no consequences.
Chuck Schumer can’t even say ICE funding should go down
Also, the proposed expansion of the White House doesn't align with the interests of Trump leaving at the end of his second term as it would have barely been finished by then. He does not seem like the type of person who would do something that only benefits someone else.
(My conspiracy-inspired theory is that they are working on the underground bunker there with the understanding that it may soon be in use when war breaks out)
Does the administration's interpretation of this incident (i.e. self-defense) mean that it is now okay to fire at drivers that may (or may not) be about to drive too close to you?
As you migth expect, their position is contradictory, working in their favor either way. They have passed bills making it legal to run over people as long as those people aren't members of the tribe:
G.O.P. Bills Target Protesters (and Absolve Motorists Who Hit Them) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/us/politics/republican-an...
"Stand your ground" laws often work the same way: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/is-there-racial-b...
It's almost like giving a nearly-completely-unregulated quasi-military force unlimited funding, more weapons than God, and no clear goals other than "deport more people" is actually a really bad idea.
People voted for this.
Oh but hey, we at least made sure to pretend to save money by firing and then rapidly rehiring a lot of the workforce.
If we give money to groups that aid and support the protection of illegal aliens, no sense in not outspending them.
Here you appear to be using "illegal aliens" as a synonym for "immigrants".
Groups that aid and support immigrants are doing a service that benefits America and all Americans; we should give them money so they can continue to help.
Immigration is of benefit to most nations; we are no different. But if and when you call immigrants illegal aliens, you're removing an important distinction and distorting reality.
Have you ever seen an immigration application? Ever examined the regulations that legal immigrants must navigate?
Legal immigration is a quagmire, but some would rather turn away from the swamp rather than drain it; some would like to pretend that immigration is the same thing as invasion, to justify the lazy approach that groups everyone together in an alien blur.
Apparently, a lot of people like cmxch aren’t familiar with the age depopulation bomb, where senior citizens start outnumbering everyone else like in Japan. We need immigration to keep economy healthy
No, the comment is using a term that describes people who legally are not entitled to be in the country, to refer to people who legally are not entitled to be in the country.
Changing labels doesn't change reality. The complaint revolves around groups that are supporting people who are not attempting to go through legal immigration channels.
> illegal aliens
Do you mean "human beings"
You're suggesting a grassroots movement to outspend the US government, one of the wealthiest entities on the planet
How is this even relevant to the discussion at hand?
The issue from the article is that an "Immigration" agency used lethal violence against a _citizen of the US_.
This is not an illegal aliens issue.
The original poster was the one that questioned the funding, so talking about funding is on topic. The illegal aliens issue is why they need so much funding. USA has a bigger illegal alien issue than any other developed country, so to fix that it makes sense they need more funding to try to solve it.
It is questionable that they need that much money, especially when it appears that a lot of the workforce is being used to suppress protests and work more or less as a private army of the convicted fraudster that Americans apparently thought it would be wise to provide the nuclear codes to.
Keep in mind, if you defined ICE as a military, it would be the thirteenth largest on the planet [1]. I have yet to see an argument or study that indicates that our immigration problem is costing us more than Poland's entire military, and I have seen a lot of evidence that immigration is a net positive in the US.
You could say something like "BUT, BUT, BUT HE'S ONLY GOING AFTER THE ILLEGALS YOU WANT ILLEGALS HERE HAHAHA WOKE LEFTY OPEN BORDERS <insert other idiotic conservative buzzword>", but determining whether or not the person in question is here "legally" clearly has not been the priority of this current administration and its weird militarization of ICE.
[1] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/pressroom/articles/2025/1...
By definition a US citizen is not an illegal alien. OP is right to question if ICE should have an unlimited budget when they're clearly using that budget on things that are _not_ immigration (illegal aliens).
And it's flagged, of course.
Will somebody vouch for this? I know what you're thinking. This doesn't encourage curiosity! This is politics! Same old, same old.
HN! Come on, how myopic must you be to not see that a working democracy is a condition sine qua non of your dear curiosity. You see what's happening in Iran, right? Well, they don't!
Put your glasses on, HN, you're not seeing shit.
It's crazy to me that "no politics" arguments are still getting flung around. This is so far beyond political at this point. Citizens being murdered by masked men with total immunity? What the fuck has our country come to.
He already has talked about cancelling the election. What happens when he declares a state of emergency to cancel the 2026 midterms - is that political? Are we allowed to discuss it? The effective end of the United States, but whatever, get back to the code mines, the VCs need those returns.
Just an absolutely crazy situation we are in right now.
So many people here want to bury their heads in the sand, like that will protect them. It's disgraceful to see people calling themselves "hackers" while they support the feds with no reservations or critical thought.
A good number of people on this site don’t mind the boot as long as they are wearing it. It’s not particularly rare for groups of software engineers to have American style libertarians amongst them
I really want an HN overlay where we can act in public. The rank cowardice here is so low, these dogs hiding and cloaking the truth again and again, putting the veil over the truth. Being able to post publicly what we are up to, being able to see more directly, not have these obfuscating hiding folks hiding in their anonymity on the layer feels necessary. What a sad pathetic foe humanity faces. It's so sad than HN allows a couple people to destroy our ability to understand and see the world.
Yeah. The US government blatantly excusing a murder in broad daylight? Not intellectually interesting at all.
Better discuss another article about using AI for coding.
Why does vouching require a certain threshold of accountability to perform but reporting can be done by anyone?
> And it's flagged, of course.
> Will somebody vouch for this?
It's a false dichotomy and this mode of black/white thinking is everywhere online. Unless you agree 100% with every single atom and detail of >THING X<, you are automatically the enemy and literally Adolf Hitler.
Had a similar discussion in the thread for the hacker doxxing conservative dating sites: while I disagree with white supremacists I still think doxxing people online is wrong (for both sides).
And for Gruber's article: I don't think HN is the place to discuss US local politics coverage, let alone through a poster that reviews Apple software and hardware most of his time.
I can still think this && what happened to that woman is horrible.
I can still think that doxxing political opponents is wrong && that white supremacists have no place in 2026.
Agreed; in general, doxxing people is wrong. In general, politics are polarizing and reactive, and are to be avoided on a mostly-technical discussion site. In general, Gruber is an Apple review guy. These rules-of-thumb are useful and proper, generally. But you know what comes next, right?
The exceptions.
I think we're seeing some extraordinary events irl that the HN community and moderators are dealing with organically. Exceptions are being made; eventually the rules of thumbs will return to prominence.
