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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!

This footage shows even more clearly to me that the ICE employee was at least negligent. Why was he filming with his cell phone if he felt she was an imminent threat? Why was he wandering around to the front of the car? Everyone seemed fairly calm until the other ICE employee starts yelling "get out of the fucking car" and charging up to the drivers' side door. I didn't hear the phrase "you're under arrest" anywhere in the video.

If ICE employees want to be treated like cops, maybe they should act more like cops. Wear proper body cameras instead of using a cell phone, have their faces visible, and identify their name and badge number when asked. Then maybe people would feel that it's safe to surrender when "arrested" by them.

  • -24

Why was he filming with his cell phone if he felt she was an imminent threat?

This is incredibly obtuse and probably a strawman.

Nobody, anywhere, is saying he regarded her as an imminent threat at that moment, when her car was in park and she was using it as a stationary barricade. At that moment she was an obstacle, not a threat, which is why he feels safe walking around it.

And then she shifted her car into drive and drove it directly into a police officer.

Somewhere around this moment is when he started regarding her as an imminent threat, which is why this is when he pulled out his firearm, rather than earlier.