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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.
The ICE agent's actions were probably legal. But most normies will conclude at the woman should not have been shot dead. There is no dissonance between these 2.
The shooting itself is secondary. The peripheral conversations are more interesting.
First, there is a reason that countries avoid too many domestic law enforcement agencies. Civilians have context and learned behaviors for how to deal with the authoritative law enforcement agency (Cops). Civilians have zero context on how to engage with an ICE officer. Which laws do they abide by (local, state, federal) ? How do I recognize them ? What are my rights ? Am I entitled to bail ? etc. The context hole is filled in by aesthetic. ICE officers appear as masked men with guns who use excessive force to chase down people who (for the most part) haven't hurt anyone. The aesthetic is terrifying and the average civilian would understandably try to flee. MAGA itself has promoted this paramilitary like view of ICE, and people are correctly responding to it with fear.
There is rhetorical sleight of hand. ICE officers are cops in terms of discretionary power, but held accountable to none of the same standards as cops. In classic fashion, Republicans care about states rights until it's their guy in power. #TeamDoubleStandards.
Besides, why are 'tom and jerry chase' and 'headshot' the only 2 options available to an officer ? She was leaving. They could have let her go and found her later. This isn't some seasoned drug dealer that will camp out in another state. They could've just arrested her later.
Hell, the dude could have just not stepped in front of the car. It's not rocket science. In fact, it is specifically prohibited by a large number of police precincts around the country. I asked Chatgpt to find me some sources and consolidation of general best practices across police precincts and this is what it found for me.
In fact, MinneapolisPD is explicit about avoiding being in front of cars.
So yeah, the fed may get away with it. But at the very least, his actions were amateurish and caused the unnecessary death of a civilian.
Finally, the broad optics are just plain bad for Trump. The Somali scams were a slam dunk for his govt and Republicans could have built the 2026 midterm campaign on it. Instead, by killing a white mother on ground zero, the narrative has immediately shifted away from the Somalis.
It wasn't just the killing. Trump's response was despicable. The video isn't vindicating (unlike Rittenhouse) and it appears to validate many of Democrats accusations of ICE acting more like the mob than cops. Statistically speaking, increasing ICE action in Minnesota has led to an increase in the death of Americans by 1. Obama was already deporting the criminals quite effectively. Deportation of otherwise lawful civilians does not require guns, let alone deadly force.
There is no good angle for MAGA here. I'm seeing many popular right wingers (DeSantis was the most surprising) condemn the shooting. This is a big L.
DeSantis is not surprising. He's trying to thread the needle between not angering Trump while trying to get the media's approval as the "least bad Republican" for his next run.
Probably a bad move. If he wants to get elected, being the "least bad Republican" just means the Democrats calling themselves "moderates" say fewer mean things about him (or even nice ones, during the primary) and then they all vote for the Democrat anyway. If he wants to get elected he should lean into DeathSantis and try to be the "most bad Republican"; he still won't get the "moderates" but he'll have a better shot at energizing the base.
This commercial made me seriously consider voting for DeSantis; best political ad I have seen since "Casey", also featuring Ron ("Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you" is overrated). But he dropped out before the Florida primary, so it was a moot point.
I don't get what the problem with letting transgender women compete in Miss America pageants is. Isn't that like letting women compete in men's sports?
Because the scoring is arbitrary and the score-keepers are readily politically captured. A transman who wins a sprint either has the time or doesn't. A transwoman who beats wins the Miss America pageant could have impressed judges with interviews, swimsuit, and evening dress... or have had judges feeling they could Prove The Chuds Wrong. Hell, even if she genuinely does win with the judges, it's quite possible or even likely, that none of the things that won the race will appeal to a social conservative audience, even if you could somehow force them to be honest with a magical spell.
((uh, most sports. A transman might have a biological advantage over cis guys in some gunnie-related sports, though the data is controversial.))
Meanwhile, the philosophy that this is just some distraction that doesn't matter runs headfirst into the 'fine, then let me win' problem. It probably does have some strategic value, and I'd argue that social conservatives should actually try to investigate what (though I don't like them on this topic well enough to do their work for them), but social conservatives can tell it does from progressive actions, without having to delve into whether it's the scholarships, ability to claim what's attractive to men at young women, ammo for the 'this is how things really are' arguments in courts and to regulatory agencies, or just a new avenue to claim anti-trans people aren't 'really' straight.
I don't think it matters, but if you want to persuade people who do, you need to at least attempt the basics of understanding what motivates them.
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There's also some less committed Republicans who could be driven to exhaustion by the constant "everything Trump does is unprecedented and threatens the republic if not the entire planet" background messaging of the media. Positionning yourself as the guy that will still be a Republican but won't have the media shriek constantly about is good if you feel that these people outnumber Trump-only (or Trump-approved-only) voters.
Tell me when you find that unicorn, I'd love to know!
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Those people vote for Democrats now.
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My experience of more than 50 years of consuming Democratic party-aligned news media makes me mark this as an extraordinary claim.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't think that guy exists. But one can position themselves as him until he gets elected and the media shrieks at him constantly anyway.
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There's plenty of dissonance, but it's resolved simply by noting which side the majority of the mainstream media is on.
There may be reasons they shouldn't, but in fact they do. The rest of this paragraph was irrelevant; this woman knew who ICE was and furthermore, ordinary cops go after nonviolent criminals all the time.
This is also a false claim, although you're probably overestimating the standards ordinary cops are held to.
At the time the cop pulled his gun, she was driving her SUV right at him. You're implying that if he had the option to get out of the way of a person who was fleeing, apparently homicidal and in control of a truck, he should have done it rather than take action to stop her right there and then. I do not believe this is a standard police are ever held to ordinarily.
Preventing people from fleeing, including by placing themselves in their path, is in fact part of a police officer's job.
You can't trust the robot.
Optics are within his opponent's control.
Trump blames the dead woman, saying she was trying to run over the officer. But even The Guardian, in attacking Trump, admits the officer was actually hit, as some of the videos show. That's pretty vindicating.
Could be worse, they could have killed a black guy.
That's not statistical anything.
Unless of course those otherwise lawful citizens decide they don't want to be deported. But this wasn't a deportation anyway.
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She appears to have traveled a considerable distance for the specific purpose of disrupting ICE actions, and was described by at least one bystander as a leader and organizer of the disruption. There is no reason at all to think she would have just left and stopped obstructing if she was not stopped. It is obviously much more likely that she would have just circled around and got right back at it.
"God, I can't believe you idiots didn't let us murder you! It's your fault that we'll relentlessly lie about it!"
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