The current administration has made clear that right or wrong is the question of which side has more power. And appeal to human morals has lost its power in dopamine addled society rife with mental issues. To assert their will people resort to alternative means.
So it's either black or white for you.
There is just so much racism in the worldsad panda.
Good post by Gruber on this, and kudos to him for emphasising the bravery of the citizens involved, I only hope that justice can be seen to be done, but I'm not holding my breath with Noem neck-deep in the lies already.
I’ll just say that I fully expect American police to shoot people in that situation. Not because it’s justified but because their whole deal is:
“Sir, stop resisting. I gave you a lawful order”
“Sir, sir, BANG BANG”
“I feared for my life”
It’s like a pitbull, right? It’s right there most of the time. Then one day it eats a baby. But you kind of knew it had baby eating ready to go. It’s sitting there ready to eat babies. Just a question of when. Then the baby gets eaten and you’re upset. But most people just stay away from the baby eater.
One day you’re walking down the street and your baby gets eaten. Justifiable? No. Your fault? Also no. But there’s baby eaters out there. Such is life.
You had me until, “Such as life.” The point here is there is no reason life should be this way and that is why people have a problem with it.
Sadly, agreed, most should expect to get shot to death by police in any given situation. Most become a police officer with the sole purpose of being able to shoot someone and they are continuously looking for any opportunity to do so. They are literally a junkie waiting to get their fix.
Sadly, agreed, pitbulls should not be kept as pets and certainly not when children are present. Most people can’t control their pets, let alone a pitbull. Also, pitbull owners know they are choosing a pitbull for the sole purpose of proving others wrong, or the opportunity to blame someone else if their pitbull attacks someone. Weirdly like police.
"she was asking for it" but with murder. Cool argument.
Embarrassing what level of discourse this site has fallen to.
> Embarrassing what level of discourse this site has fallen to.
Indeed.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
> "she was asking for it"
Another way to, er interpret their comment could be, "This tragic outcome was predictable." It does not blame the victim, it is an observation.
Why is this flagged??
It'S PoLiTiCaL
As self-proclaimed hackers who are part of a community whose core values include curiosity and critical thinking, we do ourselves, and the world, a massive disservice by closing our eyes and ears to important information just because it's political in nature.
Hacker culture and fascism are antithetical, and we should all be acutely aware when the current regime moves towards violence to squash dissent.
i know the site moniker is "hacker news" but the tech industry at large is the furthest thing from being anything resembling a collective of hackers...
The actual technical thought leaders aren’t necessarily representative of the tech industry at large. Id like to think at least some with a hacker ethos have made it to decision making positions - and hacker news is a spot for em to congregate.
the owners of this site support the current regime
"Hacker culture and fascism are antithetical"
Eh, I think most of the folks here are, whatever else, "temporarily embarrassed venture capitalists". That certainly seems consistent with fascists and with the tenor of much of the discourse I read here.
completely 100% agree
ICE are the modern day equivalent of Nazi Brownshirts/storm troopers, who went around rounding up and harassing minorities in the early days of Nazi Germany.
They're now able to kill at will and call it "self defence".
Inquiry, since I know anti immigrant sentiment is on the rise in other countries. How are other countries increasing their enforcement of their immigration laws? Are there also chaotic situations where their immigration enforcers are shooting people in cars? Are there better ways for rising anti-immigrant sentiment to result in stricter enforcement with less violence?
India has been deporting immigrants to Bangladesh/Myanmar and this includes Indian Citizens, because there is no due process being followed and court orders are being regularly ignored.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/23/india-hundreds-of-muslim...
> authorities forced another 40 Rohingya refugees into the sea near Myanmar, giving them life jackets and making them swim to shore
> the police raided his home, seized his mobile phone, and tore up his identity documents, which were proof of his (Indian) citizenship. They then flew him in a BSF plane (…) Sheikh said he was forced to cross into Bangladesh with eight others.
I remember threads about this on HN back when the CAA Bill first dropped - you saw much of the same concern trolling back then, as if nobody could see what the real intent behind it was.
Around the world, anti-immigrant sentiment is a minority viewpoint. At least it was in 2019
https://www.pewresearch.org/global-migration-and-demography/...
Neat, this goes against my understanding that anti-immigrant is a rising sentiment. Thanks for informing me of this.
I also think that anti-immigrant is a rising sentiment, and a lot can change in six years so I don’t think this discounts that feeling.
Now that you're mentioning, I'm surprised that, even though in some corners anti-immigrant parties rose to governing, they are only doing legislation and stricter enforcing immigration and border protection rules - not appreciated by everybody of course but somehow understandable where they're coming from. Might be somebody else knows more, or has seen more, but my one data point is: no nothing like that was ever hinted from what I can tell. And I'm appalled.
I’m in the UK. There is strong anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiment, because hundreds of thousands of undocumented men originating in Africa and the Middle East have illegally crossed the English Channel from France and then made asylum claims, meaning the UK taxpayer is forced (by treaty) to house them and feed them. These are quite evidently opportunists. A large proportion are young fighting-age men, and most are fleeing countries where there is no current conflict.
As a taxpayer in a cost of living crisis I resent seeing hotels full of these chancers.
And I don’t think women and girls are safe with them around, given the staggering sexual crime statistics
https://www.migrationcentral.co.uk/p/up-to-third-of-sexual-a...
Call me “anti-immigrant” if you like. I don’t care. I’m voting for fairness and safety in the next election.
I'm not really interested in your personal opinion about immigration. I don't really know why you decided to vent your personal grievance at me.
I'm from Russia. There's no such special department there, nor police shoots at anyone in a car. They do chase, then after some minutes, if nothing works, shoot at tires. There's no rule, nor drilling to shoot then think, nor to take a gun ASAP. There's no qualified immunity for police either. (Right-wing Russians, even die-hard Putin's supporters, in fact admire this side of the American police -- like "you don't stare at a policeman in America", they say.) The whole issue of detainees being shot -- that's not a problem there at all.
There is one department that's similar to ICE, the riot police called Rosgvardia (Russian Guard), which is anti-mass-protest force. When it was created, they hired all the normal police drop-outs, the worst. But they only carry batons.
The real issue with human rights in Russia is in courts and law application, and inside prisons, out of public eye.
Can confirm. Police will generally be quite gentle (even when they use weapons, they have to shoot a warning shot). Rosgvardia very likely will beat you up. Russian SWAT will for sure beat you up or shoot you.
Beating up and actual torturing may commence after you were apprehended.
But being shot during the ordinary police stoppage is not a wide-spread problem.
The women he is praising for filming is, according to the current government, committing illegal violence against the ICE agents.
https://reason.com/2026/01/08/you-have-the-right-to-record-i...
