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A woman in Minneapolis has been killed in an altercation with ICE. I don’t really trust any of the narratives being spun up. Here are
twothree angles:Angle 1
Angle 2 [Twitter] [youtube]
Angle 3 (Emerged as I was writing this)
This is actually a fairly discussed type of shooting. Law enforcement confronts a person in a vehicle, the LEO positions himself in front of the vehicle, the person in the vehicle drives forward, and the cop shoots the person. Generally, courts have found that this is a legitimate shoot. The idea being that a car can be as deadly a weapon as anything.
Those who are less inclined to give deference to law enforcement argue that fleeing the police shouldn’t be a death sentence, and that usually in these situations the LEO has put himself in front of the vehicle.
I have a long history of discussing shooters in self-defense situations [1] [2] [3] and also one of being anti-LEO. However, I’m softer on the anti-LEO front in the sense that within the paradigm in which we exist, most people think the state should enforce laws, and that the state enforcing laws = violence.
The slippery slope for me: “Fleeing police shouldn’t be a death sentence”
“Resisting arrest shouldn’t be a death sentence”
“If you just resist hard enough, you should be able to get away with it”
People really try to divorce the violence from state action, but the state doesn’t exist without it.
My takes:
Almost certainly going to be called legally justified. She was accelerating her car towards him at close range; from his perspective (which is the one that matters for legal purposes) it was a clear deadly threat, plus he's a cop so he gets extra leeway for shooting people. If he was a civilian it'd be less clear cut, but I'm 95% sure it gets called legal and that's the call I'd make if i was on the jury, cop or not.
In retrospect an unnecessary shoot, you can tell by watching her wheels she wasn't trying to hit him though she did glance him. He could have probably jumped out of the way, but it'd be risky if she was trying to hit him. I don't think it's reasonable to expect cops to engage in that kind of self-risk to avoid shooting people, but I think cops should aspire to as a matter of personal virtue.
As almost always, she gets major culpability here for A)being in this situation in the first place B)not just complying C)Trying to flee in a way that could obviously be read as a deadly threat. DHS says she was attacking agents/their vehicles beforehand, idk if true but i'd bet it is; it's vanishingly unlikely this happens without her deliberately engaging against the agents. I'm not saying she deserved to die; I'm saying that she had numerous obvious off ramps from this situation she didn't take and therefore is significantly responsible for her own death. Sort of like a motorcyclist who's doing 100mph on a city street a tshirt and shorts who then has a car do an illegal U-turn in front of them, hits it, and dies: they might not be technically at fault for the specific accident but they're at fault for being in a situation where it could happen.
I think that the blue media and politicians are also majorly at fault here. They have been encouraging people to interfere with ICE, and encouraging people to interfere with law enforcement will almost inevitably get people hurt and killed. She got memed into this and died for it.
Approximately nobody is going to interpret this except through a maximally partisan lense. Our cold civil war gets a little hotter.
I'm not claiming to know exactly what legal standard applies in this case, but normally, when there's a threat, you have a duty to flee. You do not have the right to kill someone unless necessary to protect yourself from serious injury or death. The cop easily got out of the way and was just barely in the way to begin with. He was standing in front of the corner of the car. The car was not going fast enough to seriously injury him and the wheels were turned. She did not go straight forward. She was clearly trying to get away, not run him over. The cop fired a second time from the side when he was well clear of the car and there was no risk to anyone.
Given that the cop deliberately created a dangerous situation by standing in front of the car, I do think it is entirely reasonable for him to bear the responsibility of accurately determining the risk of the situation he put himself in.
She may bear responsibility for putting herself in that situation, but it's just a fact that death is far too severe a consequence for what is a fairly minor offence. The police should not be creating situations with people they know aren't likely to be cooperative where they're likely to do something the police are going to interpret as a sufficiently serious threat that they will respond to it with deadly force.
It does some seem like American police can get away with almost anything. They get a shocking level of deference. It seems like one of those cases where the cop was just looking for an excuse to kill someone.
