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Notes -
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.
This is exactly the kind of situation I was afraid of when ICE started running amok in states where they aren't wanted. I don't see how it can be a "narrative" when we point out that the thing happened that we warned would happen. Giving a paramilitary organization the power to make people disappear without due process was always a recipe for disaster. These ICE agents now appear to be so power-drunk that they are shooting unarmed white women, something normal cops very rarely do.
From what I can see in the video, the ICE agent chose to put himself in front of the SUV to block the woman from leaving. Then she called his bluff and began driving anyway. At that point, shooting her made no difference in his ability to survive the situation. Even if she were killed instantly by a headshot, the car would still have the same amount of momentum when it hit the officer. If anything, he could have gotten out of the way faster if he weren't dealing with his gun. I don't see any justification here.
Potentially she should have not put her foot on said accelerator and complied with the requests?
Probably, but when aggressive people are surrounding your car, the flight or fight response might kick in. Being arrested by ICE is also not quite the same as being arrested by your local police department, since we don't really know what happens to everyone who goes into ICE custody. If the police are trying to arrest me unjustly, I would assume I'll get my day in court. But if ICE deports me to a costa rican gang prison it might be hard to prove my innocence.
This kind of misinformation will get more people killed.
I really dislike this word. The government doesn't get to decide what is true and what is false. They may claim that everyone in ICE custody is accounted for, but I have no reason to believe them. Donald Trump is a serial liar, and so is everyone working for him.
But in that case, why do you believe the government when it says "do not resist when police arrest you, if it's all a big mistake you will be released within a couple days at the most?" But then don't apply that same trust to it when it says, "Same applies to ICE?" It's the same source. If the problem is federal/local, substitute being arrested by the FBI, would you have the same response to being arrested by the FBI as you do to ICE?
Instead, I have seen a large online campaign to paint ICE as unusual with zero jurisdiction on anything, operating under no rules, with no training. When really, they get the normal amount of training (ICE agents train at FLETC for about 3–5 months, then complete on-the-job probation before being considered field-ready, which is a comparable amount to the FBI.) They have jurisdiction to arrest people, even American citizens, over crimes committed in their presence. And the people they arrest can only be held for so long before a judge approves the detainment. And the people they send out of the country all have final orders of removal from an immigration judge.
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In fact, it was a big point in the Allentown grandfather story that he didn't show up on that registry. Of course that was because the story was completely made up, rather than ICE doing anything wrong.
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