Tacherus
8mo ago
I made no mention of a right to escape. I’m just observing that it’s silly to unnecessarily make an escape attempt put your life at risk then hide behind fear for your life when an easy to anticipate behavior occurs.
I think it was dumb to run don’t get me wrong but I don’t see why we should accept “fear for my life” as some kind of blanket excuse.
The police officer changed the outcomes from { arrest, gets away } to { arrest, someone dies }
I agree she chose badly but I still think it was stupid to turn this into a situation where someone might die.
If he weren’t in front of the car and she’d fled would you endorse him shooting at the car to stop her?
Tacherus
8mo ago
Because if he’s not in front of the car, her driving forward doesn’t put his life in danger?
He’s escalated it by making escape a threat to his life when it didn’t need to be.
Part of the bargain we make with the state is that the violence is structured, measured, constrained, fair, etc. right?
To play with the argument a bit, standing in front of the car feels like the officer is responsible for escalating the situation since now there’s a deadly weapon in play.
Presumably he stands in front of the car to make it less likely she’ll drive away, but the stakes are now higher than they probably needed to be, right?
Like imagine a police officer talking to someone ten feet away and throwing a knife on the ground in between them. The person then takes a step forward towards the officer and oh my god he’s going for the knife!
Edit: having actually watched the videos now I’m much more sympathetic to standing in front of the car—it seems like he’s walking over to the driver side to potentially help when the driver exits.
Tacherus
8mo ago
I find this sort of thing to be rampant in my circles of tech and research especially--reframing an existing thing as though that in and of itself accomplishes something. I worked at a startup once that wanted to write their own data processing pipeline "using category theory," somehow. The only thing more heretical than asking them to say precisely what they meant was to ask why in god's name you'd do such a thing.
I think you’re conflating “made a bad choice” with “escalating.” She didn’t make the options life or death, though she evidently chose the latter (from watching it it’s not clear there was any intent to harm him).
He helped set the terms. I’m not saying it’s all on him but I’d be pretty surprised if he doesn’t regret stepping in front of that car.
More options
Context Copy link