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I'm pretty late to the party on discussing the Ashli Babbitt shooting, but I now get my chance, because the Trump administration is going to pay $5 million to her family. (Archived link.)
I once discussed January 6th with a conservative in real life, and his stance was that the Ashli Babbitt shooting was an example of police brutality. He said that she was issued no warnings at all before being shot, and she wasn't directly threatening anyone's life. Taking a look at the footage, I don't know how she would have been warned at a volume that she could hear, and any of the police with rifles would have been jeopardizing their own safety and the safety of the other officers to lower their rifles and physically restrain her. I think the barricaded door and the cops with guns trained on the entrance should have been enough to signal that breaking through would be a bad idea. Given all these circumstances, I think that awarding $5 million to her family is
a stupid thing to do. Add it to the pile of other conflict-theory-esque actions that make this presidency a seriously mixed bag for me.regrettable. Sometimes settlements are the cheapest thing for suits.I took a look at the video, and I can count 6 uniformed and heavily armed police just standing around right next to where Ashli is about to climb through the window. (undoubtedly there were more out of the frame of the video) Meanwhile the agent who did the shooting was hiding behind the barricade and probably not visible to most of the rioters. https://files.catbox.moe/8p11px.jpg
Of course, seconds after the shooting, those exact same police came in and took full control of the situation.
Most charitably, the police gave up on trying to take control of the situation, and just let the rioters riot. This is despite the fact that they were equipped with full riot gear and assault rifles, and were able to take over immediately after the shooting. Less charitably, they were ordered to stand down for some reason or another, possibly with the idea that the riot would burn itself out if not provoked more.
Of course this doesn't fully excuse the rioters for fucking around. But if you are doing dirty literally right in front of a heavily armed and equipped squad of police, and they are just milling around and watching you, it's understandable that you might expect that whatever you're doing is not going to get you shot.
The picture of the gun poking out from the doorway tells the tale of the discomfort with this shoot to me -- cops 'get away' with shooting people at times where there's at least a nominal case to be made for self-defence, and this is not that.
It just looks so chickenshit -- step out into the hallway, square up, present your weapon and say "stop or I'll shoot" and I don't think anyone's complaining if Babbit keeps trying to climb through the door (which she might have!) and gets the bullet.
Officer safety is a thing, but at least this much risk tolerance is expected of any beat cop confronting an aggressive individual -- however violent the riot may or may not have been, it was clearly not a warzone, and Byrd was not a soldier.
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Not understandable to me at all. Participating in a riot directed at country's legislative trying to interfere with its proceedings to elect president in the very same building, and Powers That Be have called the armed police present? I would expect bad times just by being here. Not only the armed police are present, they have barricaded a door? You trying to climb through a door, behind which the police are? All the bad shit is on you. If the police have not shot you, drawing inference that "they are not going to shoot if I do this" is like "after I jumped, I have seen 99 floors go past, the ground has not hit me yet".
A century ago, any sane government would have had troops shooting indiscriminately until everyone is either dead or in custody. It would have been correct and just, too. Insurrection (to prevent legal transfer of power) is not a thing that you can kinda maybe have or kinda maybe defend against. If they would have acted like peaceful protestors, there would have been no need for barricades at all. First step of "not getting invaded by hostiles" is to recognize that you are being invaded, and not only it is legal but you are supposed to shoot at the invaders. (Before you ask, this is my stance on BLM protests.)
The US is too scared to oppose extra-legal politics, and consequently the society suffers for lack of respect for the law and its rightful authorities.
I find your response seems to lack some understanding of what actually happened, and what actually goes around a person's mind in such a situation, so I will start with some context.
First, bordering on zero people in the crowd on that day agreed to participate in a riot, they were absorbed by a riot. This was not day 3 in a series of riots. Zero people brought incendiary devices to my knowledge. Same with firearms. Few had weapons, and even fewer appeared to have brought them as something outside of what they normally carry (few of the choice weapons of rioters were found like bricks, it was more utility knives and the like). This were all people there to engage in a protest, and that protest escalated into a riot.
Second, when it is a spontaneous riot, law enforcement actually is the main driver of what happens. If they build a wall, enforce it, and hold it, there is no riot. If they are weak, an opportunity for a riot to emerge exists. This is what happened. If lawful orders were issued and enforced with force no one even gets within 50 feet of the building.
