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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.
My read on what happened is that the officer that took the sig off of the protestor shouted “gun” to indicate that he had found a gun. Unfortunately the other officers misunderstood in the fracas and thought the protestor currently had a gun and started shooting. This is a fairly common type of fuckup in law enforcement situations. I don’t think it’s good that the guy died, but resisting arrest while armed is always a dicey proposition.
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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).
Indeed. There's tons of videos with commentary declaring ICE is doing something outrageous, and if you look at the video it's a perfectly professional arrest. I've seen at least two where ICE was accused of brutality and the video does indeed appear to show brutality... but it wasn't ICE. Just this morning I saw a video showing an ICE agent falling on ice and a flash going off with the caption that ICE had a negligent discharge because they didn't have the safety on. This is obvious bullshit because neither the ICEs previous duty weapon (the SIG P320) nor their current one (Glock 19) has a manual safety. Some people claimed it was the weapon's light turning on, others claimed the flash was simply added to the video, but either way it was a lie.
But it's much like the old IRA thing -- they only have to be right (by accident) once, and the government has to be right every time. Because they own the press.
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