The Car Becomes the Weapon
apps.bostonglobe.com
apps.bostonglobe.com
I am sorry but I will find it reasonable and I am sure I will react the same personally, and bolt (in a car or not) if a number of people start throwing stuff at me and have visibly aggressive intentions. That is the natural self-preservation reaction of fight or flight. And if you are already running, it is likely you are going to take the flight option -- this is biology and evolution.
Thus according to the article: are you damned if you stay and get lynched, damned if you drive away?
Also, I thought it was a fact that the main danger for a majority of police officers and workers was oncoming traffic collisions -- that is why there are laws requiring drivers to slow down and change lanes when seeing the visible emergency lighting of vehicles on the side of the street! And still people get hit and die regularly.
Finally, a legal and insurance fun fact (at least in some states): if you take actions to block a road (in a vehicle or not), you are deemed responsible for an accident if it occurs. This is called traffic obstruction (quick google: https://www.princelawfirm.net/whos-responsible-for-an-accide...). Please read the law and be objective as a journalist.
> While the drivers of the stopped vehicles seethed over the demonstration, a red pickup truck with a hulking, empty horse trailer pushed into the crowd as its driver placed a handgun on the dashboard, witnesses said, and protesters banged on its hood and threw things at the vehicle as it moved in.
This is not some random car that couldn't stop for a reason, nor someone that felt menaced and is panicking in a fight or flight move.
I am not a lawyer, but I think that if shooting had stopped at a shooting range and protestor(s) stood in front of the targets, anyone shooting them would be committing a crime.
Allow me to not reply to both posts with the same answer.
That is what I started reading too at the beginning of the article. However, if you continue reading the article the way the author presents this as a conspiracy/epidemic across the U.S: drivers choose to find themselves in protests and drive through them.
The author even when quoting instances where the police was present (as implied or indicated by the author) reported the actions as reasonable, takes the judicial stand and deems them unlawful. That is not professional and not proper journalism.
> “I think about the fact that, in May and June of last year, we have this intense ... creation of fear about these peaceful demonstrations,” said Shannon Hiller, director of the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University. “That creates targets of opportunity and fear.”
While this is a common happenstance unfortunately worldwide when a roadblock happens and a crowd "meets" a car, as acknowledged by the author (so I am also going to skip citation here I guess), it is presented via a different viewpoint by the author. Where I am from (Greece), farmers when taking over highways use tractors to do so and place warnings ahead of the roadblock -- for that reason. So I find it weird, that U.S. drivers are just maniacs that are out to get the protestors. Nobody is claiming that some of the drivers are not in the wrong, but there is a huge unsupported leap to "this is an epidemic and a conspiracy of serial killers." (Added a bit of an emotionally written claim here on purpose, just to stress my later point below.)
Why is the simpler: a lot of highway demonstrations started happening leading to more such unfortunate occurrences not being refuted by the author? (That would still have been a problem that needs to be addressed but less of a clickbait claim.)
Further on: while the author presents cases where the police and prosecution chose to prosecute and indict the drivers, in all of the instances and examples where they did not, the journalist with little explanation contemns the action.
Every mention of drivers claiming fear for their lives or some other defense is too succinct, and presented with a dismissive tone and does not attempt to provide that vantage point. (I had to go through those passages twice just to make sure I am not misreading.) Having experience in demonstrations I find it hard to believe. If it stayed peaceful, refutation can at least be attempted of drivers self-defense.
Finally, there is multiple mention of researchers and related evidence/police reports, yet they are not cited (even if informal/work in progress, they should be).
There is a heavy emotional and sensationalist element in the article, and little legal perspective or documentation provided. More facts that are more objective would be desirable.
P.S. As my last point, I know it might sound too much, but take from someone with some experience in demonstrations: be smart and do not use your body as a roadblock to a car when mob mentality is involved. It is really hard and a science to keep sanity and calmness during a demonstration: there is always at least one group from the multiple involved (incl. the police) that wants fear or anger to spread.