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I'm starting a new top-level regarding trigger happy Iceman meets wine mom in Minneapolis because, rather than debating the videos, I'd like to focus more on a compare and contrast to get a true culture war angle. People have made an analogy to the woman who died on Jan 6th but I don't think it lands strongly enough. Permit me to cut closer to the bone, friends.
The only fatality on Jan 6th was an unarmed woman being shot by a federal agent[1] because she was opposing what she considered an illegitimate government action. Liberals tearlessly argued this is what happens when you Fuck Around while conservatives argued she was righteously Resisting (TM).
Today the players are the same but the jerseys are flipped. Liberals cry with so, so many tears of empathy for the dead woman in the car while conservatives argue they were obstructing a legitimate state function and put the officer in danger and this is what happens when you Fuck Around.
In broad strokes it's clear neither side cares about democracy or rule of law per se. Conservative faith in rule of law evaporates when it says no to Trump and liberal empathy for the scrappy civil disobedients dries up when it's a Chud. Both sides are happy with mob violence when it's their side doing it and cry tyranny whenever they Find Out.
I think I broadly agree.
"Ashli Babbit and Renee Good both FAFO" is a coherent and consistent view. "Ashli Babbit and Renee Good both died unnecessarily because of law enforcement/state ineptitude" is also a coherent and consistent view. (The latter does not preclude acknowledging that both women, at the very least, made poor choices and could have and should have avoided the situation, which at this point I definitely think is hard to dispute.)
If you think one was an innocent martyr and the other got what she deserved, I would really like to hear the arguments for that.
I can not deliver on that, but I can deliver on something that may be close to it.
Ashley Babbit was not exactly innocent, but she did not pose any immediate danger that could not be averted by any other means. She was a tiny unarmed woman which could be easily subdued by any of the male policemen (and a bunch of armed police entered the same place within minutes, maybe even less, after the shooting, so it was unlikely it would be even necessary to subdue her). While "innocent' is not exactly the appropriate description, since she did commit crimes (namely, destruction of property, trespassing and probably refusing to follow a legal order of law enforcement officer), she still was a victim of a cowardly and poorly trained policeman who decided to use deadly force without any necessity for it.
On the case of Good, she and her partner in crime actively taunted the police, telling them things like "come at me" and other words, while impeding police work, and then drove the vehicle towards the police. This is an extremely dangerous situation - a vehicle driven like that can severely injure or kill a person. While it is hard to say she "deserved" that, her being shot is a direct consequence of her actions putting a law enforcement officer into a mortal danger and him having to defend himself from a lethal threat. One can not easily subdue and stop a huge SUV, and in fact, one has no chance to outrun one, so if she were determined to murder one of the officers, the only way for them to prevent if would be to shoot her. It is important to understand that the difference here is not in the poor choices she made per se, when she decided to impede police work. If she stopped there - if she blocked the police, refused to move, and refused to obey police commands, even if she continued to taunt the police - still, there would not be any justification for shooting, as the police was not in any danger then. The danger appeared when she decided to move the vehicle with the police standing around. That's when the situation changed, and while the word "deserved" sounds too emotionally charged for me, the word "justified" is certainly appropriate.
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