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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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New footage of ICE shooter

Forgive another high-level post but the body cam (or cell phone?) footage of the cop who shot has been released by AlphaNews and this may significantly change perceptions of what happened (to those willing to have perceptions changed):

https://x.com/alphanews/status/2009679932289626385?s=46

To my eyes it appears that:

  • The ICE agent is clearly hit by her car and goes down

  • The ICE agent was not standing in front of her car but walking from one side to another

  • The driver’s wife is not passively observing but actively shouting at the agents (this should undermine the idea that the driver and her wife were somehow neutral people accidentally caught up in everything)

  • Perhaps most importantly, but maybe most open to interpretation, it appears to me that the driver looks directly at the ICE agent before driving forward. From this bodycam angle, her face is clearly shown looking directly ahead where the officer is seconds before she moves her car forward.

I suppose a lot of new interpretations are possible, but to me this video footage clearly debunks several going interpretations I have seen proposed. At the very least, maybe reasonable people can agree that the cop did not shoot the driver in cold blood from the side window.

I would also not be surprised to see the idea spread that this new video is AI.

Edit: per corrections from others below, this is not bodycam but cell phone footage (my mistake as it’s clearly even labeled as such) and this explains why it tumbles at the end of the video. Thanks!

Honestly the driver looks at the ICE agent for a millisecond. I don't think she registered the ICE agent was in her path. She is a bad driver and sometimes bad driving kills someone, but I don't think this video proves that she was gunning for the agent.

That said, the thing that keeps getting missed in this discussion is that Good is dead. She's not on trial here. Her mens rea doesn't matter, except for the normal human response to tragedy is to speculate, "That could never happen to me, I would never do the thing which lead to that."

Legally speaking and physically speaking, it is entirely possible for Good to have normal intentions and still pose a serious and immanent threat to the ICE agent.

Yes. Unfortunately "Police Officers are not allowed to shoot people driving vehicles at them" is an untenable position since it basically makes it open season for any given criminal who wants to blast their way out of a traffic stop or chase.

But it is, in fact, the law. The police cannot shoot someone to stop them from fleeing. Yes, that makes it more likely they'll flee. But there are good reasons we don't just allow the maximum punishment for all offences in order to minimize crime.

  • -33

Are you having issues reading what was written?

"the police cannot shoot someone to stop them from fleeing." is an entirely different sentence than what faceh wrote which was "Police officers are not allowed to shoot people driving vehicles at them."

It's right there in the comment you were replying to.

The poster was so adamant yesterday. Now the new video harms his/her position and now the poster seems to be spiraling.

You are reading

"Police Officers are not allowed to shoot people driving vehicles at them"

as

The police cannot shoot someone to stop them from fleeing.

Which I don't think is a fair reading - the former is likely legal (likely life in danger based on just based on a common reading of the text) and the latter is likely not by the same standard.

The police cannot shoot someone to stop them from fleeing.

This is flatly untrue. They can, they simply have to have a reasonable belief that the person poses a threat to the officer or others. They can't shoot them solely for fleeing

Not what I said. Firing into a fleeing vehicle is one thing. But if the criminal is aware they can run down an officer without being fired upon...

Its a very perverse incentive, to say the least. "Why not add vehicular manslaughter to my array of charges in exchange for a 2% chance of escaping for a few more hours."