> The Trump Administration Says It's Illegal To Record Videos of ICE. Here's What the Law Says.
> Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it's videotaping them where they're at when they're out on operations," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
So he is right to think she might have been shot for doing this.
edit: note that's a libertarian source. They've always had a strain of civil libertarians on that publication but the comments on the site reveal a lot of libertarians now think it's a good thing that white liberal women are being shot.
At that point, its not libertarian anymore, its identitarian. The victim was from an outgroup so anything goes, including your values around liberty out the window.
Identity politics is at the core of conservativism and what ever is good for, or part of your group or yourself is just by nature and good for society. This tribalistic bias skews your reasoning, because we apes have evolved to sustain our own group or ourself. As social animals, we have externalized our self-preservative drive onto the tribe we live in and this bias drives libertarians to these comments and why there is such a significant overlap between religion, racists (group oriented) but also libertarians (individual oriented), etc. The big political divide is between people who are more vulnerable to such identity based biases and people who are lesser so.
And your point is ?
Because someone is filming, it is okay for a federal agent to execute their partner ?
I'm not sure I understand.
No, they're supporting Gruber's statement that the woman filming was putting herself in very real danger by filming the shooting and then continuing to film for several minutes after.
At one point Orange was talking about shithole countries.
They have released a version of the masked agent's bodycam. Seems to be another Rorschach test: they released it because they think it's exculpatory, but to my eyes it's even worse. He's engaged in a petty argument with the driver, tries to block her car with his body as she drives away, shoots her, then says "fuckin' bitch!" after he's killed her.
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mbz3v...
Very convenient because right around the moments of shooting the video goes blank and the viewer can confirm the below preconceived notions:
1. The masked gunman was in grave danger when in fact he had stepped aside.
2. The car accelerated rapidly before the shots instead of after the driver was in immeasurable agony.
3. All three shots by masked gunman were in self defense. Not that the next two shots were in the driver's face from side window while standing well clear of the vehicle.
All of this happens in a split second. It's simply not possible, in the evidenced time frame, to fire one shot in self defense and then realign and fire two more with murderous intent. It is also not at all plausible that the position of the two individuals could have changed that much in between the shots. It's also very clear in other video that the officer has been struck and his balance severely disturbed; it takes considerable time for him to recover and he has very clearly fired all three shots before he has properly stood up.
In short, other video evidence clearly rules out any possibility that "he had stepped aside". And we can see the relative timing of when the SUV's wheels start to spin, too, even in the video from behind the SUV where Good is obscured from view by the other officer.
I wish this video would put an end to the claims that she was blocking traffic. This video makes it clear that the very person who shot her was the one who blocked traffic. She was trying to get around that vehicle. Unfortunately I know it won't.
The vehicle is perpendicular to the road and has remained in that position for a considerable period of time as Good circles around and then the other officer approaches the driver's side window. There is no "that vehicle" that she could plausibly have been "trying to get around". Every video makes this clear, including the officer's.
What specific vehicle(s) in that video are being blocked? The posted commentary sounds like it's an open and shut case, but this is what I saw from it:
Before we first see the Pilot, a black Jeep starts to head up the road, then decided to reverse the other way instead. Presumably this is due to the Pilot, but it is unclear of whether they approached and asked to go past but were denied, or whether they simply didn't want to get involved.
The first time we see the Pilot it is blocking both travel lanes, but nobody is trying to go past. Next we see another vehicle further up the road (red minivan) stopped across both travel lanes as well (it could have also informed the Jeep's desire to go the other way).
Four cars then head down the street towards the Pilot, with one pulling over to the right decently before her. The next time the camera pans back to the Pilot, it is only blocking one lane and those 3 cars have seemingly gone past.
More cars head down the street, with some combination of going by her and stopping near her. But all the cars that are stopped around her appear to have stopped of their own volition rather than because they were blocked.
My conclusion from this video is that she was not blocking traffic, but she was being a nuisance with her horn. But in this situation, that horn usage would be Constitutionally-protected speech, and any speech-orthogonal daytime noise disturbance ordinance would not be under federal jurisdiction.
Being an asshole isn't a crime worthy of summary execution, is it?
> The first time we see the Pilot it is blocking both travel lanes
And it stays in this position for a considerable period of time, while Good's partner is walking around outside the vehicle and behaving belligerently.
The fact that she waves some cars past certainly doesn't negate the apparent intent to obstruct the ICE vehicle.
> Being an asshole isn't a crime worthy of summary execution, is it?
Resisting arrest in a manner that causes a LEO reasonable fear of death or serious harm, as an objective matter of settled case law, justifies the LEO's use of lethal force. Relevant case law specific to the situation where someone is trying to flee, includes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._Connor .
You keep throwing "belligerently" out there to describe protest behavior. Yes, protesting is belligerent.
I don't see which vehicles here you are saying were obstructed
The first black Jeep is a probable ICE vehicle, but it looks like they decided to reverse without interacting with her, so that's not obstruction.
Black sedan (ICE) pulls out at 1:23, but then pulls over.
Grey SUV with plate on dash (ICE) pulls out then pulls over to side at 1:28
Green light SUV (not ICE?) drives by at 1:32 and is not seen again (goes past).
Light grey larger SUV (ICE) pulls out 1:48
Large white SUV (ICE) pulls out at 2:12
Light grey larger SUV goes around her to the right at 2:33, while another vehicle goes around her to the left (not due to obstruction, setting up to surround)
Grey SUV with plate on dash (probable ICE) pulls back out and is not seen again (presumably drives past)
From there onwards she is waving all ICE vehicles around and the escalation begins in earnest, so possibility of obstruction is moot.
It seems to me that every ICE vehicle that stopped near/around her did so of their own volition? If there was obstruction, one would expect to see some vehicles stopped around her for some time? I can't speak to before the video started, something the video didn't capture, what informed the original black Jeep driver to back up, etc.
> You keep throwing "belligerently" out there to describe protest behavior. Yes, protesting is belligerent.
You keep throwing "escalation" out there to describe ordinary law enforcement procedure. No, "get out of the car" is not an escalation; it is a response to someone who has already demonstrated non-compliance with a previous request to stop the obstruction.
> I don't see which vehicles here you are saying were obstructed
The ones that cannot continue forward in a straight line because the SUV is in the way, perpendicular to the road.
(I don't know how you're deciding which vehicles are or are not ICE in this video.)
> but it looks like they decided to reverse without interacting with her, so that's not obstruction.
