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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.
Well, fleeing shouldn't be a death sentence. But attempting to strike an officer with your car can be. (agent, officer, whatever). Sure, her intent was to flee, and striking the officer was simply a side effect to which she was completely indifferent. In Minnesota, if the officer died, it would have been considered depraved-heart murder, the second degree felony of which Derek Chauvin was convicted.
As for the officer, what happened? While he was getting his gun out, the car accelerated, he panicked, tried to get out of the way, was clipped by the car, and awkwardly shot his assailant through the driver-side window. There was less than a second between the assailant stepping on the gas and the shot being fired. Why did he shoot through the window? The car unexpected turned away, which is why he didn't become a pancake.
I don't think shooting was "the right move," in that by the time the shot was actually fired the danger had already passed. But that's a skill issue - the decision to shoot initially was 100% justified, as is backed by countless cases.
A leftist attempted to end the officer's life, or at least acted in a way that was completely indifferent to it, and because of that she died. Now most other leftists are trying to end his life a different way. We're not going to stand for it this time, or Monday Morning QB in ultra-slow motion the actions an officer took when a leftist protester was trying to murder him.
While we cannot see inside someone's brain from a video, the explanation above is perfectly rational, consistent with the evidence, and clearly the most likely explanation (compared the delulu fantasy that the officer for no reason decided he wanted to kill someone). Many will pretend not to understand, or pretend that it is implausible, hence making discourse impossible. I am not going to argue with them. Instead, we are simply going to call on the Trump administration and red states to protect this officer from Minnesota's deranged courts. We will not let people who openly brag about wanting to kill ICE agents lie about what happened today. This time, we are holding the line.
I don't think it's right to characterize this as so unexpected as to excuse the result of his decision. He's a trained police officer who chose to stand in front of a vehicle and to use his gun to try to stop it. He put someone's life in his hands and therefore needed to be able to quickly react to all reasonably foreseeable outcomes. He could have looked at her tires to see she was already turning the other way. He needed to not panic. He needed to not shoot once the apparent threat was gone. If he couldn't handle that kind of situation, he needed to not put himself in one.
Even if she had been trying to run him over, the car continued for some distance afterward until it slammed into a parked car. How would him shooting her have protected himself?
It was a wholly preventable death and if his best defence shows that he was incompetent, then he should at least be guilty of manslaughter.
I am paying him to stand in front of that car. It’s literally his job. And to use necessary force to enforce our laws. If he’s detaining a person we give him the ability to do that detention.
My understanding is that police are generally told not to stand in front of cars and shoot the drivers to try to stop them because it's dangerous and it doesn't work, as you can see in this video. After she was shot, the car continued forward until it crashed into a parked car. So he went against the standard police procedure, killed someone, and failed to stop the car.
Sure. But that’s not a legal standard. Yes it’s kind of dumb for a cop to stand in front of car, but if he decides to it’s still attempted murder to drive into him. And legally he has the right to block her and attempt to detain. I voted for him to detain.
And now that he killed someone; how many of people are going to be physically obstructing ICE? A lot less. Which means they spend more time deporting which is what I voted for.
It's not attempted murder. This is hyperbole. Murder requires intent. It's very unlikely she knew he was there when she started driving and then she immediately turned to her right. She did not deliberately drive into him. Her car brushed by him.
It absolutely matters for his legal defence if he recklessly put himself into a dangerous situation by walking in front of a moving vehicle.
Resisting arrest with a car is attempted murder.
Resisting arrest using violence or force on an officer is a felony. If the officer dies that then is of course felony murder since a felony was done even if there was never an intent to kill the officer.
Legally murder does not require intent to murder. It requires intent to commit a felony which happened here.
None of this is true. All of these crimes require other elements which you are ignoring. It is not as simple as this.
Murder doesn't require intent to kill, but attempted murder does.
Killing someone while committing a felony is not necessarily felony murder.
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