The common attitude seems to be that if there is even the slightest risk to a police officer, the officer has the right to kill the person posing that risk. Many people, including me, think that killing someone should only be done when absolutely necessary, such as when severe injury or death is likely, not just a remote possibility, and that the police cannot both be unnecessarily contributing to the creation of a situation that is dangerous to them and be reacting to that danger with deadly force.
The cop had no reason to stand in front of that vehicle unless he was absolutely sure she would not run him over, and he should not have shot her unless he thought it was very likely that she would run him over. He should not be allowed to kill her for his lack of judgment, even if her own bad behaviour also contributed. Summary execution should not be the sentence for obstruction of justice unless absolutely necessary. The police are far too cavalier about ending people's lives.
One final point, shooting her accomplished absolutely nothing. After she was shot, the vehicle continued until it hit a parked car. If ending her life didn't even accomplish the goal of protecting the officer, what possible justification could there be?
This depends on the state. But even in states like Minnesota where you have a duty to retreat
It typically does not apply to police officers in the course of their duty
Fleeing has to be safely possible. Not likely to be the case when a car is aimed at you and accelerating towards you.
I don't know the law, but there must be some limits on what the police can do to put themselves into dangerous situations. For example, a police officer cannot leap into the path of a vehicle driving down the road and shoot the law-abiding driver. The only reason I can think of that the duty to flee would not apply to a police officer is that they must remain present to ensure the safety of others. Police are not supposed to stand in front of cars to try to stop them. I would be surprised if that didn't somehow undermine the self-defence argument. No part of what he did contributed to anyone's safety. Everyone would have been better off with him not in front of the vehicle. Shooting her didn't even help to stop the car. Had he remained in front of the car, he still would been hit.
Fleeing was safely possible. We know this because he safely fled, even after delaying his attempt to do so until the very last second, even leaning over the hood to ensure he got a good shot of her face. I can see how he might not have realized in the split second between the car moving and when he fired, but the car was not aimed at him nor accelerating towards him. It began aimed at him and turned away from him. He was clear of the car when he took his first shot.
This hasn't yet gotten a definitive answer from the courts.
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If the cop believed she was trying to run him over, then there is a risk it becomes iterative (ie she might reverse and try again)
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"I don't know the legal standard that applies, so I'm going to introduce an entirely different standard (that also may or may not apply) premised on typical assumptions towards an atypical context" is certainly a take.
This is much less so, since it entirely depends on who 'you' are, and in what contexts. Just to take one, governments reserve the right to kill people who challenge their monopoly on legal violence, whether that challenger personally threatens a representative or not. And this does not go into the rights to kill people who are threatening other people, whether members of the public or other agents of the government, let alone matters of perception of threat.
Perception, in turn, is what many of the legal rights to kill in self-defense hinge on. Particularly the perception of 'you', the person who feels in danger, and not 'you', the person who does not.
Why do you believe* the cop 'easily' got out of the way, as opposed to 'nimbly' when a slight difference of balance or attention would have not gotten out of the way?
Moreover, why do you believe 'easily' matters at all? If you are conceeding the officer was in the way of an accelerating vehicle, it does not matter if the were 'barely' or not. Being in the way is a binary state- you either are, or you are not, and if so then it validates perception of threat.
*Aside from the framing bias effect of the slow-motion video formats going around, which is a format that is typically used to exagerate to the audience how much time was on hand to process events, and use that implication as an anchoring bias to shape future considerations?
Getting run over by a car can potentially seriously injur someone regardless of what part of the car does so. In turn, the wheels were turning multiple directions in the event, including in directions that would- by your own admission- put the officer in the way.
Why do you believe she was 'clearly' not trying to run him over, from his perspective?
Remember, perception matters in self defense and use of force. Even if 'you' would have clearly felt she was not trying to run 'you' over if you were in his position, that would merely mean it would be unjustified murder for 'you' to have shot her. It would not change that if 'he' perceived differently, it would merely be a justified self defense.