This is beyond absurd. No, if I see that you're in my path, and I elect to choose a different route to avoid you, you have still obstructed me. You have hindered my passage in the direction I want to go, and you have blocked that path.
> You keep throwing "escalation" out there to describe ordinary law enforcement procedure
Yes, because it's an escalation, even if it is per procedure. This is another case of you wanting to define words narrowly to absolve the choices and actions of law enforcement officers as if they're some kind of mechanical robots. In reality we expect them to exercise judgement to minimize harm, regardless of whom they're dealing with. And we can use words like escalation when criticizing their behavior.
> The ones that cannot continue forward in a straight line because the SUV is in the way, perpendicular to the road.
That's the thing, I did not see any of these in this video, which is why I asked you to point out a specific one! Vehicles only end up stopping around her after the left lane is completely clear. One ICE vehicle even ends up in front of her because they got around her to the right! If they had to go to the right into the parking/snow, we could call that obstruction. Except that vehicle ends up stopped right in front of her, so its intent was to box her in rather than merely go past her.
> (I don't know how you're deciding which vehicles are or are not ICE in this video.)
Common sense. Seeing an agent get in, or parked around the agents milling about before it starts moving, with an eye for the larger SUVs that LEOs favor. If I've judged wrong and you think that affects my point, you could have pointed it out though.
> if I see that you're in my path, and I elect to choose a different route to avoid you, you have still obstructed me
Have you really never driven in a city? Other drivers doing weird shit and having to negotiate is the norm. If the Jeep didn't drive up to her and ask/signal her to move, then she did not obstruct them - rather they made a voluntary choice to go around. The fact you're misinterpreting everyday behavior so incorrectly demonstrates some highly motivated reasoning, so I don't know that there is any point in continuing here.
There is no "motivated reasoning" involved in using the word "obstruction" to mean what it is commonly agreed to actually mean. Nor is my implied definition of "escalation" narrow or unreasonable. (The only hypothetical alternate behaviours you have described are grossly unreasonable and would have obvious negative consequences completely not in keeping with how law enforcement works.)
I agree that there is no point in continuing here.
Her last words to him are "I'm not mad at you"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ice-agent-shooting-video-minne...
> He's engaged in a petty argument with the driver
No; the argument occurs outside the vehicle, and is with the driver's partner. And it is not so much of an "argument" as him being repeatedly provoked with statements such as "You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead."
> tries to block her car with his body
No, he does not. He happened to move around the front of the car, which is consistent with circling the car to get video footage of it from all angles which would be part of expected evidence-gathering protocol. The car can be seen (including in other video) to move back and realign as he is walking in front.
> then says "fuckin' bitch!" after he's killed her.
Even left-wing sources like the CBC concede that "It is unclear who said those words."
The nature of our current political crisis is changing by the minute, and with every fascist act this administration emboldens the next wave of left wing opposition.
The moderate position for future liberal candidates is now the full dissolution of ICE.
The more radical position - which is rapidly gaining support - is the arrest and prosecution of everyone involved in this administration. Starting with the president but including his cabinet and the oligarchs who spent the last year fomenting corruption and enriching themselves.
I'm not sure that isn't the moderate position. Every one of them are certified criminals. They all need to stand trial. I pledge to do everything in my power to ensure that they do. So say we all.
See also the mind-boggling sign-on bonuses they get. They know ICE being the 8th most funded army in the world can't last forever. The left wasn't allowed to do a wealth transfer from rich to poor so instead the right did a massive wealth transfer from all of us to the most racist of us.
ICE was only created in 2003. We had a time before ICE and we need to go back to it
But is what you have now "right" wing? Or just oligarchy of no real wing? I'm not sure that ideology has a real role in what they actually do (looking beyond words), unless "I do what I please" is an ideology...
this is so hard for me, I have been in several situations where guns have been drawn, including by police(for no reason), and others where guns have been fired as intimidation, and "accidental" discharges and have always reacted instinctivly and yelled at and stood up to idiots and there guns, watching this video and the one where a civilian disarms one of the attackers on bondi beach, vividly shows the monsters and people who will stand up and fight or are just caught up in something they dont understand, but that the person in Miniapolis who filmed this, stood there and bore witness while this unfolded is something I could never have imagined, the ones at the top, orchestrating these public executions, should fear the implacable bravery of those who will stand firm far more than a reactionary like me. Also, another person has documented ICE blocking an MD from assisting the murder victim, who is 20' away dieing.
Site full of cowards.
The stance this site has taken while things like this happen outside the very doors is shameful.
> The stance this site has taken
What are you even referring to?
I feel no shame in anything I felt about Charlie Kirk’s death after seeing their response to this, and that looks like it was a team kill from conservatives.
One side of the political aisle in this country is screaming about how violent the other side is, while they are committing murder and telling us that our eyes are lying to us.
Gonna be a fun decade ahead
How is this situation even remotely similar to Charlie Kirk’s assassination other than a death occurred?
Same team committing the violence and using it as an excuse to enforce even more authoritarian efforts on people like me, before the bodies are even cold
Let's call Google, Microsoft and Apple accessories to extrajudicial martial law. No? We still like those guys?
Gruber needs an identity that isn't conjoined at the hip with fascist enablers. His insecurity is palpable.
I don’t think this is as clear cut as anyone on either side is claiming.
Looking [1], it does appear that Renee attempted to run the car right into the ICE officer, the wheels were still pointing slightly left, and the officer was still in front of the car. Also in [2] you can see that she was looking directly at the officer during this initial acceleration attempt. The only thing that saved the officer in that initial attempt was the loss of traction due to the icy road.
After that, indeed the wheels were pointing away from the officer and arguably there was no more danger to him, but after the clear attempt to hit him, you cannot realistically expect the officer, in a split second, to re-evaluate if her intentions to hurt anybody changed or not. At this point his life was already threatened. He doesn’t know what she is doing and waiting to find out could mean that he is dead.
It gets quite clear, when you change the setup a little bit.
1) Make the PO a regular human without a gun and you can imagine, that any normal person would have made just a quick sidestep to avoid collision, like most of us have experienced in person too. Use of force was totally unjustified, esp. when you combine it with:
2) Change the intetion of the driver to really want to harm the person ~2m in front of the car. Cop get trained, that you should not use your gun on close encounters with knives, bc the short distance <5m will give you not enogh time to stop a knive attacker reliably. If you stand that close infront of a car, a short but strong tab of the pedal would have been enough to get you, no matter how fast you draw your gun or how good your aim is. To me, it is clear that she never ment to hit anybody, the acceleration does not indicate it.
It is _very_ obvious. 2/3 shots hit the side of the car and the front wheel _never_ pointed at the PO.
