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Notes -
Would you agree that the Blue Tribe statements on Good's shooting were one of such cases?
Are standards for truth-telling not substantially higher for the government versus someone vaguely associated with a Tribe? Wild misrepresentations might be made by a partisan hack (Fox News, MSNBC, bloggers) or even a politician without hitting like official Department statements.
We're not talking random people, we're talking the mayor of Minneapolis, and the NYT. Also, "everyone, including politicians can lie all they want, as long as they don't put it in an official statement" sounds like "newspaper can lie all they want in headlines, as long as they put a correction in tiny print, on page 57" to me.
And either way are you sure the government hasn't lied with impunity in official statements in the past? I don't have an example off the top of my head, but it would hardly be surprising.
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I wasn't nerd sniped by the Renee Good case the way those here on the Motte were - it just didn't interest me that much, which is why I only had a few marginal comments in that thread despite reading much of it. I will say that it seemed like partisans on both sides saw what they wanted to see in the Good video, which is why I have enough intellectual humility to admit that I could literally not be seeing what I think I am seeing.
I'm even trying to come up with ways DHS might not be lying. Maybe the 200 people were a few blocks away, also protesting/observing/disrupting ICE activities, and they heard the gunshots or where contacted by observers and descended on the scene shortly afterwards? I don't know. I would very much like to hear more details about this supposed riot, especially if there is any video evidence of it to be had.
And there's a little weirdness in the phrasing of this tweet, like "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted." (emphasis mine) It seemed to me like the suspect was successfully disarmed, moments before they shot him. But maybe there's a second weapon they haven't told us about yet, and didn't think was worth including in their tweet?
I'll be honest, if the "sig misfire" or "reaching for the gun" thing don't pan out, this shoot seems a lot less justified to me. But maybe my brain has just been poisoned by partisanship, despite my best efforts.
That's fine. What I'm saying is we've seen the Blues ran the entire gambit of excuses from "she was just a random passerby" to "she didn't know they were from ICE and was terrified of these rando thugs" to "she didn't hit him with her car" or "he walked in front of her in order to create a situation where he could shoot her". I agree there's probably some amount of yarn spinning to cover their own ass from the DHS here. Frustratingly, it's hard to tell how much, and we probably won't find out for at least a couple days more, but my point is that It's a just bit hard for me to get outraged at the "point deer make horse"-ness of this latest situation, when te Blues get to do it essentially unlimited amount of times, and no one cares.
I think only a second gun would actually justify the shoot. Even if there was a misfire, it would It make the decision understandable from the agent's perspective, but it would still be a clear mistake (in contrast to the Good situation where the car was actually heading for him).
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