You can't start at the point where ICE had already needlessly and unlawfully performed multiple escalations. You have to look at the entire situation, where those escalations were clear retaliation for the victim exercising her Constitutionally-protected right to protest.
The officer "in front" of the car had previously fucked around and found out about moving vehicles. He was positioned just off the quarter panel, which we can only assume was highly deliberate after the last incident - enough room to not get hit, but close enough to have a pretext to murder this woman.
Regardless of how courts may judge legality (if they're even allowed to), this incident demonstrates a callous disregard for human life that is unacceptable for anybody who carries a gun, never mind supposed public servants.
She was not blocking traffic. Video of the street shows vehicles (including some that appear to be ICE) going by her just fine prior to the escalation, like regular city traffic with someone doing something weird.
> And definitionally, it is only "murder" if a court finds it to be so through a correct application of the law
Man, do you "people" all get your talking points from the same septic tank or what? You don't get to tone police the use of the word murder by saying we must only ever use one narrow legal definition.
This whole situation has been debated to death, and I'm not going to respond to your shotgun blast of FUD line by line. Put simply, needlessly escalating situations so they're likely to result in death and mayhem is not the behavior we expect from real law enforcement officers - regardless of what their suspect may have done.
In a society based around individual liberty and limited government, why you would chose to empathize with government agents rather than your own fellow citizen is beyond me. But my only real question is how many more Americans need to be killed before you admit that maybe us critics have a point?
> But my only real question is how many more Americans need to be killed before you admit that maybe us critics have a point?
Unfortunately, they will never admit this, because either they believe every action by ICE is justified or they're straight up an agent of the government. It doesn't matter if you show them videos of ICE agents hitting protesters with their car and doing the exact thing they demonize [1], or if they walk up and assault people for using their first amendment rights [2], or if they spray people point blank with pepper spray [3] or if they ram people through red lights [4] or if they knee people in the face repeatedly when they're complying [5] or if they shove someone onto oncoming traffic and almost get them killed by a bus [6] or walking up to people and asking 'papers, please' [7]. They will conveniently disengage or shift the argument away.
No, endlessly going around in circles responding to the same emotional (and often factually wrong) talking points is an abuse of our principles, and we're finally starting to say we've had enough of it.
I'm a libertarian who actually believes in a society based around individual liberty and limited government, and doesn't just pay lip service to it. If we had a blue-flavored government, and it was performing similarly liberty-abhorrent actions on a different topic, I would be criticizing those as well.
But we don't, and the current government has escalated so far beyond even the hanging-by-a-thread norms that we previously had, I think it's utterly naive to think any of this is about "immigration enforcement" in the first place.
> endlessly going around in circles responding to the same emotional (and often factually wrong) talking points is an abuse of our principles
I don't know who "our" refers to, but it certainly is an abuse of my principles.
Which is exactly why I do not make emotional appeals in my comments, and stick to what I can factually verify, including with timestamps in video footage and citations of the relevant legal standards. And why I clearly argue for where others are factually wrong instead of making blanket assertions without evidence.
It is my interlocutors who are making emotional appeals and claims that are not supported by the evidence, up to the point of accusing me of "lying" about video depicting things even as I clearly point to the exact points in the video that clearly depict them.
You made plenty of emotional appeals in your comments. You just made them as assertions of facts ("no legitimate reason", "acting belligerently towards the agents", "serious threat of death or injury"). You even went so far as to bring up the fact that she was protesting as if this indicts rather than exonerates her!
I've had two prior of these threads where I went around in circles tediously refuting these types of emotional appeals, so forgive me if my patience is shot on that front.
But as I said, my only real question to you is how many more Americans need to be killed before you admit that maybe us critics have a point about the methods being used here.
You keep conflating the strict legal question with the moral situation.
I don't think there are too many people thinking that Ross has any worry about being held criminally or civilly liable, even if state isn't dissuaded from their prosecution, and even if the federal court where this inevitably gets bumped to actually deliberates impartially. There is a long history of police officers needlessly executing people and walking away. That's basically the problem, right?