Focusing on the minutiae of how the victim reacted when she was already well into fight-or-flight mode is a red herring.
Real police officers [0] are trained to deescalate situations. Because needlessly turning up the heat results in very bad outcomes for everyone involved.
Meanwhile, these ICE "officers" aggressively created and violently escalated a situation arising from a traffic infraction at best [1]. They didn't even follow their own procedures, crafted not out of any type of restraint with concern for the public, but merely pragmatism whereby shooting someone does not stop a moving vehicle.
Thus, responsibility for how the victim reacted in her moments of panicked terror rests completely on them - and it's perfectly understandable that when a bunch of masked armed thugs are trying to carjack you, the natural response is trying to get out of there as quick as possible regardless of if that means hitting any of the attackers.
[0] as much as they themselves are statistically quite trigger-happy and are often criticized by actual soldiers who are used to stricter rules of engagement,
[1] ignoring the equity of a citizen exercising her natural right to observe and document the activities of her government, and the fact that ICE has no mandate to police traffic infractions
I would agree with this more if Renee was just a random person that ICE decided to give a hard time. But in this case, it was her decision to become involved and attempt to obstruct the officers from doing the job they explicitly have the authority to do [1]. Also in this case Renee is the one who made the first life threatening action. The fight-or-flight situation is her own doing.
People should protest but there are clearly very stupid ways of going about it.
[1] the streets are not the place to decide whether that authority is legitimate, ethical, moral, etc.
Can you elaborate on specifically what she did to "attempt to obstruct the officers", ideally with a source that isn't just hearsay or seemingly outright fabrication (eg the administration) ? Everything I've seen starts off with a description of her "blocking" one lane of a two lane street, which is a perfectly normal activity in city traffic for a multitude of purposes. And those purposes would certainly include filming or observing the activities of government agents.
I've avoided watching the videos because frankly I've got more pressing things I need to get done rather than frying my nerves for several hours from watching someone get assaulted and murdered. I'm open to the idea that the media hides inconvenient details, but it's an awfully large distance to clear to go from something that sounds like civil Constitutionally-protected observation and criticism of government agents, to she was actively physically obstructing them. So I'm skeptical of such claims, especially given this administration's tendency to disingenuously characterize things like mere filming as a type of obstruction.
(also please elaborate on what you mean by "the first life threatening action". Did she do something violent before the masked, armed, and aggressive gang (with no lawful jurisdiction over US citizens) surrounded her and attacked her car?)
Not sure if there anything definitive. I got the impression that Renee and her wife were positioning their car specifically to impede ICE, going off of what I saw from the interaction in the second video I linked in my original post. Does not look like any normal traffic interaction to me, but I could be wrong. This seems like a detail that will be easy to definitively verify or disprove once more information comes out.
So to be clear, you haven't actually seen any definitive evidence that her goal was to physically impede ICE, yet you're jumping to that strong conclusion based on how she stopped the car? Why wouldn't you assume she was merely turning her car for a better filming/viewing angle, sparing us all from having to view one more video with an A-pillar smack in the middle?
> Renee and her wife were positioning their car
What do you mean they both were? Was it a drivers' ed car with pedals and steering wheel on both sides? Is co-driving some kind of lesbian thing I don't know about?
Listen, I assumed good faith here. I use some pretty strong language to condemn this regime and its cheerleaders, but I personally had been steelmanning Trump up through June of 2020 (when it had fully set in for me that he was dividing rather than leading us through Covid). I really want to be mistaken here - it would be fantastic to find out that my country actually isn't being taken over by fascists, right? I welcome anybody that convinces me this isn't the case!
But trying to discuss these events in an intellectual manner, it seems I always end up seeing these telltale signs of motivated reasoning - in this case casually mentioning a detail ("her wife") that has seemingly zero bearing on the situation, yet what it does do is emphasize her identity as part of an outgroup. Now like everything, I could be misjudging here. Perhaps I've jumped the gun and you've got some very valid reason why that little detail, and only that little detail, is relevant. Please do enlighten me.
Sorry, had a sentence mangled due to some editing, should have read “due to Renee’s positioning of the car, and her wife’s interaction with the officers”.
As for my biases: I don’t care for Trump, I like some things he does, I hate others, but I do think illegal immigrants are a problem.
Did her wife leave the car at any time? Or are you talking about verbal interaction, which is most likely Constitutionally-protected criticism of government agents? (such verbal interaction would also indicate a clear reason for the positioning of the car)
Or is there something specific in the verbal interaction that establishes a mens rea to physically impede? If so, please quote it. (not that her wife's words establish a mens rea for Renee, but it might be a stepping stone)
FWIW I'm ambivalent on illegal immigration itself. But I will say that people who think they are finally getting somewhere on illegal immigration are being taken for a ride, just as they have been for the past few decades.
Specifically in the officer POV video (2nd link in my original post), with how the car was positioned, and that Renee’s partner was walking around outside and was not in the car, and the style of the back and forth dialog between, Renee, her partner, and the officers, all served to give me the impression Renee and her partner were there for a while, and weren’t just “passing through”. Again, I am willing to admit I might be wrong, it’s possible they were in the middle of an awkward, u-turn. I think we will know the clear truth of at least this aspect of the situation sometime soon, seems like a thing that would be easy to verify or disprove with how many videos must have been recorded.
We had been talking about whether they were physically impeding ICE agents, but now you're framing things as if being "there for a while" would be a problem in and of itself. Meanwhile in America it is every citizen's right, and perhaps even duty, to observe and criticize government agents. To be very clear: stayed stopped on the street [0], observing, filming, and heckling government agents is all Constitutionally-protected activity.
Moving the goalposts to unsupportable standards ("middle of an awkward u-turn" ?!?) makes it hard to assume good faith.
And furthermore, ICE has body cameras. Surely if there was footage of ICE agents actually being impeded, it would have been widely publicized by now. Instead, we've only heard wild assertions claiming they were. And with the reputation of this administration, it's only reasonable to assume those are bald-faced lies.
[0] when done in furtherance of other Constitutionally-protected activity and not being policed in line with normal traffic enforcement
I never said the U-turn was the only acceptable reason that they could be there, I only mentioned it because it was the most innocent possible reason for Renee to be there that I can think of.
In these cases, isn’t it usual for evidence to be kept out of the public eye until after all relevant court trials are done?
Also, just to be very clear, I am not saying ICE shot Renee because she was being a nuisance. I am saying she got shot because she made an intentional and almost lethal maneuver at the ICE agent with her car.