'I wouldn't have felt afraid for my life if I were in their position' is irrelevant even if true. Reasonable person standards for perception don't enable a veto even by a reasonable person, because reasonable people can disagree.
Why do you believe there was no perceived risk to anyone to people who just perceived risk to themselves?
You're missing the point. I'm trying to make it clear that I am not making a legal argument. I am arguing about what he should have done regardless of the law. I'm aware that the law gives undue deference to police officers in many situations and so I can make an argument about what should have happened that can be true even if what the cop did was legally defensible.
Obviously, that's why I prefaced my argument in the way that I did. It's useful to take as a starting point what an ordinary person would be required to do. I'm sure Minnesota law gives more leeway to police officers in this situation. They have certain responsibilities others don't. But it's useful to make explicit what those differences are to see if they apply in this situation, legally or morally. I don't think any of those responsibilities or any leeway the law might reasonably give the police should excuse what happened in this case.
Because he pushed things to the absolute limit, planting his feet while she backed up, drawing his gun when she started driving towards him, and then finally dodging the car at the very last moment as she reached him. He had ample room to manoeuvre and his decision to use it all shows how well he knew that.
The level of threat matters. His fellow police officers could snap at any second and shoot him in the head. Does that mean he should kill them all at the first opportunity? His wife could have a psychotic break and kill him in his sleep. Does he need to kill her first?
The probablity of something happening matters a great deal. The fact that he could easily get out of the way means that the threat was very low. He had the option to move out of the way. He did move out of the way before firing despite waiting before doing so.
I had only seen the video at full speed when I wrote the comment above. If he didn't have enough time to process things, he shouldn't have put himself in that situation. Many people are pointing out that this has happened a number of times to police officers already. If he is putting himself in front of the car to stop it, he must have some preconceived idea of how to handle this kind of situation. I think he had lots of time to make his decisions. It's also the nature of the job to make such quick decisions. Incompetence is not an excuse.
He was not at risk of being run over, and even if he had been, if it's so dangerous, what was he doing in front of the car in the first place?
I'm not sure where I admitted that. The wheels turned to the right immediately when she started forward.
Because she was making a sharp right turn.
Yes, but the perception has to be reasonable, and as a police officer who decided to stand in front of a vehicle to try to stop it, creating an uncertain and dangerous situation where he didn't know what the level of threat was, his ability to rely on that perception is severly undermined.
I'm not claiming a veto. I'm arguing what I think is reasonable.
I didn't say there was no perceived risk. I said there was no actual risk. I don't know why he would have thought there was at that point. If he perceived any risk, it would not have been reasonable and cannot be relied upon for a self-defence claim.
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Isn't the job of a cop creating dangerous situations? Their purpose is legalized kidnapping of persons suspected of a crime or of impeding public order.
I find this sentiment naive and disturbing in how widespread it is and how often it gets invoked by people complaining about police shootings. Enforcing any law, no matter how minor, will eventually end in a death if the person committing the crime is committed enough to not complying.
I read a joke once that every war is started by the defender; if they'd just rolled over and let the attacker take what they want, then there wouldn't have been a war (in case it wasn't clear, I'm agreeing with you).
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Federal law enforcement don't have any duty to flee that I am familiar with, and in many circumstances law abiding Americans at large have no duty to retreat even if they are not serving in a law enforcement capacity. Furthermore, if there's a threat then serious injury or death is what is being threatened (unless it's like cyberbullying or something).
None of the above means that the shoot in question was necessarily a good one. But starting from wrong presuppositions about this sort of thing will make judging whether or not it was a good shoot harder.
I suspected that police might not have the same requirements as others, but there is a general principle still at work here which is that the police officer had other options available to him. He could easily and did easily got out of the way. He continued to shoot her after he was out of the way. This is a judgment call, but I really don't think it's reasonable for him to think she was trying to run him over in the first place. But even if she was, of his own safety is what he is worried about, getting out of the way is far more effective and better for all involved than standing his ground, pulling out his gun, firing at her and then stepping out of the way once she starts moving.
