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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   29191 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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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 two three 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.

Those who are less inclined to give deference to law enforcement argue that fleeing the police shouldn’t be a death sentence,

Classic noncentral fallacy. When you say "fleeing the police", the audience imagines an unarmed person running away, not a person trying to run over a policeman with a giant hunk of metal. Sure, fleeing the police alone should not result in deadly force, as it is not imminent danger to the policeman. "Fleeing" in form of ramming the policeman with the vehicle should elicit immediate deadly response, as it is a deadly threat. If you can not flee without threatening deadly harm to the policeman - well, you are fucked, do not flee, or try and eat the bullet. It doesn't even have to be the police - if you try to murder anybody with a vehicle, they have obvious right to self defense. The victim being the police just aggravates it, because the criminal must have known attacking the police is a crime - any sane adult does - and did it anyway.

if you try to murder anybody with a vehicle

I think it's worth noting that even if she did not intend to kill or harm the officer, at a minimum (1) she was driving recklessly; and (2) attempting to flee the authorities. I don't know what the law is in Minnesota, but I think that in most jurisdictions if you are fleeing the authorities, drive recklessly in doing so, and kill someone in the process, you are guilty of murder, or at least some kind of aggravated homicide.

From the videos, it seems implausible that the officer would have died if he had not shot her, though. It seems like the appropriate response is just to send her plates to the cops and arrest her for fleeing/reckless.

From the videos, it seems implausible that the officer would have died if he had not shot her, though.

That may be, but from the officer's perspective, making a decision in about a quarter of a second, it may have reasonably seemed as though this woman posed a grave danger to him; to his fellow officers; and/or to the public at large.

It seems like the appropriate response is just to send her plates to the cops and arrest her for fleeing/reckless.

I would say it depends on the officer's assessment of the level of danger she posed.

But we have the ability to assess the officer's assessment. In my view, something is going quite wrong if the officer assesses a currently unmoving car that he is standing not centered in front of as a potentially fatal threat.

something is going quite wrong if the officer assesses a currently unmoving car that he is standing not centered in front of as a potentially fatal threat.

Are you saying that he opened fire before the car started moving?

No, I am saying that has was positioned such that in the event the car did start moving, he could have easily moved out of the way, as indeed he did.

No, I am saying that has was positioned such that in the event the car did start moving, he could have easily moved out of the way, as indeed he did.

So you are saying that after the car started moving the officer knew that he could easily get out of the way?

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How "easily" is that, when he still got hit? And that was with the ice on the road making the wheels spin in place for a while.

Also, are you sure you're not moving the goalposts? You said he assessed a "currently unmoving car" as a threat, when he didn't do anything until the car started moving.

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