Sorry, I shouldn't have referenced the u-turn as the changed goalpost when my real qualm was the other end of characterizing "being there for a while" as a problem.
> In these cases, isn’t it usual for evidence to be kept out of the public eye until after all relevant court trials are done?
Do you actually think that is what is being done here in any sense, what with the release of the body cam footage and the immediate assertive statements by the government?
> Also, just to be very clear, I am not saying ICE shot Renee because she was being a nuisance. I am saying she got shot because she made an intentional and almost lethal maneuver at the ICE agent with her car.
This is just restating where we started our argument. There are many instances of because here, so the only way to sort through them is to make a clear distinction between what is and what ought:
If we're talking about what is, then yes I think we can all agree that Renee would have been better off if she had not tried to drive away. Renee would have also been better off if she had remained quiet, passively observed, not mouthed off to violent men with guns, and if she still somehow ended up drawing aggro, the moment that started happening she should have driven off before she was anywhere close to boxed in. Even if you are right, you can still be dead.
But if we're talking about what ought, as in, what should a citizen in a free society based around individual liberty and limited government ought to have the right to do, without suffering repercussions (especially high-stakes escalation summary judgement repercussions) from the government? I would say that's a pretty high bar centered on physical aggression. No amount of exercising your first amendment right to criticize the government by heckling its individual agents, nor just generally being a verbal nuisance, justifies a high-stakes escalation by "public servants" (being surrounded and assaulted) whereby one imprudent move results in death.
And as far as our argument here, you haven't really presented anything showing that her actions were in the aggressively violent camp, as opposed to the Constitutionally-protected nuisance camp. I'm open to evidence of violent aggression, but all I have generally seen about this situation consists of naked assertions and innuendo.
I have nothing specific to add, but just wanted to thank both of you for trying hard to have a productive conversation about a contentious topic despite disagreeing. It's nice to see people leading by providing positive examples rather than screaming at each other.
> Can you elaborate on specifically what she did to "attempt to obstruct the officers"... ? Everything I've seen starts off with a description of her "blocking" one lane of a two lane street, which is a perfectly normal activity in city traffic for a multitude of purposes. And those purposes would certainly include filming or observing the activities of government agents.
> I've avoided watching the videos
Watching any of the videos makes it immediately and abundantly clear that she is deliberately obstructing the officers, by positioning her car more or less perpendicular to the road (and selectively waving past non-ICE traffic). She's driving an SUV, which naturally is going to obstruct more than one lane in this position. Filming and observing activities did not require having a car on the road at all.
> Did she do something violent before the masked, armed, and aggressive gang (with no lawful jurisdiction over US citizens) surrounded her and attacked her car?
First, if you "have avoided watching the videos", then how can you suppose to know such things about what happened? (In point of fact, the videos make it abundantly clear that the officers took no "life threatening action" before she accelerated the vehicle forward.)
Second, you are simply incorrect in supposing that ICE agents "have no lawful jurisdiction over US citizens". It has repeatedly been established that, as federal LEO, they may generally enforce federal law against US citizens. For example, from the SF Chronicle (https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/ice-arrests-cit...) (which can't reasonably be dismissed as any sort of right-wing propaganda):
> Protesters can be arrested for violence against government officers, destruction of property or acts of obstruction, such as blocking the path of an officer’s vehicle.
> ... But [according to a law professor] “if a citizen interferes with ICE work, then the citizen needs to follow orders to get out of the way” to avoid being charged with obstructing law enforcement.
It's easy to find many other sources that confirm that LEO can tell you to get out of the car at a lawful traffic stop, even if you are not under arrest, and you are legally required to comply. And federal ICE agents are clearly LEO.
> Use of force was totally unjustified, esp. when you combine it with: Change the intetion of the driver to really want to harm the person ~2m in front of the car.
Such intent is not legally relevant and the legal standard for use of force here is simply not what you appear to think it is. Please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDda-L_ZOE8 .
> Cop get trained, that you should not use your gun on close encounters with knives, bc the short distance <5m will give you not enogh time to stop a knive attacker reliably.
No, the point of the training is not "don't use the gun in close quarters".
They are trained to not fuck around, and to shoot while they have the chance at range; and to not approach the person who brandishes a knife.
But "not approaching the person who brandishes an SUV" is unreasonable. By this standard, pedestrian crossings would be impossible. And in fact he was not "standing" in front of the SUV. He was in the process of circling back around it, while reasonably expecting the car to remain put, while regrouping with his allies as they demanded Good exit the vehicle.
> It is _very_ obvious. 2/3 shots hit the side of the car
This is also explained by the fact that the car is moving and turning such that the side of the car would face the gun. It does not in any way suggest malicious intent. The timing of the gunshots makes it clear that the officer fired three rounds continuously, most likely on instinct from training for that exact sort of firing pattern. There is enough time for the car to turn slightly (simply from the gun's mechanics), but not enough to allow for any kind of premeditation or even really conscious thought.
> the front wheel _never_ pointed at the PO.
I do not understand how it's possible to watch the video and come to this conclusion in good faith.
Of course, this does not mean that the wheel orientation was deliberate. But if the wheel "never pointed" that way and then continued to turn further right, the officer could not plausibly have been struck. Multiple videos make it abundantly clear that he was struck, and required considerable time (I would say more than a full second) to regain his balance.
the front wheel never pointed at the PO.
My whole point is that this isn’t true. Look at the first video I linked, in the first couple of seconds, the cop is in front of the bumper, the cars wheels are still pointing slightly to the left, on their way to center, as she guns the engine. The loss of traction on the icy road is the only reason the PO had a chance to jump out of the way (but apparently by the NYT analysis, he might have been still hit). And at this point he is correct to think the driver is dangerous and might harm somebody.
ICE has routinely done this to protestors, on film. Are you saying those occurrences were attempted murder and ICE should be prosecuted?
If it's an offense worthy of a mother being murdered and a child orphaned, extrajudicially on the street, then surely the much lighter sentence of imprisonment for attempted murder by ICE officers would be called for, all things being the same, correct? At the least they should be tried and taken to court, wouldn't you agree?
I have only looked at this incident closely. If in other incidents ICE agents ran down civilians, yes, of course they should be taken to trial.
There was another incident last month in Minneapolis where ICE ran down a citizen with their car [1]. Do you agree that the appropriate response in that situation would be to respond with lethal force in accordance with your previous stances here?
Now, why do you think ICE agents are not being taken to trial? Why do you think the federal government is doing all that they can to protect them? And why are you, specifically, working overtime to give them the benefit of the doubt?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1pjye82/ice_agen...
