Eleocharis
18d ago
My original post was to analyse the immediate events leading to the shooting. I'm not super interested in arguing about which side is more at fault for this kind of tense situation happening in the first place, I was just pointing out that there is possible and reasonable disagreement with your characterisation that it is her fault.
and the convoy has no obligation to trust that she will allow them all to pass without
Sounds like you agree then that she was not barricading the road, merely that she could decide to barricade the road.
To be frank, this is Minneapolis, not Afghanistan. Despite what Trump et al. would have you believe, left-wing protestors are not generally violent agitators just waiting for an opportunity to murder federal officials. Even if they decide against all reasonable evidence that they can't just drive by safely, there are many options that do not involve immediately saying "get out of the fucking car" and then trying to tear the door open.
Eleocharis
18d ago
You can just not do that!
Yes, and people could also choose not to drive around in masks, tactical gear, and unmarked cars to intimidate people in a city that the president perceives as inhabited by his enemies. As I say in the last paragraph, your view of this will depend on who you think is acting morally in this situation.
I don't think this is criminal.
I agree.
She was barricading the road with her car
Did you watch the same video I did? She was not, as seen by the fact that a car passes during the video, and she tries to wave the ICE truck by. She is blocking one lane of a two-lane one-way street, which would certainly warrant action from a real cop but does not seem to be any business of ICE's. I have no idea what happened earlier (do we have any evidence anything did?), but it was not "all day" as the shooting happened at 9:30 am, and she had already dropped her kid off at school.
Eleocharis
18d ago
In this video we do not see her blocking a street nor harassing ICE agents. She is sitting in her car trying to wave the ICE agents by.
Eleocharis
18d ago
To be clear, when I say "in this video", I mean that she did nothing to escalate the situation in this video, up until the point where she had both the agent and her wife yelling at her. As I say, your opinions on ultimate blame will somewhat depend on who you think is responsible for creating this conflict in the first place.
There is literally no reason to believe this. These lesbians were there specifically to obstruct ICE, there is no reason to think a little politeness will suddenly make them compliant.
I do not feel like you are viewing this person as a fully realized human rather than an undifferentiated member of your outgroup. Normal, well-adjusted people don't generally ignore polite but firm requests from cops, and I have no reason to think she was anything but a normal, well-adjusted person who made a dumb decision in a moment of panic. Honestly I find it pretty ludicrous to imagine that this situation would have ended up with someone dead if the agents had behaved like normal well-trained cops, and I think you should re-examine your biases if you believe otherwise. Leftists are not generally crazed lunatics who are unable to respond to incentives.
I do not understand how your reaction to my post where I state that the agent was probably justified to shoot her is to start ranting about insane leftist sophistry and quoting Hitler. Good to see the Motte hasn't changed since I used to post on Reddit.
Eleocharis
19d ago
Illuminating video, in how an angry but non-violent situation can suddenly become a violent one.
I think it's helpful to look at this from the perspective of the four main people involved.
Good: within a couple seconds the situation goes, through no action of your own, to one where someone is trying to open your car door while telling you to "get out of the fucking car" (unclear if he is grabbing her with his left hand or just the door?), and your wife is yelling "drive, drive". I think this was an insanely stressful situation, and she is completely blameless for the actions she took in this video.
Shooter: somebody mad at you suddenly starts driving towards you. In retrospect clearly an unnecessary shot, especially continuing to shoot once they are not aiming at you, but probably falls within reasonable discretion in the heat of the moment. I think essentially blameless for actions in this video.
Wife: government agents suddenly start trying to pull your wife out of the car without warning. Yelling "drive, drive" is clearly bad in retrospect, but I understand where she's coming from. Still, not an appropriate reaction, and she certainly deserves some of the immediate blame for how this situation ended up.
Second agent: pulls up, and immediately marched up to the car, saying "get out of the car, get out of the fucking car". I'm not sure whether he starts trying to open the door before or after he becomes aware that she's going to reverse. Either way, completely ridiculous behaviour. If he had just walked up and said "ma'am, can you please get out of the car" none of this would have happened. If he hasn't asked her to get out of the car none of this has happened (why and under what authority is he asking this? As far as I can tell he has not seen or heard her do literally anything at this point, and she is not a target of his immigration enforcement activities). If he had just driven past like she was explicitly letting him do, none of this would have happened. The lion's share of the immediate blame rests on this officer. Unclear exactly how much he even knew about what was going on when he pulled up, but either way he turned up the temperature on this situation hugely for no apparent reason.
Beyond that, there is of course the question of who is responsible for starting this confrontation in the first place. My biases are that that is basically 100% on Trump et al. for pursuing immigration enforcement in a way that is prioritizing intimidation over both civil rights and actually targeting the bulk of illegal immigrants who are working in agriculture etc, and on the agents who choose to work under these conditions. But obviously others will disagree and I've tried to keep these biases out of my analysis of the immediate situation above.
I don't think I'm arguing semantics, I don't see any indication that she ever made any attempt to prevent anybody from driving down the street, which is the core definition of a barricade.
I think this is the crux of our disagreement, I think this is an insane thing to believe. I'm not sure there's much else for us to discuss after that.
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