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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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All this is true, but this doesn't excuse the shooting. An analogy would be the classic one feminists hate, woman walks down the street in a bad neighborhood alone at 2AM drunk in a skimpy outfit, gets raped. She was stupid and this was a predictable outcome of her decisions, but that doesn't mean the rapist is suddenly a good person and his actions are excused and he should get off scot-free. Here, the guy was stupid and his actions predictably resulted in his death. However, the evidence certainly seems to point to the ICE agent shooting him in the back when he was already subdued by about 5 agents, his gun was taken and the agent with the gun was already well clear of the scuffle. There is just no excuse for that. Additionally the administration is obviously lying by calling him a domestic terrorist that tried to assassinate law enforcement. This situation feels very clearcut and easy to interpret.

It's a poor analogy to use for this case but if you really wish to use it, a more accurate version would probably be this: Woman is told to not walk in a skimpy outfit in the bad neighborhood by multiple sources, woman even takes a class on skimpy outfit etiquette where she's told about the bad neighborhood where she has a high chance of getting raped if she decides to go there in a skimpy outfit. The woman has grown up in a skimpy outfit culture and there's many videos on the internet of things going bad for other women that went to the neighborhood while wearing skimpy outfits. There's a big sign that states "WOMEN IN SKIMPY OUTFITS STAY AWAY" at the entrance to the bad neighborhood. She goes there in a skimpy outfit anyway and gets raped.

This situation feels very clearcut and easy to interpret.

Is it? 24+ hours later and there's still multiple narratives being thrown around from 'pigs murdered him in cold blood because they could' to 'his gun malfunctioned and cops got spooked'

Most likely the shooter saw the deceased move in a way that appeared like he was going for a gun.

“Guy reaches for gun that was removed five seconds earlier” is almost certainly not a scenario they train for. “Guy reaches for gun” almost certainly is.

When situations turn chaotic people generally fall back to the level of their training.

I think the videos alone aren't enough to close the book on the case. But if this is the only evidence we'll ever have I agree it's not excusable.

I do think an impartial investigation must happen, perhaps even a trial, and also that it won't happen and that's bad. If this is justifiable we should hear from the officers and see their body cams.

I do think the victim contributed significantly to his own death though, and I'm surprised there's so little acknowledgement of this. I don't think it's victim blaming the way the skimpy outfit at 2am is.

Crossing a highway at night wearing dark clothes is probably a closer analogy. Cars don't have a right to hit you, it is not good that they hit you, but you probably can't assign moral blame to them if they hit you.

Police are given latitude to reasonably assess risks to themselves that private civilians are not.