And my point is, apply regular human behavior to the scene. Drivers know the ground they are on and the acceleration curves of their cars. Arguing over split seconds to derive a malicious intention of the driver is cherry picking. We all know those near collisions we dodged closely from own experiences, thats why its so easy for us to imagine such an outcome in that video, which was prob her expectation too.
Alright, at the very least, can we admit that there is an argument to be made here? The innocence or guilt of the officer does seem to hinge on some fine details, I’m just surprised that anybody is already claiming with certainty that this is or isn’t murder.
Its messy for sure. POs are allowed to use force to stop violent/aggressive suspects in cars, so he might get cleared of the coming murder charge. We will see.
The bigger picture isnt messy at all though. Deescalation is usually the way to go with protestors because they usually dont have harmful intent. This intention seems to be completely missing, from the exexutive layer down to officers in the streets.
It is incomprehensible to me how the 2nd and 3rd shot from side window would not count as murder. A neighborhood isn't war zone where a sign of disobedience is a fair kill. Blasphemy of 1st amendment.
First shot is a red herring. It might be legal in the US to shoot the driver trying to hit you when are already out of the vehicle's way.
The more condemnatory are the 2nd and 3rd shot from the side window. This is pure cruelty and disregard of human life which in a parallel universe could be one of your family member. Anyone justifying this deserves no sympathy from rest of the human populace.
That is simply not supported by either facts or law. At this speed of firing, the decision must have been made in advance. The second and third shots are not "from" the side window; they hit there as a natural consequence of continuing to fire in a burst. I see nothing to support the claim that the officer was "already out of the vehicle's way" at the time of the first shot. In fact, he was struck by the vehicle; he did not succeed in getting "out of its way" at all.
A trained LEO in a self-defense situation is expected to fire multiple shots. Even civilians learn how this works in sufficiently advanced firearms training. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambique_drill . A failure to follow procedure here would be more consistent with "not actually self defense".
Once the officer sees that Renee attempted to hit him with her car, he (tragically indeed) has the right to use lethal force. When somebody tries to kill you, I don’t think it’s reasonable to (in that same split second) give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they won’t try to immediately kill you or one of your partners again.
Have you stopped to consider how you got to the point that you are defending this. Like, I get sort of working this over in your mind to yourself, but you have gone out of your way to excuse a cop gunning down a mom that just dropped off her kid at school. She had stuffed animals sitting in her dashboard. Her kid is an orphan. You didn't have to do this. You could have just stayed silent. Now you're the guy that is going to defend secret police murdering people in broad daylight.
I have been curious about this as well. So far what I have discovered, for a significant section, it is schadenfreude borne out of their past injustice. It roughly translates to: nobody was on my side when I was kicked down and this is my moment to rejoice where others like the victim do not have privilege to human dignity either and therefore assuaging the previous resentful assumptions to the contrary.
I think this situation is very tragic, and I wish it had not happened.
The reason I am taking this stance, is because I think that, unless they are fine with becoming a martyr, people should not go and mess with government officers in the streets.
Yeah, I know: “victim blaming”, but there is a difference between officers descending upon a blameless victim vs. you going out looking to make trouble with authority. Even in the first case, the right thing to do (if you value your life) is to comply with the instructions (even if illegal) and challenge them in court later.
What if the instructions they give you would be to submit to them while they assaulted you, sexually or physically? Are you supposed to comply and then challenge them in court later?
That is a thing that happens. Rarely, I suppose, and #notallpolice and all that, but the idea that we should live in a country where everyone just has to "comply" with the instructions or be murdered is ridiculous.
Yeah, at some point every rule will run into its exception and you will have to think on your feet about which of your bad options you should take.
Cops do need to be severely punished for abuse of authority, nothing I said so far contradicts that.
Do you recognize the freedom and comforts you enjoy is due to the tiny brave and unhinged section of population willing to take actions against their self-interest? It is reasonable you yourself won't take the risk but discrediting those who do is another low.
What leverage do the citizens have when government can illegally constraint their rights including the right to justice in the courts which you speak of?
How would you challenge these masked gunmen when they have legal immunity conferred by the fascist in charge? How successful is your approach for the sitting president with criminal history and redacted links to Epstein? Are you willfully feigning ignorance of how fascism works?
I hope you are not claiming perception of intent is enough to claim a life. It is the actual intent that counts.
Appeal to mental ineptitude is not a defense of murder. If a person can't distinguish between intention of person to kill others vs escaping when driving in a completely different direction then that person does not have right to posses a weapon which can take human life.
Also interesting that you do not address the 2nd and 3rd shot at all.
I hope you are not claiming perception of intent is enough to claim a life. It is the actual intent that counts.
No, I am not claiming that. I explained previously why it looked to me that Renee intended to hit the officer with her car, very hard, and the only reason it was a slight hit was because she lost traction on the ice. [1] And also she did hit the officer, this was even acknowledged in the NYT analysis of the event. Again, he got lucky that he was able to jump out of the way, only because the icy road caused her wheels to lose grip.
At that point, I would think there is an argument to be made that the officer’s life was threatened, and he is allowed to use lethal force, he does not have the time to second guess if Renee is going to change her mind and not hit anyone with her car. I am NOT saying that the officer is definitively absolved, just that based on what I’m seeing, it is not as clear a case of murder as a lot of people claim.
Also interesting that you do not address the 2nd and 3rd shot at all.
This is confusing to me and I don’t really know what to say about that, the lethal intent is there with the 1st shot. Is it that we expect the officer to go from deciding that she is enough of a threat to be shot, to deciding that she is a non-threat in the split second after his first shot?
[1] but just for posterity: a) when she accelerated, she still had her wheels pointing just left of center while the officer was directly in front of her. b) she was looking directly at the officer when she accelerated.
> And also she did hit the officer
She made contact with the officer. And that is only because he had to put down his recording phone and take out the gun instead of focussing on stepping out of the way. This framing feels even more egregious when you consider that he casually strolled to take a glance at dead mother and escape the scene.
> only reason it was a slight hit was because she lost traction on the ice.
> only because the icy road caused her wheels to lose grip
It is winter season and all roads are layered with ice. Ice was not a lucky coincidence at the spot she was shot. When you drive in ice for months every year you gain the intuition of vehicle motion. Before being killed, she had reversed in that spot and had a good idea how much gas creates how much traction like any other person driving in snow does. You can not claim her intent to hit based on how fast the wheels are spinning. Grip is immaterial, what matters is how fast the vehicle was actually moving.
