Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's call a murder a murder

daringfireball.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 236 posts

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#111

Post by metaphysicalyes »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #102
bananabiscuit wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, at the very least, can we admit that there is an argument to be made here? The innocence or guilt of the officer does seem to hinge on some fine details, I’m just surprised that anybody is already claiming with certainty that this is or isn’t murder.

Its messy for sure. POs are allowed to use force to stop violent/aggressive suspects in cars, so he might get cleared of the coming murder charge. We will see. The bigger picture isnt messy at all though. Deescalation is usually the way to go with protestors because they usually dont have harmful intent. This intention seems to be completely missing, from the exexutive layer down to officers in the streets.

It is incomprehensible to me how the 2nd and 3rd shot from side window would not count as murder. A neighborhood isn't war zone where a sign of disobedience is a fair kill. Blasphemy of 1st amendment.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#112

Post by bananabiscuit »

UncleMeat wrote: post #109
bananabiscuit wrote: post #85

I don’t think this is as clear cut as anyone on either side is claiming. Looking [1], it does appear that Renee attempted to run the car right into the ICE officer, the wheels were still pointing slightly left, and the officer was still in front of the car. Also in [2] you can see that she was looking directly at the officer during this initial acceleration attempt. The only thing that saved the officer in that initi…

Wait. Looking at the officer is a threat now?

This seems like an intentional misunderstanding to me, but I’ll clarify anyway:

What I said was that she was looking directly at the officer while having her wheels pointed in his direction and accelerating hard (to the point that she lost traction). The looking detail is important because then you can’t claim she didn’t see the officer was in her way because she was still looking back from her reversing maneuver. It makes it more clear that she was intentionally trying to hit the officer with her car.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#113

Post by mindslight »

bananabiscuit wrote: post #103
mindslight wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on the minutiae of how the victim reacted when she was already well into fight-or-flight mode is a red herring. Real police officers [0] are trained to deescalate situations . Because needlessly turning up the heat results in very bad outcomes for everyone involved. Meanwhile, these ICE "officers" aggressively created and violently escalated a situation arising from a traffic infraction at best [1]. They did…

I would agree with this more if Renee was just a random person that ICE decided to give a hard time. But in this case, it was her decision to become involved and attempt to obstruct the officers from doing the job they explicitly have the authority to do [1]. Also in this case Renee is the one who made the first life threatening action. The fight-or-flight situation is her own doing. People should protest but there a…

Can you elaborate on specifically what she did to "attempt to obstruct the officers", ideally with a source that isn't just hearsay or seemingly outright fabrication (eg the administration) ? Everything I've seen starts off with a description of her "blocking" one lane of a two lane street, which is a perfectly normal activity in city traffic for a multitude of purposes. And those purposes would certainly include filming or observing the activities of government agents.

I've avoided watching the videos because frankly I've got more pressing things I need to get done rather than frying my nerves for several hours from watching someone get assaulted and murdered. I'm open to the idea that the media hides inconvenient details, but it's an awfully large distance to clear to go from something that sounds like civil Constitutionally-protected observation and criticism of government agents, to she was actively physically obstructing them. So I'm skeptical of such claims, especially given this administration's tendency to disingenuously characterize things like mere filming as a type of obstruction.

(also please elaborate on what you mean by "the first life threatening action". Did she do something violent before the masked, armed, and aggressive gang (with no lawful jurisdiction over US citizens) surrounded her and attacked her car?)

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#114

Post by metaphysicalyes »

bananabiscuit wrote: post #94
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE has routinely done much worse driving, on video, to/at people protesting them. Are you saying ICE has REPEATEDLY, ON FILM, attempted murder? And that neither their leadership, nor the ICE protestors, cared about these video taped attempted murder attempts? Are you calling for ICE to be prosecuted for attempted murder for such actions if they are on film? Up until now ICE administrators were just fine with their o…

Yeah, that would be good. ICE should be prosecuted for all their murder attempts. I just don’t think it’s beyond a doubt that this one in particular was a murder.

Would you support shooting the ICE driver who made vehicle contact with the protestors when trying to make way?

Another scenario, imagine your family member pulling out her parked car when a group of masked gunmen with "POLICE" in very honest-to-god letters printed on their jacket emerge and surround the car. Your family member feels scared as couple of them approach her side door shouting to come out. She finds an opening to escape but makes contact with one of the masked man with gun who just walked in front of car. Does that justify the driver being shot? What about the 2nd and 3rd shot in the face when the masked man is clearly on side? And then the government calls that masked gunman very brave because the person in car was very clearly a terrorist.