This is an absolutely bizarre thing to say given that she did, in fact, hit him.
It's hard to tell how much contact there was from the videos. But it looks like he leaned towards the car as she drove away and it brushed against him. He seemed perfectly fine afteward. That's not even him being run over, let alone her trying to do so. She turned her wheels pretty sharply to the right as soon as she started driving away, all while another officer was trying to open her door while her window was open. If she didn't execute this perfectly, she had a good excuse.
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Perhaps, but on the other hand if you thought someone was in the process of trying to kill you with a car you might be disinclined to give them them additional opportunities to do so.
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The problem is that this is gamed into, “you’re allowed to flee the scene and be noncompliant with the police as long as you are reckless about it.
This can’t be the standard. It’s why folks start shouting “I can’t breathe!” as soon as a cop begins to apprehend them. They’ve been led to believe that they can summon incantations that supercede and neutralize the officers authority. If police cannot use force, they do not have the ability to control a scene and this will be abused the fuck. In fact this situation is almost certainly a result of her thinking that she had this very plot armor.
“If you try to flee, you will probably die” is probably a mindset that would result in less casualties
Could be, but the message that a whole segment of the population has absorbed is "if you are in the general vicinity of cops, you will probably die" (or at least "you will probably get beat up, and possibly die"), which doubles back to a status quo where taking your chances with escape is the lesser evil. That's why they flee in the first place.
And this is an insane and delusional lie. The people who push this lie have blood on their hands. Believing this lie is retarded and delusional, not brave and reasonable.
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That's the price we pay by not giving the police the power to kill everyone who doesn't do what they say. You could say the same thing about someone who tries to flee in a way that is clearly not a threat in any way. The police do not have the legal right to kill people for disobedience.
It's not a big problem anyway because the police have the ability it catch criminals without threatening their lives.
This assertion would be big news to every police officer I know.
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We can actually stop that pretty easily without paying the price of your method, which is a massive spike in murder, recklessness and violent crime.
Also, crazy that this needs to be specified, but "driving a car into a person" is not a standard example of "clearly not a threat in any way". People actually get hurt when they are hit by cars.
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Police do not have a “duty to flee”.
Secondly: she turned the tires of her car TOWARDS the cop and if not for the ice that prevented her from getting traction, would have run right over him. He was actively being attacked. The analog here would be; she pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger, but it jammed.
Police should have more duties than the general public, not fewer. That's what we're paying them for. The threshold for a cop shooting someone in self-defense should be higher than a normal citizen.
How do you imagine this would work exactly? So a normal citizen sees a guy charging at him with a knife, then pulls out his gun and shoots the attacker. A cop... can't do that? What does the cop do instead? Just run away? Do you think this would lead to an ordered, civilized society?
Ideally yes, I would expect the cop to put in more effort to defend himself non-lethally. Cops are supposed to be professionals at this, so I expect more from them than a random person walking down the street. That's what we're paying them for.
How exactly do you expect the cop to defend himself non-lethally? Tasers and 40mm shotguns fail all the time to stop people who are charging at a cop. Do you expect him to just run away?
Well obviously some situations would require lethal force. All I said originally is that the standards should be higher for professionals than for random people minding their own business. I don't like the idea that police can provoke a somewhat violent response from a suspect and then use that as justification to use deadly force.
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The cop was standing in front of the left side of the vehicle. She turned her wheels sharply to the right to go to his right.
The gun analogy is absurd. Guns are for killing people. Someone pointing a gun at you has a clear intention of killing you. Someone driving in your general direction is almost certainly not trying to injure you. You just happen to be possibly in their way.
Sure, but you left out the part where she was non-compliant and refusing to stop the car. She was not just some ordinary driver commuting from work.
That doesn't change the fact that she was clearly not trying to injure him. He should have known that she likely had no idea he was there when she started moving forward. He had just stopped there less than a second before while she was backing up.
