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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33204 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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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?

I would say "should have known" rather than "knew", but yes because of initial starting positions.

I would say "should have known" rather than "knew", but yes because of initial starting positions.

Ok, so if I understand you correctly, your position is as follows:

But we have the ability to assess the officer's assessment. In my view, something is going quite wrong if the officer sees a car a few feet ahead of him, with a driver who is known to be hostile and intent on evading apprehension, sees the car start moving towards him, and is not instantly able to determine with confidence that the car does not pose a serious threat -- regardless of how the driver will decide to steer the car.

Does that pretty much sum up your position?

I would quibble with what I see as some excessively loaded language. "Hostile" is very vague and very loaded. I would replace "intent on evading arrest" with "seeking to evade arrest". (Again, "intent" is far too vague - are they so intent they are willing to kill someone?)

As far as "instantly" goes, I think the converse is that a well-justified shooting would require him to instantly judge that shooting would eliminate threat.

But yes my position is that the guy could have easily dodged the car even if the driver had intended harm and thus was not fatally threatened.

The actual outcome of the officer not being hurt would seem to support both of our positions: that no real danger ever actually existed or that the shooting prevented the danger from harming the officer.

I would quibble with what I see as some excessively loaded language. "Hostile" is very vague and very loaded. I would replace "intent on evading arrest" with "seeking to evade arrest". (Again, "intent" is far too vague - are they so intent they are willing to kill someone?)

I disagree -- the woman was part of a group that was clearly trying to hinder the officers.

But anyway, I disagree with your position. In that split second there was no way for any reasonable person to confidently conclude that the car did not pose a serious threat.

I think the converse is that a well-justified shooting would require him to instantly judge that shooting would eliminate threat.

I don't agree. As /u/nybbler pointed out, futility doesn't negative the right to self-defense. Besides, there there was no way in that split second to confidently determine futility, especially since the driver posed a potential threat to not only that one officer but to anyone else who was standing around.

My problem with "hostile" is the vague degree of hostility. Did she think the ICE officer was doing bad things? This seems obvious since she was clearly purposely impeding them. But was she hostile as a driver of the car such that she would be seeking to or accepting of running them over? This would go far beyond what we can reasonably infer, so I can't describe her as "hostile" unless we are very explicit that it makes no claims about bodily harm. (And she would indeed face severe criminal charges even just for running over someone's foot, so I would really be inclined to not think there to not be intent for bodily harm.)

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