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Notes -
On your 2nd point - did they really?
If the marine restraining Neely was in the wrong and jumped the gun, intervening on Neely's behalf would have made it less likely that he dies. Instead, they enabled the marine.
I'm very much on the side of the marine and the men who assisted, but you cannot so neatly excuse the 'extras' from culpability if you see Neely's death as a grave injustice. If you're going to be pissed at the marine, you should be pissed at the others.
Saying "Actually, the other two men could have potentially saved Neely's life by helping restraining him" is a disingenuous redirection from the obvious racial dynamics at play. That may have pull with you, but I'm betting most people who are even aware of the incident don't even know there were others involved.
We could investigate the reasons behind that state of affairs as well, but the answers will also lie in that general direction.
Well, yes, intervening on Neely's behalf would have made his death even less likely, but that is not the standard.
Again, I don't see why that is the case. As I said, they did not cause his death. Perhaps if they had known that what the ex-marine was doing was dangerous they might have had a duty to stop him, but we have no reason to think that they knew that.
My entire point is that the racial dynamics are NOT obvious, because their is another, very important difference between Penny and the others: Their actions.
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