Comment by _iyig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _iyig | Hacker News Reader

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There’s a lot to unpack in your post, but I’d just like to focus on “car attacks” here. You mention a “car attack” in Seattle. In actual fact, the incident I assume you mean was by all outward indicators a tragic accident, not a planned attack such as Charlottesville in 2017.

Driver Dawit Kelete (who is black, and not politically affiliated) was high on pills when he plowed through BLM protestors occupying a section of the freeway in the middle of the night. Tragically, one protestor died and another was seriously injured.

Most “car attacks” this summer have turned out to be simply reckless or confused drivers caught in the middle of unplanned, unannounced, often heavily-armed and aggressive street protests. Armed protestors have shot or shot at several such drivers, such as in Provo, UT and Aurora, CO.

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/6/30/21308526/gunman-shot-...

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/03/man-charged-murder-sho...

By my reckoning, the actual count of “car attacks” this summer where a politically-motivated driver rammed a BLM/antifa protest can be counted on one hand. There has been a greater number of unprovoked attacks on drivers by protestors. This is the product of extreme paranoia among armed protestors, amplified by social media.

No, what I'm talking about is the one that took place on CH, during the East Precinct protests, not the freeway. You obviously don't live in Seattle.

The driver 'accidentally' turned, with speed, off an arterial, into the protest street, and despite having clear visibility of hundreds of people in his line of travel, kept driving, with people scattering out of his way.

He stopped when he hit a blockade, shot at one person who tried to open his car door, waved his gun around (With extra magazines jungle-taped together), and ran through the crowd directly into the police line. So much for being lost and confused, he seemed to know exactly where he was.

He was either planning a mass shooting, and lost his nerve at the last second, or was trying his damned hardest to provoke an attack on himself, presumably so he could respond with violence.

For an exercise - you try driving your car into a line of right wing militants protesting (or into a police line), and then shoot one of them. I doubt you will succeed in running to a line of safety, and I doubt their press will describe you as lost and confused.

Enough with the "You obviously don't live in Seattle." The event described by _iyig really did happen and was described accurately (except the "high on pills" part, I haven't seen any report of that, news I saw said he took a field sobriety test and was found to be unimpaired).

Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand just like everyone else.

Regarding pills, I read he had Percocet addiction problems and that drugs were found in the car:

>The charges say Kelete told jail officials that he was withdrawing from the narcotic Percocet and that he struggled with an “untreated addiction.” Washington State Patrol accident investigators found “several implements commonly used to smoke illegal substances” and a substance “that appears similar to crystal methamphetamine” in the car, according to the charges.

I hadn’t read about the field sobriety test (so thank you for providing that information!), only the drugs in the car and his opioid addiction. I don’t know whether a field sobriety test would detect that type of intoxication.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-man-...

> Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand just like everyone else.

I live here. I've spent weeks going to sleep to the sound of police grenades going off. I've been to CHAZ. I've watched, in bafflement, for weeks, at how news coverage - particularly national, but also local has painted an entirely different picture from what I've seen with my own two eyes.

The events he cites have taken place - but because of the superficial level of knowledge he has of the situation, he is omitting vital context.

I will absolutely gatekeep on this. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's quite clear that _iyig has no first-hand knowledge, and only superficial second-hand knowledge of what he's talking about.

At least, that's my most charitable interpretation of the situation.

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