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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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In this NYT article, race isn't mentioned, so I assumed it was either a black-on-black or black-on-white killing, but apparently it was white-on-black! It's unusual for the NYT to not mention race in such a situation. Could it be that they're finally downplaying all races in their

crime reporting, and not just the ones that it's offensive to speak negatively about? That sounds too good to be true, but I want to believe.

Seems like at least two guys, maybe three restraining the one dude. https://twitter.com/_barringtonii/status/1653941898023665665

Everyones only focusing on that shot with just the marine and the guy, probably taken later than the above pic

Not everyone, Black Lives Matter thinks all three should be prosecuted. Because the mentally ill homeless are ordinary people's social and moral superiors and raising a hand against them, regardless of provocation, is verboten -- and black homeless especially so, of course.

I've spent a lot of time in my life doing BJJ and it's very hard to strangle somebody to death without realizing something has gone wrong long before that. It's not even a George Floyd situation where the restraint wasn't a conventional choke and/or it was very potentially a stress heart attack. The Marine was capable of restraining the homeless guy in far less risky positions.

  1. He is a marine, but he didn't spend his life "doing BJJ".

  2. This wasn't a controlled situation like a martial arts match.

The only way you're going to realize "something has gone wrong long before" the guy dies is if he stops struggling first.

You don’t have to spend a lifetime doing bjj, the rear naked choke is a move taught to beginners. The way it’s taught involves practicing it on other people, you see an instantaneous reaction from the other person the moment you apply pressure. It’s essentially impossible to learn the move without understanding what it does.

This is not to say I feel no sympathy for people defending themselves against a crazy person on the train, being a commuter myself, but the idea that someone could rear naked choke another person for two minutes and be surprised it was lethal is not realistic. The question is whether lethal force was warranted in the situation.

Did we watch the same video? I don't see a man being held still and unconscious for two minutes, I see a man struggling against restraint for two minutes that is eventually choked out. Here's the full video to the best of my knowledge. Until approximately the last 15-20 seconds of the video, he's still visibly struggling, which is presumably why the guy who applied the choke did not release it.

At this stage, I don't think we have sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion regarding whether reasonable people would have believed that the threat had ended.

It doesn't look like has the choke on perfectly in the first part, though we can't really see it the second minute.

At this stage, I don't think we have sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion regarding whether reasonable people would have believed that the threat had ended.

I agree, and as per my earlier comment I don't even have an opinion on whether he was unwarranted in using lethal force in the situation. My objection is to the idea that any trained person wouldn't understand that the rear naked choke isn't meant to restrain someone, it has deadly potential if held continuously. From his use of the move and his leg wrap around the guy's legs he clearly has training.

Yeah, fair, I would expect even a casual observer of mixed martial arts to have noticed that this is probably going to be very bad for someone if not released quickly.