> This is confusing to me and I don’t really know what to say about that
> deciding that she is a non-threat in the split second after his first shot
If you can make a decision to step aside and fire subsequent shots from side window instead, your intention is no longer own safety but to kill, in common parlance, murder. A woman driving in different direction, clearly escaping is somehow more of a threat than the masked gunmen surrounding her.
> when she accelerated, she still had her wheels pointing just left of center
Do you drive? If you did you would know that it is not a discrete process of turning and forward motion. It is easier to turn when you are moving. Whatever the direction of wheel at the moment, the rotation towards right while the masked gunman is on left corner makes her intent clear.
> she was looking directly at the officer when she accelerated
Because he is a masked gunman with ability to leave her child motherless which he actually did.
> I hope you are not claiming perception of intent is enough to claim a life. It is the actual intent that counts.
As an objective legal matter, it is. There is abundant case law for this. Cases relevant to the specific case where the shooting victim is attempting to flee the scene include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._Connor and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner .
> If a person can't distinguish between intention of person to kill others vs escaping when driving in a completely different direction then that person does not have right to posses a weapon which can take human life.
The law quite literally does not work that way.
> > I hope you are not claiming perception of intent is enough to claim a life > > It is the actual intent that counts.
> As an objective legal matter, it is.
You are both wrong. The requirement for self-defense (which may or may not even be available here if it is ever charged, because it doesn't apply to all kinds of murder, notably generally not to felony murder, which given ICE's very narrow jurisdiction there is a very good case, IMO, applies here) is neither mere subjective perception nor actual intent, but objectively reasonable fear. Actual perception of a threat which is not objectively reasonable in the circumstances does not justify self-defense.
Fair enough, I misspoke, implicitly accepting a false dichotomy. The case law I cited agrees with you WRT the standard.
But I don't understand the distinction in "kinds of murder" that you are describing; murder is always a felony and "misdemeanor murder" is a term of art not describing an actual statutory offense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misdemeanor_murder). Nor can I see how the "narrow jurisdiction" of ICE is relevant here, given that it includes (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357):
> (a)(5) to make arrests — (A) for any offense against the United States, if the offense is committed in the officer’s or employee’s presence
Obstructing federal officers in their duty is a federal offense, and it necessarily occurs in the presence of those officers.
Anyway, given the evidence I find it quite clear that the threat was "objectively reasonable in the circumstances" (i.e., with the available information in the moment, without benefit of hindsight and given the time pressure).
> But I don't understand the distinction in "kinds of murder" that you are describing; murder is always a felony
“Felony murder” is not “murder which is a felony” but “murder where malice is established not by, by the fact that the death was the consequence of the commission of a felony by the perpetrator, rather than by intent to kill or any of the other alternatives”.
> Obstructing federal officers in their duty is a federal offense
There is no reasonable case, based on any of the video I've seen, continuously from before to through the incident, to be made that she could reasonably be perceived to have been doing that when they exited their vehicle and accosted her.
Their job involved driving their own vehicles down the road. Her vehicle was in the way, deliberately stopped and deliberately perpendicular to traffic. That is an obstruction of their duty.
I'm getting really depressed here that people watch those videos and actually think this was not murder.
It's like they live in a different reality or something.
Please explain what you think the word "murder" means, first.
Then please explain your understanding of the law, with regards to the circumstances under which LEO are permitted to use their weapons.
Then please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDda-L_ZOE8 and cite at least one point of disagreement with the legal argument presented, on any objective grounds (factual or legal).
ICE has routinely done much worse driving, on video, to/at people protesting them. Are you saying ICE has REPEATEDLY, ON FILM, attempted murder? And that neither their leadership, nor the ICE protestors, cared about these video taped attempted murder attempts?
Are you calling for ICE to be prosecuted for attempted murder for such actions if they are on film? Up until now ICE administrators were just fine with their officers doing equal/worse than what this now dead woman did. Or is it this administration's policy that some animals are more equal than others. Reminder the day before this occurred the officials that called the murdered woman a terrorist said that Jan6 was peaceful.
Yeah, that would be good. ICE should be prosecuted for all their murder attempts. I just don’t think it’s beyond a doubt that this one in particular was a murder.
Would you support shooting the ICE driver who made vehicle contact with the protestors when trying to make way?
Another scenario, imagine your family member pulling out her parked car when a group of masked gunmen with "POLICE" in very honest-to-god letters printed on their jacket emerge and surround the car. Your family member feels scared as couple of them approach her side door shouting to come out. She finds an opening to escape but makes contact with one of the masked man with gun who just walked in front of car. Does that justify the driver being shot? What about the 2nd and 3rd shot in the face when the masked man is clearly on side? And then the government calls that masked gunman very brave because the person in car was very clearly a terrorist.
Welcome to fascism. End of another great empire has begun.
You describe a very unfortunate situation, and it’s the reason why impersonating an officer is such a serious crime. In the case at hand, however, there is no mistaken identity.
I think for there to be any chance for government officers to do their jobs, and for there to not be any pointless deaths, their authority should never be challenged in the streets, and if they do abuse that authority, the officer should be severely punished.
> In the case at hand, however, there is no mistaken identity.
No mistaken identity of no-name masked gunmen picking and killing random people in neighborhood. Clearly they must be the 1984 government!
> their authority should never be challenged in the streets
Interesting that you chose to emphasize that instead of having limits on their authority of actions like killing citizens in this case.
A stern reprimand will have to do because government would go bankrupt before finish settling for the scale of human rights abuse happening on the daily basis.
> their authority should never be challenged in the streets
What if it’s the only way to save your life or the life of another innocent?
Wait. Looking at the officer is a threat now?
This seems like an intentional misunderstanding to me, but I’ll clarify anyway:
What I said was that she was looking directly at the officer while having her wheels pointed in his direction and accelerating hard (to the point that she lost traction). The looking detail is important because then you can’t claim she didn’t see the officer was in her way because she was still looking back from her reversing maneuver. It makes it more clear that she was intentionally trying to hit the officer with her car.
I really have no idea how a human being can look at this video and not see a murder.
I'm frightened of you.
That’s interesting, because I’m actually also frightened. But the thing that scares me is how quick everyone wants to jump to conclusions as long as it supports their existing world view.
It's not about a world view. It is about watching a video and seeing what is happening.
Unless you mean "world view" is my knowledge about how cars and guns work.
I watched the video and I saw Renee attempt to hit the ICE agent with her car. After doing that, lethal force is unfortunately on the table. The officer doesn’t have time after that to wait and see if she is going to try to kill him again or not.
How is she going to try to kill him again? Drive away then come back to ram?
Jump to conclusions like triple-tapping a soccer mom?