President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[falafel]

What do all of these people do for work? How does everyone have time to protest in the middle of the week? I don't get it.

One thing I have learned though...we are in a day and age where you have to assume that if you are at one of these protests, something like this could happen to you. There is an implied risk.

I'm not taking one side or the other here. There is a reason that I no longer go to parades or public events/places that don't have a large police force at them or metal detectors. Too many crazies.

Whether or not there is, it really feels like there shouldn't be an implied risk to peacefully protesting in the United States of America.

[falafel]

I just saw another video of the shooting. The officer who shot had his gun out and pointed at point blank range at the woman before she even started forward. That rips a big hole in the self-defense narrative.

[Bo Diddley]

DH is on point in pointing out the lack of training for these new ICE agents:

https://www.congress.gov/119/crec/20...-PgS8591-2.pdf

Compare six weeks of training to the typical 4-6 months of training your local police officers receive. AND your local police officers typically have a robust training regimen from Field Training Officers.

That said, there's so much that goes into whether a shooting is righteous or not that I don't like getting caught up in making snap judgements. One of the most important pieces of evidence will be from the agent's own mouth. Why did he shoot? Let him articulate his reasons.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Trump's and especially Kristi Noem's descriptions of the shooting are almost laughably false. The video in this article is the best one yet that i've seen. If you go frame-by-frame you can see she was absolutely not trying to run anyone over (she turned her wheels away from the officers, not at them). It's not clear if she clipped the shooter but it wasn't much, certainly not lethal. The guy shot her multiple times as she was driving away. She probably didn't see him (focusing on the guy trying to open the door) until she started to drive off. This was absolutely not a justifiable shooting.

The cops and the woman did some stupid things, as one does, in the heat of the moment, beginning with the first cop walking briskly up to the woman's door and trying to open it, rather than talking her out of it (opening a car door without probable cause is an unlawful search). And most trained cops (which these cops apparently aren't) are instructed not to shoot at a moving vehicle because the consequences to others can be severe.

I get that ICE agents operate under a lot of demands and unjustifiable physical threats, not to mention pressure from their superiors to meet quotas. But they need to be trained not to escalate difficult situations into senseless killings like this one. There was no good reason for the officer to have drawn his weapon, much less to have fired at the woman multiple times as she drove away from him,

[Shaka]

I just saw another video of the shooting. The officer who shot had his gun out and pointed at point blank range at the woman before she even started forward. That rips a big hole in the self-defense narrative.

Wait a second, he had his gun out at point-blank range, and she still chose to drive at him? I don't think it rips a big hole in anything. In fact, I think it does the opposite. Her decision is compounded by her choice to ignore the orders of the other agents.

[Shaka]

In other news, I agree with D-Hole that ICE needs to up the training of the new hires. However, I'm not sure that helps this situation.

[dabrockster]

This is tragic and unnecessary. I see untrained agents who didn’t handle the situation and should’ve let the driver go. I also see the driver who backed up after being told to stop and get out and looked to try and swerve away while trying to escape but clipped the agent.

I also see an escalation of harassment from protestors who do not help the situation and only add to the escalation. I am reminded of all the targeting of law enforcement and indiscriminate shooting, killing and false calls to shoot law enforcement. Back then this put law enforcement on edge and more war-like state to defend their lives. And now you have ICE agents being harassed and followed to their homes, hotels, exposing them and their families. Another recipe for disaster.

All of them are culpable.

[falafel]

DH is on point in pointing out the lack of training for these new ICE agents:

https://www.congress.gov/119/crec/20...-PgS8591-2.pdf

Compare six weeks of training to the typical 4-6 months of training your local police officers receive. AND your local police officers typically have a robust training regimen from Field Training Officers.

That's a great point. Just because you graduate from the POST academy doesn't mean you are ready for the streets. I have seen FTO training knock out a number of new officers.

[Donuthole]

In other news, I agree with D-Hole that ICE needs to up the training of the new hires. However, I'm not sure that helps this situation.

Proper training would absolutely have helped, if followed. An officer should never intentionally place himself in front of a vehicle in an attempt to intimidate, barricade, or as a show of force. And an officer should never assume a pointed gun at someone will stop them from driving. Doing what he did essentially creates a situation where one or both of them is guaranteed to be injured. The driver is going to panic because she has a gun pointed at her.

According to witnesses, the ICE officers had previously been telling her to turn around and leave. She was arguably following those orders when other ICE officers rushed her car and began telling her to stop. Then, as she is turning and beginning to drive away (turning--her wheels are cranked to the right) an officer in front of her pulls a gun and shoots her. Why was gunpoint even necessary? They had her license plate. They could have turned her into the police or even gone to her home and arrested her themselves (probably illegally, but let's assume the have the right to arrest someone for obstruction of (in)justice). Again, violence and intimidation is the point. This is what they are trained to do. And this is why people are coming out and filming them and yelling at them.

[falafel]

Wait a second, he had his gun out at point-blank range, and she still chose to drive at him? I don't think it rips a big hole in anything. In fact, I think it does the opposite. Her decision is compounded by her choice to ignore the orders of the other agents.

She didn't drive at him. She tried to drive away from him. I think the videos are obvious at this point. The officer was definitely not in mortal danger.

Also, refusal to obey "lawful orders" does not come into the equation of whether the officer fired in self-defense. It is simply not part of the legal calculus. And, as PAC pointed out, on officer attempted to pull her out of her car, an unlawful search. There is very little terra firma for the ICE agent here, I am afraid. He won't be disciplined because Trump and Noem have already decided he was a righteous hero. But he will likely get sued civilly, where he will not have the same protections.

[falafel]

In other news, I agree with D-Hole that ICE needs to up the training of the new hires. However, I'm not sure that helps this situation.

One point is that police officers, in standard POST training, are taught NOT to stand in front of vehicles, for obvious reasons. I can't think of a more dangerous position for that guy to take. Better training would have absolutely changed this situation. Whether the ICE officer would still have chosen to open fire on a U.S. Citizen driving away (another thing police are taught not to do) is another question.

I'm sorry Shaka, but you don't seem to have much depth in this field. In the words Seattle Ute, is this your area?

[Northwestcoug]

Framing this as domestic terrorism and the woman using her vehicle as a weapon is so on brand for this administration:

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[falafel]

Who gets to decide what necessitates deadly force? My view is if you are accelerating at a cop with your SUV/deadly weapon, he's justified in taking action.

Coming back to this: Apparently, pursuant to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) policy, a person fleeing does not permit the use of deadly force. Any first year law student will tell you that deadly force is not justified against a fleeing subject. Add the fact that the ICE agent put himself in harms way by standing in front of her car (doesn't EVERYONE know not to try to block a vehicle with a human body??) makes this just seem like a colossal fuck up by the admin.

[falafel]

Framing this as domestic terrorism and the woman using her vehicle as a weapon is so on par for this administration:

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I agree with Noem. And I'm sure she and the whole administration would apply that same rationale to the time a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of people protesting the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in Trump's first term. I am CERTAIN Noem would agree that these situations are on all fours.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Here's a slow motion vid of the shooting. You can hear the shots. The guy fired after he was no longer in front of her and as she was driving off.

https://packaged-media.redd.it/km2il...7693715501c3dc