Welcome to fascism. End of another great empire has begun.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#115

Post by bananabiscuit »

metaphysicalyes wrote: post #110
bananabiscuit wrote: post #85

I don’t think this is as clear cut as anyone on either side is claiming. Looking [1], it does appear that Renee attempted to run the car right into the ICE officer, the wheels were still pointing slightly left, and the officer was still in front of the car. Also in [2] you can see that she was looking directly at the officer during this initial acceleration attempt. The only thing that saved the officer in that initi…

First shot is a red herring. It might be legal in the US to shoot the driver trying to hit you when are already out of the vehicle's way. The more condemnatory are the 2nd and 3rd shot from the side window. This is pure cruelty and disregard of human life which in a parallel universe could be one of your family member. Anyone justifying this deserves no sympathy from rest of the human populace.

Once the officer sees that Renee attempted to hit him with her car, he (tragically indeed) has the right to use lethal force. When somebody tries to kill you, I don’t think it’s reasonable to (in that same split second) give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they won’t try to immediately kill you or one of your partners again.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#116

Post by rozap »

vdupras wrote: post #11

And it's flagged, of course. Will somebody vouch for this? I know what you're thinking. This doesn't encourage curiosity! This is politics! Same old, same old. HN! Come on, how myopic must you be to not see that a working democracy is a condition sine qua non of your dear curiosity. You see what's happening in Iran, right? Well, they don't! Put your glasses on, HN, you're not seeing shit.

It's crazy to me that "no politics" arguments are still getting flung around. This is so far beyond political at this point. Citizens being murdered by masked men with total immunity? What the fuck has our country come to.

He already has talked about cancelling the election. What happens when he declares a state of emergency to cancel the 2026 midterms - is that political? Are we allowed to discuss it? The effective end of the United States, but whatever, get back to the code mines, the VCs need those returns.

Just an absolutely crazy situation we are in right now.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#117

Post by rozap »

renewiltord wrote: post #7

I’ll just say that I fully expect American police to shoot people in that situation. Not because it’s justified but because their whole deal is: “Sir, stop resisting. I gave you a lawful order” “Sir, sir, BANG BANG” “I feared for my life” It’s like a pitbull, right? It’s right there most of the time. Then one day it eats a baby. But you kind of knew it had baby eating ready to go. It’s sitting there ready to eat babi…

"she was asking for it" but with murder. Cool argument.

Embarrassing what level of discourse this site has fallen to.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#118

Post by mckn1ght »

lostmsu wrote: post #81
tim333 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost the link to the main one I was thinking of but there are some pictures here https://x.com/GregTSargent/status/2009319825554985218 It's not quite as clear cut as I thought as the car maybe nudged the shooter but the driver had definitely turned the steering away from him and was trying to miss him and get away. Also the car's direction didn't change after the shots were fired and it didn't come close to runn…

There's a frame in the YouTube video I linked where the officer is right in front of the car, the car wheel is still turned toward the driver window (so if no steering is done it would run over the officer, moreover it is directed to where the officer ends up in the end), and the front wheels with a skid starts pulling the car forward in that direction. In fact, the car goes toward the officer for about 15 frames of…

There is now footage from the shooter’s cellphone you can watch, in which you can see the driver hand-over-hand turning away from the shooter while the car is still reversing, before it even starts moving forward. The tires were pointed towards the shooter while it was reversing, which is a movement that moves the front end of the car away from them.

There’s no universe in which she was trying to run him over or would have even come close to touching him if he had taken a step to the right instead of leaning in for a better shot.

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#119

Post by empath75 »

hairofadog wrote: post #93

They have released a version of the masked agent's bodycam. Seems to be another Rorschach test: they released it because they think it's exculpatory, but to my eyes it's even worse. He's engaged in a petty argument with the driver, tries to block her car with his body as she drives away, shoots her, then says "fuckin' bitch!" after he's killed her. https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mbz3v...

Her last words to him are "I'm not mad at you"

Re: Let's call a murder a murder

#120

Post by cowboylowrez »

lostmsu wrote: post #83
rozap wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Officers are trained to never approach from the front. Shooting a driver in a vehicle headed towards you does not stop the vehicle. This officer ignored all of his training because he wanted to kill someone. It's unconscionable to defend it.

[flagged]

>False, especially when the vehicle has little momentum like in this case.

no it was very true, when the driver was shot the vehicle sped up and crashed. this means that the gunshot did not stop the vehicle, but the gunshot did eliminate the driver from the "driver + accelerating car" combination.

Its not hard to find defenders of the shooter as usual, but at least to me this is one of the most callous actions I have ever seen, the guy seemed so casual about it, like the woman was dead already and he was just making sure or something, but I understand to some his actions will be considered "based" and "trad-pilled".

Post reply on HN