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So it's totally possible the murderer gets locked up for a few years while facing trial and then released. Which would be at least a couple years sentence since murder trials take 1-2 years to prepare and you get basically no compensation for time spent imprisoned awaiting trial.
I am not claiming that this officer did not cause the death of this woman. I am suggesting that because of LEOs having qualified immunity, this being a situation that happened very quickly, and that there are real questions about how this happened and why, that there is a high legal bar to overcome when analyzing it.
It’s going to be legally murky and that alone will make it very difficult to waive the immunity.
Your claim about murder is bad and wrong on the same level as "I did not have sexual relations with 'that woman'." Stop language policing people and actually think about what has happened. This was an extrajudicial killing of a US Citizen by the US Government. That should scare anyone, but instead you're in all of the comments trying to split hairs about "how things would play out in a court of law." No one cares how things would play out in court, because no one trusts the US legal system to carry out justice. So it doesn't matter.
What matters is that this is murder and the US Justice system is about to start doing cartwheels to try and defend a system that is so clearly backwards and corrupt because the current POTUS administration has given up on "law and order" in favor of a grab for absolute power.
And the emotion here most certainly matters - this is an American mother, being gunned down in broad daylight, by chickenshit masked gangs who don't have an ounce of respect for the citizens of this country they're claiming to serve. And then an administration and its state media mouthpieces, instead of taking a moment to step back and reevaluate and try to prevent this from happening again, doubles down on nonsense narratives about how this American mother deserved to be summarily executed - full-throated support for the murderer. Anybody with half a brain that isn't caught in an info bubble of reactionary propaganda should be fucking angry.
Yes, that is my point. What you consider a corrupt legal system, I call one that tries to protect people who are accused of a crime until they are proven guilty. It’s not “guilty until proven innocent”…its the other way around.
> This does not matter - in the eyes of We The People this is fucking Murder. And the emotion here most certainly matters
Well, I guess the mob has spoken then and that is what is important—not law, not civility, only anger and anarchy. Good luck with that world you want to create, one day that lawless mob will come for you. Maybe you were deserve their brand of justice, or maybe not.
But really, "lawless mob" and "anarchy" ? The larger push is that people's widespread outrage is needed to drive strong action by our institutions that still remain mostly intact (eg state governments) to get these masked terror squads out of our cities. These masked terror squads are precisely your "lawless mob" engaging in anarcho-tyranny, emboldened and legitimized by a con artist (now "president") who promised them contradictory-everything, but really just naked autocratic power red in tooth and claw.
We need to stop both-sidesing this, period. I get it - I'm a libertarian who was both-sidesing up through June of 2020. But really, stop. Pretending to somehow be above this just undermines support for taking action to defend our country.
Our political system worked exactly as designed, the person and party that America wanted is running the country. The checks and balances are still in place too. It’s just that those checks and balances are largely in agreement with Trump at this time. America wanted and deserves exactly what it has right now.
Our overall republic is also working as designed, our states via our elected representatives have made immigration a federal issue. If states want that control given back, then it needs to be taken back in the same way it was given—via Congress. That’s how this shit works. We know from history what happens when states decide to take a different approach. Frankly, that is uglier and more dangerous than what we have now.
The nice thing is, we also have a chance to upend congress a bit this year. If America decides to do that, good for it. If it doesn’t, then you know where its mood still is. The good thing is he is definitely gone in 2028. At that point America again will give us clues to where its mood is by who it chooses to elect into leadership.
Second, winning an election does not imply a mandate to ignore the Constitution and act as a dictator. Nor does Congress and the Supreme Court abdicating their Constitutional duties in favor of enabling an autocrat running roughshod over our Constitutional rights with impunity mean that the Constitution is being followed "as designed".
But lastly, and this is really the only point I am asking you to agree with - if you think the only way we can put a firm stop to this is wait to Congressionally check the fascists in November, then surely you can agree that labeling this regime as unrepentant murderers of American mothers is a good way of building broad opposition from people who might otherwise think it doesn't concern them, yes?
No. In fact I think jumping to conclusions, exaggerating, trying to use a tragedy to your advantage, obfuscation, and outright lying to try and manipulate public sentiment is perhaps the WORST way to try and move that needle.
Because what happens is what is happening now, more and more information trickles out and when that some of that info runs contrary to your narrative, people realize you have been trying to manipulate them and you lose your credibility. It creates reasonable doubt to all accounts about the situation and people simply reject it as evidence of anything.
