Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

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ICE has had a press conference and explained why their agents approached the car and wanted to detain that driver. They are claiming obstruction of their operations (18 U.S.C. § 111). It doesn’t matter what I think or what you think, only what they thought and what the subsequent other evidence substantiates either validating their claim or not and what a potential jury might decide on the subject.

I’ve explained elsewhere on this HN thread what I observed from the videos we have all seen by now and why I think it will be difficult to waive the qualified immunity of the officer to pursue criminal charges against him. This particular spur of the thread is about whether or not law enforcement can detain people. They have the force and capability to detain, and they have case law that allows it.

The preemptive "It doesn’t matter what I think or what you think" tells us that you know damn well this wasn't legal or appropriate. I stand by my analysis, you are defending this madness on the internet not because you know it's correct on principle but because you want it to be correct.

You want to live in a world where your enemies are afraid of gestapo-like goon squads who will shoot them in the face if they do the wrong thing. You think they deserve it, that the work of the goons is important and worth some violence to enable, and surely that such violence would never be used inappropriately.

Just be clear in your own mind what you're cheering for. It's not new. Historically this never ends at plausibly-justified-minutiae about law enforcement practice.

Whatever ICE claims, the murderer broke protocol and whatever excuse they’ll try, surely “feared for his life” doesn’t count.

Operating manuals state that officers cannot use deadly force to stop a vehicle, even if the vehicle itself is used as a weapon, if they can get out of its way instead.

This is clearly a case of an untrained, unhinged, far-right militant, itching for an opportunity to fire and kill a “fucking bitch” (seems ICE is leaving the indefensible idiot out to dry, and prepared the ground by releasing the video from the murderer’s phone).

It’s a hate crime, pure and simple.

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