Third, when a person gets mixed signals INDIVIDUALLY from law enforcement, that is usually the fault of LE, not that person. If one officer says hands up, and the other says dont move, this is a problem. And it is exactly what is depicted in the Babit video. Some are nonverbally communicating to her that her conduct is fine, and another guy shoots her.
Going to more specific points of yours:
As I said, no one thought they were doing so. They were protesting an illegitimate seizure of power via a stolen election. Most fully intended to comply with any clear orders given by...
Those armed police. Which are expected and always present whether you are allowed into the building or not.
This is a very charitable description of the door. Recall, Babit was just let through another door by officers doing nothing. At best this is a hastily assembled barricade. More realistically it is a mess that could have been caused by a very active toddler.
We are not a century ago. The people who were there had just seen the police forces in the same city let people burn whole buildings and steal millions of merchandise with no resistance. Precedence matters.
Again, they don't think they were engaging in said act. Describing it as so is question begging in this context.
Maybe is this was a PERFECTLY peaceful protest like the March For Life often is (or was before the counterprotests started), where the city somehow is magically cleaned of trash by thousands of outsiders silently carrying signs. But in reality, most protests get a little chirpy. The answer to this is good law enforcement that sets boundaries and enforces them. This is basic stuff, and it was all failed by Capitol Police on Jan 6. And heck, they didn't even really set barricades. They didn't lock the goddam doors of the building.
I mean, I agree. I think anyone on a sidewalk doing a "hey hey ho ho" chant should get 30 days in the stockades the second they bump into a citizen who's walk to work they impeded. But we don't live in that world. Police need to convey messages to people so those people know what norms they are actually operating under, and the failure to do so is, fundamentally, the real story of the Jan 6 riot.
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The police are not behind the door. They are milling around in front of and next to the door, doing literally nothing. Did you look at the picture?
That's not how it works. In history class you should have learned that about 250 years ago this happened and it ended up kicking off a big mess.
I looked at the video. The police are confused but the guy behind the door who shot is clearly not pleasantly chilling about.
That is the problem with Americans, you read only the American history. The indecisive inaction or half-measures or measures taken too late fails, too. American revolution is one example of that, too. Had the British acted differently prior to Boston shooting, precluding it, or more decisively afterwards (either leniently or far less leniently), it would be half-remembered footnote to history of British empire alongside its many other brutalities.
Speaking of Brits, they still celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder plot, which they put down successfully.
But what I was thinking was all the coups and revolts that worked because nobody whose job is to be last stopgap to stop it happening realized they should have start shooting until it was too late. In particular, the French revolution. The royal family always fell one more step towards guillotine when they found themselves at the mercy of the mob. Any steps to avoid those situation would have been crucial to them. After the royalty were disposed of, the party who controlled whether the mob (which mob, whose mob) had the access to the National Assembly and later Convention ruled Paris, then the country. It was how Girondins died, it is how Robespierre died, it is how Napoleon couped the Directory. A legislative organ of a country of millions is always at mercy of concentrated minority of few thousand people gathered in the capital, so it must be able to deploy force to remain sovereign.
Turning to back BLM -- general unlawful rioting is less serious concern to the sovereign, but it is a concern to citizens. A firm response would have been good, just and required for keeping up the appearances of rule of law.
In these cases mentioned in particular, BLM and Capitol, I am of the mind that a bit larger mess done quickly would have resolved the matter with more clean state afterwards. Unlike in a slow-boiling conflict, when conflict turns to crisis it is dealt with. There is room for catharsis afterwards, and respect for public order is maintained.
Rereading what I wrote, it is very abstract. To be more precise, I think a better response would have been to maintain a clear perimeter and apply deadly force after it was breached. Admittedly, had there been appropriately massive deployment of lawful authority to maintain a perimeter, there would not have been a breach and perhaps no fatalities -- but that is not what was happening. It becomes an exercise in judging how they should have dealt with a situation they were ill-prepared to deal with, and in the particular context the use of firearms must certainly be an anticipated option. To abuse a metaphor, the police have not many options on table after the table has no legs (perimeter, manpower, clear coordination) and it has fallen down.
It didnt have to be that large at all. There are only a few doors into the building. It is basically a fort on a hill. Against the crowd of what we know to be unarmed people with no real organization, 50 armed men would be more than enough if they did their jobs well.
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