We have seen first hand what the “don’t trust your lying eyes” approach has achieved…it’s achieved a second Trump administration.
As you're appealing to a general concept of restraint, I presume you have much harsher criticism for the administration, which immediately dropped into pushing bald faced lies [0] and rejecting responsibility for the situation rather than taking even a moment to assess? Would you care to share that criticism here?
The flip side of this refrain of "don't trust your lying eyes" is outright lying by this administration "supported" by narrow video clips that don't tell the whole story. Like a clip of "stop" and the victim trying to drive away is pretty convincing, if you're not shown the other clip where another violent attacker was yelling "move move move".
[0] The basic known facts here are that ICE electively confronted and escalated a situation with an American citizen, did not follow their own mandate or rules of engagement, the woman was shot repeatedly, and then a nearby doctor tried to render emergency aid and was prevented from doing so, correct?
Edit:
Also, the ICE agent who shot her POV video in realtime of the incident has just been released and it includes the interaction with the the driver and what appears to be the driver’s partner.
Would you care to point at anything specific in these actions that show either one of them physically impeding or otherwise violently aggressing on ICE?
> people coming out who knew her and are describing her connections to activism and affiliations
... because what I'm seeing is a lot of handwaving and innueno.
> the very words of the woman’s partner as to what they were doing
Once again, care to quote anything specific?
I've always been one to go to primary sources, but I haven't seen the need to give this regime the benefit of the doubt since I combed through all those fake legal claims that Trump filed to support his "stolen election" hoax. I guess I'm going to have to break down and just watch this woman be executed over and over to see for myself. But I'd also think if there were facts here that demonstrated she was the initial physical aggressor (as opposed to inconveniently engaging in Constitutionally-protected observation, filming, and heckling), they could be stated quite plainly!
Just like a jury will have to do should this come to trial. The act of judging someone for a crime often means you have to see all the evidence in detail even when it’s disturbing and difficult.
But I do have jury duty a few months from now, and if it requires me to do a similar thing then I will rise to the challenge for my civic duty. I have become quite conservative - supporting our remaining institutions of law and order is especially important in these days of rampant criminality by all three branches of the federal government.
If you want to make your case here, I have asked you two straightforward questions that you have so far thus avoided:
1. Would you care to describe anything specific shown by these videos where either Renee or her wife physically impede or otherwise violently aggress on ICE? (before their escalation into a high-stakes assault on her vehicle. also keep in mind this would be the beginning of forming a logical argument and that the principle of equity between those actions and the response still applies)
2. As you've been appealing to a general concept of restraining judgement, I presume you have much harsher criticism for the administration - as supposed leadership for the country, they immediately dropped into pushing bald faced lies and rejecting all responsibility rather than taking even a moment to examine, reflect, and work to prevent further tragedies regardless of fault. Would you care to share your own criticism here?
The inconvenient truth here is that the constitution EXPECTS the executive branch to enforce the laws that congress passes. ICE is enforcing laws that America wanted and passed in a bipartisan manner many years ago. If we the people don’t like a law, we the people should undo it the way we originally “did” it…via congress.
I have never voted for Trump. I don’t like many of the things he does and says. I can be critical of the Trump messaging and rhetoric (including around this situation, which like the outraged—-is filled with excessive emotion and a rush to judgement). At the same time I can be supportive of the constitutional requirement to enforce our laws, because I don’t want to live in a lawless anarchy.
You are still handwaving while not pointing to specific evidence. Please tell me exactly what they did that physically interfered with or physically antagonized ICE? Does one of the videos show one of them straight up physically attacking an ICE agent, and it's just obvious or something?
Alternatively if the claim is that they had planned to physically interfere with ICE but never got the chance, then presumably there is the evidence of whatever physical items they had that look like part of a plan to interfere with ICE.
Because it feels like the continued lack of specifics in favor of handwaving and innuendo is an attempt to use protected first amendment activity - criticizing of government agents including heckling - into what seems like a cause of action for people who do not like the protected first amendment message. I keep asking because I know I could easily be wrong here, but I still have yet to see anything claiming any sort of physical attack or physical obstruction that would give credence to claims of obstruction that allegedly precipitated the assault on the car.
> ICE is enforcing laws that America wanted and passed in a bipartisan manner
As a high level goal, I'm mostly ambivalent about these! Maybe even slightly pro as I've come around to seeing the virtues in legibility, especially if there would be common law equitable judgement applied to situations created by the situation festering so long (cf adverse possession).