Then when she started moving forward, he drew his gun, but she was well into her turn by the time he fired. His body was mostly out of the way and would have been completely out of the way had he not leaned forward and to the left to get onto the roof of the car. Even then, he was way off to the side. He got out of the way at the end with just a rotating motion, proving that his life was not at risk at that point. She also wasn't going that fast.
If he really thought she was trying to kill him, why did he stop in front of the car and why wouldn't she have just gone straight? Why would she have turned away?
"Not trying to injure him" and "had no idea he was there" does not comport. If I'm in the driver's seat of a car and there is a pedestrian in my blind spot, and I move the car such that I would hit them, but I don't know that they are there, do you think it matters that I wasn't trying to injure them? I think an analogous situation is if I am firing a gun with my eyes closed, or pointing the gun in a direction I can't see.
Why is he to blame for information he didn't know (that she didn't want to injure him), while she doesn't take any blame for information she didn't know (that he was standing there)? Especially when she was clearly being commanded to get out of the car.
As for the rest of your analysis, we are talking about a time frame of 1 second and humans are not expected to make perfect split-second decisions in such a short amount of time. See my reply here.
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Watch this video:
https://x.com/sarahiscensored/status/2009022817019572408
At the 0:06 mark, her wheels are pointed to the LEFT at the officer, and you see them spin out on the ice, because she hit the gas.
Just watch the video. It’s understandable to be mistaken with so much info flying around, but this fact is pretty cut and dry.
I've mostly been watching the full speed videos, so this is quite interesting. But I think it strengthens my argument. As the car backs up, he reaches for his gun, the second the wheel starts spinning, he begins to draw his weapon he also steps slight to his right and plants his foot. By the time his foot hits the ground, the car has started to move towards him and he points his gun at her. The car also starts turning its wheels to the right as soon as it starts moving forward.
Then he takes a second, bigger step to the right and it's hard to see what's going on because now the view is blocked by the other officer, but it looks like he's trying to keep his torso in the original position in order to keep his aim. So now he's leaning hard to his left with just his right foot outstretched to prepare to dodge the car. At some point around this time he also starts leaning over the hood. It also looks like his centre of mass is just at the left edge of the car, and only because he's leaning to his left to keep it there.
At this point, the car is turning sharply and is moments away from being totally clear of him. He pushes away with his left foot, clearing the car completely with the exception of his upper torso which just barely leaning on the hood the hood of the car as it turns sharply away. He's a moment away from losing sight of the windshield when he pulls the trigger and takes his first shot. There is a photo of the car's windshield that shows the bullet hole way off to the driver's side, meaning he had to have take the shot from the side of the car, not from the front. And from the video it does look like he had just cleared the car when he fired.
Then he's standing next to the driver's side door as the car is now driving away from him and he takes two more shots through the open driver's side window.
I really cannot see how anyone can defend the second and third shots because the car is clearly driving away from him at that point and he is no longer even in front of the car.
The first shot is debateable. The car is in front of him, but just barely, and by that point, it's clearly in the middle of turning away from. He avoids with a small twisting motion pulling his left leg out of the way. He had already begun to move out of the way and was only still in front of the car because he was leaning to the left to get a clear shot of the driver. But this all happened very quickly. Just before this, the car was aimed at him and it might not have been clear what it was about to do.
Still, I think he had lots of time to move out of the way. Pulling out his gun and shooting her was pointless and accomplished nothing but killing her. It did not protect him from the car. He could have used that time to get out of the way, but he focused on drawing his weapon and trying to get a shot. He also shouldn't have been standing there in the first place.
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Indeed, if she hadn’t hit the ice, she would have hit the ICE. So to speak.
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I don't get it. It looks like the wheels turn to the right before she starts moving forward. Clearly trying to avoid the ICE agent. Or is the first part of the clip reversed or something?
In Minnesota in January the roads are covered with ice, which is very slippery. Watch the wheels of the car when the tires are turned to the left, the tires move, but the car stays stationary. That's because she is on ice. She is trying to move the car forward, but failing because she isn't getting enough traction between the tires and the ice.
Presumably they salt them so that they are not normally covered in ice.
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