But if we're talking about the moral situation, what ought to be in a country based on individual liberty and limited government? Then no, law enforcement officers should not be able to use "obstruction" as a pretext to demand an arrest in response to Constitutionally-protected protest, at which point they then needlessly escalate the arrest into an armed standoff, and then when the person still doesn't comply, they kill the person due to the "danger" of the situation they themselves created.
At a certain point you have to look at the realities of law enforcement agency not having a mandate or respect from the people it is working amongst. We saw how exactly corrosive this is to the rule of law with the "drug war".
Can we at least agree that it would have been easy to write down Good's vehicle's license plate, other identifying information, timestamps from bodycams, etc, deescalate the situation by ICE simply leaving, and then follow up later either with a federal arrest (FBI) or local PD?
> You keep conflating the strict legal question with the moral situation.
No, I don't. I'm not arguing the morality of it at all. You're the one who wants to argue oughts.
But as a matter of objective fact, whether something is "murder" is a question of law, not a question of morality.
> I don't think there are too many people thinking that Ross has any worry about being held criminally or civilly liable
Applying the label "murder" to the act is inherently claiming criminal liability (whether a prediction, expectation or "in a just world" pontification). Many people I have seen in this discussion do seem to think there's a case for it (although I maintain that this results from a flawed understanding of law).
> But if we're talking about the moral situation
We are not. As far as I can tell, I have only mentioned morality in order to address your personal attacks. I am sticking to the facts because that is what I am interested in discussing.
Please go through the thread and count the number of times I use the phrase "as a matter of objective fact" or similar. I am being very clear and consistent about this.
> Then no, law enforcement officers should not be able to use "obstruction" as a pretext to demand an arrest in response to Constitutionally-protected protest
The evidence does not show any such thing happening. It is not a pretext, and constitutional protections on protest do not extend to blocking the road. It's very easy to find legal support for this; so there is no reason to make these suppositions about a hidden motive.
> at which point they then needlessly escalate the arrest into an armed standoff
As an objective matter of fact, no escalation occurred. You have repeatedly made a false assertion and repeatedly refuse to even attempt to justify it.
As an objective matter of fact, an "armed standoff" did not occur. That would describe a situation where two people threatened each other with firearms. Only one party to this shows evidence of having a firearm (which is a baseline expectation for LEO), and there is no moment where a threat was made; the shooting was an immediate response.
> they kill the person due to the "danger" of the situation they themselves created.
The danger was clear and present, and your use of scare quotes is an emotional appeal.
Walking in front of a stopped vehicle, while the driver is legally required to abandon operation and exit the vehicle, cannot reasonably be described as "creating danger". That is even more absurd than arguing that pedestrians using a crossing create danger for themselves by being in the road.
> At a certain point you have to look at the realities of law enforcement agency not having a mandate or respect from the people it is working amongst.
As an objective matter of fact, the federal government is legally entitled to pass and enforce immigration law, the enforcement of which necessarily entails expelling people from the country who do not have a legal right to be in the country.
> Can we at least agree that it would have been easy to write down Good's vehicle's license plate, other identifying information, timestamps from bodycams, etc, deescalate the situation by ICE simply leaving, and then follow up later either with a federal arrest (FBI) or local PD?
No, not at all. There is no good reason why they should have "simply left". That would have resulted in the SUV remaining in place, which would have been a general risk to safety and would have continued to interfere with ICE doing their job in the area. The ICE agents were not just randomly milling about the area so that they could be protested against.
> There is no good reason why they should have "simply left"
To avoid escalating to the point of killing a woman who clearly had no respect for them and would have been more receptive to local police. Not killing a woman counts as a good reason in my book at least, it seems that others disagree.
> That would have resulted in the SUV remaining in place, which would have been a general risk to safety
In the other comment I asked you to point out what vehicles were obstructed and you did not. By the time of the shooting, traffic was moving freely in the left lane and any vehicle that wanted to be gone was gone. Once again this is highly motivated reasoning, so I don't see the point of continuing.
Again, this is not how law enforcement works. You do not back down from the scene of a crime in the hopes of apprehending someone privately later. That's patently absurd.
