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Comment by 35fbe7d3d5b9 | Hacker News Reader

This can be correct, but so can GPs point: two possible findings are that the capitol police were deliberately left understaffed because

* higher level leadership judged the threat of the protestors to be insignificant (incompetence)

* higher level leadership wanted the potential for a mob to enter the building (complicity)

However they found themselves in the position, they did, and once there I think they had an unenviable task. And the fact that the occupants of the building were safely sheltered until a larger force came to clear the building shows that they made a good decision.

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Except for that part where they murdered an unarmed Air Force veteran.

It's not murder if it's legal. If you don't want to get shot, don't invade the seat of government during a constitutionally prescribed transition of power, break through a barricade, ignore a cop's orders and approach a cop pointing his gun at you. Hard, I know.

And you assume that's everything that happened? Did she break through a barrier? People were walking right in.You don't know which group she cam in with. In the various videos, she was trying to get out. They all were.

The dude who fired the shot, are you really defending him? A man with no real reasonable threat to his life? None of the people in that shot were shown to be armed.

Honest question, what are your views on Jacob Blake? Do you defend him? Because he sexually assaulted a women who had a restraining order against him, ignored police orders to stop, got up after being tazed twice and reached into a car with children. The DA found the police were completely justified in shooting him 7 times in the back.

This is the double standard. If you say she had no excuse for getting shot, than neither did Jacob Blake, or Breyanna Taylor.

It doesn't matter if she's mother Theresa and came here with the cure for cancer. You cannot interrupt the transition of power. We have laws that must be followed. If you try to overthrow the government you will be stopped. I watched a video of her getting shot. She was breaking through a barricaded door and making her way towards officers with guns drawn.

> And you assume that's everything that happened?

There's multiple camera angles which captured the minutes leading up to her death, posted on major news sites like The Washington Post, so no assumption needed.

I still don't feel the shoot to kill was justified (especially as a shot in an area that would immobilize a person, like the chest or the gut, would've been safer of collateral damage vs a shot to the head, similar to the one taken, which unequivocally is a shot intended to kill), but trying to argue she was not completely and totally in the wrong is just absurd to me.

You betray your ignorance about firearms. You cannot shoot to immobilize. Every shot taken is practically and legally a shot intending to kill. Real life is not a hollywood movie.

> You betray your ignorance about firearms. You cannot shoot to immobilize. Every shot taken is practically and legally a shot intending to kill. Real life is not a hollywood movie.

Someone knowledgeable of the subject, which you imply I am not, would know that shooting someone in the middle of their body is the standard operating procedure (and is potentially less fatal, but yes legally still intended to kill) rather than taking an (essentially) headshot as this officer did.

Also notice I did not say what the officer did was "against policy" or illegal, I simply said I didn't feel it was justified (especially with where the shot hit). It's for the department and the courts to decide if the officer violated his duty.

Could have (likely was) aiming for center of mass but ended up a little high. Real life is not a shooting range with a target that is perfectly still.

Shooting a center of mass is not at all about being "less fatal" it is about it being the biggest target with the biggest chance of stopping your adversary.

> Shooting a center of mass is not at all about being "less fatal"

Did I say it was? I believe I used the word "potentially" in the reply you are commenting to. The officer was shooting from ~6ft away and had a firm grip and was well composed, if they can't hit the chest of a target that was mostly still at the moment of the shot then they need to be spending a lot more time in the gun range (at the absolute minimum).

> they need to be spending more time in the gun range.

Not at all unlikely.

She was climbing through a broken window past a barricade that was the last line of defense to where members of Congress were taking shelter. The guard was pointing his gun at her and other people were warning about the danger. I don’t think she should have been shot, but the guard who shot her acted reasonably. It was a failure of the police present, who should have prevented the situation.

This is almost exactly the same argument that police defenders make when the police shoot an unarmed minority individual in any random city.

I'd agree that police defenders often use the rhetoric of "approaching a cop with his gun drawn" or "being somewhere you shouldn't," but surely we can make a distinction between those killed in public areas versus this woman who was trespassing in a very important federal facility, specifically to impede a very important government procedure.

> trespassing in a very important federal facility

She was part of an armed mob trying in the process of breaking into the speakers lobby that posed an imminent threat to members of Congress, whom members of the mob had moments before loudly expressed concern were trying to leave.

“Trespassing” wasn't at all the issue.

No it's not. Thank you, 2 month old anonymous account, for confusing the issue.

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