But a need to enforce immigration (or any other) law has absolutely zero bearing on whether citizens are allowed to criticize the agents for doing so. It also has absolutely zero bearing on justifying an escalation of what seems to be at most a minor physical skirmish into a summary execution by ignoring common sense rules of engagement (don't step in front of a car that is about to move) codified in the agents' own written procedures.
My problem is entirely with the methods by which it is being achieved - pointlessly cruel, inhumane, procedurally unconstitutional (as we're discussing), secretive and hidden instead of openly documented, directly contrary to the law for people that are here legally, denial of due process exacerbating the previous issues, etc. The cruelty deviates so far from the norms of free society, and is so completely unnecessary, that it informs my seeing this whole current call of enforcing immigration laws as a mere pretext for something much more dark and sinister.
Take a detour here - why hadn't immigration laws been fully enforced for the past two decades? My understanding is that the primary driver was businesses interests that rely on manual labor - they saw it was lucrative to kill the bargaining power of American labor by using undocumented workers with very little bargaining power or recourse. What really is the chance that those business interests have been finally made to take a back seat, versus those business interests now being content that labor's economic power has been fully smashed and this change is merely the next step in subjugating the common American? Most especially with the figurehead leading the charge being a business owner highly reliant on cheap undocumented labor in the industries of real estate development, hotels, golf courses?
> At the same time I can be supportive of the constitutional requirement to enforce our laws, because I don’t want to live in a lawless anarchy.
If we're talking about lofty goals like the rule of law, then why are you not as concerned about the laws regarding freedom of speech or deprivation of life [, liberty, or property] contained in our country's very charter? Because what I see here is the creation of anarcho-tyranny - an unconstrained gang of masked thugs doing effectively whatever they feel like, enabled by a federal government that has stopped even attempting to enforce its own laws that would otherwise restrain them for the sake of our natural rights and liberties.
(I will also say, your criticism of Trump's statements there is quite tame given how aggressively dismissive those statements are from someone who is supposed to be leading the country rather than dividing it)
If you want to be done, sure, be done. I think we could have converged much quicker if you hadn't been leading with these kind of abstract-oblique points that demand adding nuance, but then avoiding the nuance. And also I've got to say, this last comment is a whole bunch of retrenching at "nobody can know" FUD.
But at any rate, let us make no mistake: this incident is most certainly about our freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to criticize government agents in ways they may not personally appreciate.
I did finally just watch a video of the run-up of where they surround the car. She was stopped across the street like an asshole, blaring her horn, and seemingly mocking/heckling the agents. Vehicles were going by her just fine (including some ICE vehicles), just as you'd expect in regular city traffic. But being an asshole is not illegal, and what she was doing looks to be exactly first-amendment protected activity - heckling ICE agents because she disagreed with what they were doing.
Even if there is something there that ICE can legally stretch into a federal crime, it certainly doesn't rise to the level of necessitating a high stakes boxed-in gun-drawn escalation that induces a fight or flight response. And given that the killer had previously fucked around and found out about moving vehicles six months prior, his positioning and subsequent reaction would seem to be highly deliberate and likely even premeditated.
Renee most certainly could have done many things differently, and I wish she had. But government agents also have a duty to execute their roles in good faith to minimize harm regardless of whom they're dealing with and what they've done. What these agents did here was the complete and utter opposite, making them responsible for her death.
Frankly at this point I am just tired of rehashing the same things over and over again. I will leave you with this as my final summary of my thought (which I have more than once articulated on this thread): The government has the ability to take your life from you. The legal bar to prove that they did this illegally is very very high. Your best protection against it is to minimize being in any situation where the conditions will easily exist for it to happen.
Ironic that you think that when all through this thread I have suggested to people that were upset with how this works that the best way for them to change all of it is to use exactly the process our founding fathers put in place for us to do so. Just to get push back from many that mob rule was a better method.
(as I'm eternally hopeful, I will give you a breadcrumb that you might start following. ask yourself: what do you think the first steps of using those processes might look like?)
'The mob at the Boston Massacre were the ones in the wrong, good luck with your ungovernable new country'.
Fuck that un-American bullshit. The Redcoats that murdered those people in Boston way back when is what led to a free America because the MURDERERS were in the wrong. Learn some fucking American history/civics.
You want to abuse civility/civilization/rule of law into protection for the government extra-judicially murdering Americans in the street. Nah, fuck that. We got it right in Boston. Your deferring to authoritarianism because 'rule of law' is bullshit and anti a free people/nation/government of/for the people.