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Eh, there is a certain level of jumping where one can fear for their lives.
In any case, these people are like defense attorneys: they have the client they have. The lies told - he was jumped, he knew them as bullies - were the best fig leaves they had. Surely it would have been better if they could claim Metcalf and his friends inflicted some grievous injury but, well, we saw his mugshot.
To me the rapidity and totality of the lying happened precisely because the case as it stood was just indefensible and incredibly stereotypical (it seems demented but the mindset of a tribalist seems to be "we need to get there with our own story first", similar to the Digwa case* even though it shouldn't make any difference in the long run). In the Rick Chow situation people could at least try to argue that he should never have chased the kid or that Chow was lying as a way to say it was still an injustice. Here, you have to make shit up.
* Though there are reports that the police tried to downplay the Nowak situation so maybe it's more rational than I give it credit for.
I mean if a justified self-defense in my eyes is like a 8/10 I'd give Digwa like a 0.3/10 for it being dark solo encounter with more scope for escalation and Karmelo like a 0.1/10 since even if it were a 'jumping' it was at a school event with considerable witnesses. I just can't see how anybody can be in the Karmelo camp if they've done anything to educate themselves on the facts at all.
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