> who clearly had no respect for them and would have been more receptive to local police
The entire reason that ICE agents are on the scene is that local police cannot be trusted to enforce the applicable law.
> In the other comment I asked you to point out what vehicles were obstructed and you did not.
Yes, I did: all of the ones headed towards the SUV with the intent of driving past it.
You then disputed this by refusing to accept the plain definition of "obstruction", which I cited to you from a dictionary.
> By the time of the shooting, traffic was moving freely in the left lane and any vehicle that wanted to be gone was gone.
Given the orientation of the parked cars I suppose this must be a one-way street. At 2:44 in the long video a car is clearly stopped in front of the SUV in the right lane, and the left lane is empty and people are not using it. 3:08 or so appears to correspond to the start of most of the shorter videos. The SUV is mostly backed into a parking lane; at 3:11 you can see a car (or another SUV?) pass by that still must swerve considerably to avoid the SUV, taking it into the left lane. At 3:15 another car makes a much larger swerve, as the SUV moves slightly forward. At 3:23 the ICE van pulls up; it was going to stop there (as they are the first officer's backup), but it's apparent that they would not have had a clear path through that lane.
This is a residential road with parking on both sides and narrow lanes, and almost everyone is in a relatively large vehicle. The left lane being available does not negate that traffic is being obstructed, as demonstrated by the effort required to avoid the obstruction.
LEO are entitled to require, for public safety reasons, that the path is kept clear. Free speech and right to protest do not cover orienting a vehicle like this. A basic web search such as https://duckduckgo.com/?q=are+protesters+allowed+to+block+tr... makes this abundantly clear.
> Once again this is highly motivated reasoning
No, it is not, and I find it frankly offensive that you would suggest as much.
> You do not back down from the scene of a crime in the hopes of apprehending someone privately later
This is in fact the whole idea behind no chase policies, to avoid needless harm. Ever watch a car chase through city streets on TV? Spoiler: they generally end one particular way. Meanwhile, pervasive cameras and databases practically guarantee that people can be calmly apprehended later.
> The left lane being available does not negate that traffic is being obstructed
lol, so your definition of obstruction is then any kind of traffic daring to be near ICE? Grandma driving 15 mph, obstruction. Those parked cars on the side of the road, obstruction. Cars stopped at red lights (local law to frustrate ICE), obstruction. Fellow motorists honking because they can't be bothered to follow their lane, obstruction.
In the real world, one lane being taken up by double parking is just regular city traffic. As I said, highly motivated reasoning.
Also, I had sent you the links to those other comment threads where I had made some more nuanced comments regarding the difference between enforcing immigration law versus this needless mayhem, so maybe you could see that we do have a little common ground - not so you could just dump more reactionary spam over there as well.
At 6:55 (in slow motion) we see the officer in front of the car, recording with his own phone.
7:01, the car moves forward and the wheel can clearly be seen to spin as the car struggles to gain traction. There is a clear attempt to accelerate sharply.
7:23, some explanation: "As you can see, the officer has his gun out, the tires are still pointed directly at the officer, and the car is moving forward.... the officer is struck by the vehicle, which you cannot see from this angle." (But if you take the full speed video frame by frame, around 6:38 you can clearly see for multiple frames that the officer is taken off balance and takes a while to recover.
Then there's more footage from in front of the car. At 7:53 you can see the impact plain as day. That's a CNN analyst saying: "Well, the slowed-down version is showing me that when the SUV pulls forward, they make contact with the agent in the street, and then immediately following that contact, you hear three gunshots follow." (Sound sync is an issue with video like this and it makes far more sense to me that the shots are concurrent with, or immediately before impact. They cannot feasibly be any kind of revenge for being hit because it would be utterly impossible to aim.) "Contact" is an understatement given the video; you can clearly see that the officer is leaning considerably forward over the hood of the SUV as a direct consequence of the impact.
All of this is also corroborated by the officer's own cell phone footage, wherein he completely loses control of the camera as a consequence.
It's been so extreme lately.