Comment by CMay

Comment by CMay 5 days ago

77 replies

It's not illegal to track law enforcement, but if any of their still visible chats show intent it will hurt them. They'll also want to find out how many people in the group chat are outside of the US, if any money was being exchanged, etc.

Hopefully they can unwind these groups, because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against. They don't seem to have a sense for when they have gone beyond protesting and have broken the law. There's this culture about them, like protesting means they are immune to law.

If this all ties back to funded groups who are then misinforming these people about how they should behave to increase the chance of escalatory events with the knowledge that it will increase the chance of these inflammatory political highlights to maximize rage, it won't surprise me.

If they want to follow ICE around and protest them, fine, but that's not what they're doing. These people are standing or parking their cars in front of their vehicles and blocking them. They'll also stand in front of the street exits to prevents their vehicles from leaving parking lots and so on. They refuse to move, so they have to be removed by force, because they are breaking the law. Some people are just trying to get arrested to waste ICE's time, and it's particularly bad because Minneapolis police won't help ICE.

A lot of video recordings don't even start until AFTER they've already broken the law, so all you end up seeing is ICE reacting.

Any time someone dies, there'll have to be an investigation to sort out what happened. Maybe the ICE officer made a mistake, but let the evidence be presented. Being that this is Minneapolis, hopefully they do a better job than the George Floyd case. I absolutely recommend you watch the entire Fall of Minneapolis documentary to get a better sense for what the country may be increasingly up against in multiple states: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFPi3EigjFA

8note 5 days ago

> because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against.

i think people know exactly what theyre up against: a lawless executive, many members of which have never had to work in places where they are held accountable to the constitution before.

its more important for the government to follow the constitution than for citizens to follow the law. if the government isnt following the law, there is no law

  • CMay 5 days ago

    If you're talking about the Trump administration, they're surrounded by lawyers and constantly battling things up to supreme court decisions, which is not what lawless looks like. ICE is also enforcing existing laws that simply haven't been enforced in recent years. Whatever you think about those laws, they are the laws. Many people agree those laws need to be reformed, but elect people who are willing to change the laws. Unfortunately congress has trouble passing laws around some of these more controversial issues, so it'll probably stay this way for many more decades.

  • knubie 5 days ago

    [flagged]

    • jaybrendansmith 5 days ago

      And you have it completely upside down. The federal government serves the people, the people do not serve the feds. If, while attempting to enforce federal law through ICE, the feds break the Bill of Rights, they are doing more harm than good. We can live with a few illegals. We cannot leave the house if we expect to be murdered in cold blood on the street by the federal government. The instigating event of the American Revolution was the Boston Massacre, where protesters were shot and killed by British soldiers. Sound familiar?

      • Perceval 5 days ago

        The people voted for mass deportation of the tens of millions of illegals that were let into the country and lawlessly given "sanctuary." The federal government is attempting to enforce the laws on the books, laws that were voted into statute by the democratically elected representatives of the people. No one is going to be murdered in cold blood on the street simply for leaving the house, but they could be if they brandish a weapon while seeking out officers and attempting to prevent them from enforcing the law.

        • jaybrendansmith 4 days ago

          So 2nd amendment yeah? I have a license to concealed carry in PA. You are saying I should be murdered in cold blood on the street? Again, this is PRECISELY what the bill of rights and our constitution is all about. Have you read Common Sense? Please try to get through it. It explains many things but chief among them is that the government exists only to ensure the maximum freedom of the people from fear. "Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid". That is what America is all about. If someone comes into my city to evict violent illegals, yes, I voted for that, and would again. If someone comes in to my city to a) Evict legal immigrants of color, b) Take children away from parents c) Murder good citizens in cold blood, e) Punish political enemies, or f) attack, beat, and tear gas nonviolent protesters? Well as an actual American who believes in and understands the US Constitution, I will be right there, next to those protesters, and looking to abolish and defund whatever godless and ethic-free agency is purporting to carry out the will of the People.

    • lux-lux-lux 5 days ago

      It feels very strange to read someone describe these events as ‘LARPing as martyrs’ when there have been multiple tragic deaths.

flumpcakes 5 days ago

An American VA Hospital ICU Nurse was disarmed and executed. Which crime is it OK to be chemically and physically assaulted before being disarmed and shot dead?

  • CMay 5 days ago

    As far as I understand it, he laid hands on the officer, then struggled against arrest. He had a gun on him, which is not in itself a problem, but he had already broken the law 3 times by this point and the fact he had a gun on him instantly escalates the potential threat. They don't know if he has multiple guns on him or just the one. Supposedly one of the videos shows him reaching for some black object. I don't know.

    He wasn't killed for owning a gun or carrying a gun.

    He wasn't killed for laying hands on the officer.

    He wasn't killed for resisting arrest.

    It was likely the entire combination of things that caused him to demonstrate he was a credible threat to their lives and reaching for an object. No matter what you think, Alex made a whole string of mistakes. The officer may have also made mistakes. With any luck investigation will reveal more details.

    I'm not predisposed to assuming that Alex is innocent and the officer is guilty, because there is a lot of activist pressure to push exactly that perspective. I prefer to preserve the capacity to make up my own mind.

    • spacechild1 5 days ago

      I have seen the videos. He was already on the ground, fixated by several ICE agents, when he was shot 10(!) times. That was after he had been peppersprayed and beaten to the head. At no point did he actually draw or reach for his gun. There was absolutely no reason to shoot him.

      > With any luck investigation will reveal more details.

      Kristi Noem said: "This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement." She even went so far as calling this an act of "domestic terrorism". At this point, do you seriously believe there will be a neutral investigation?

      • CMay 5 days ago

        Being on the ground doesn't remove any potential that he could be dangerous.

        I don't know why he was being beaten on the ground, that seemed a little excessive. Not sure how many times he was shot, but generally if law enforcement ever makes the determination to shoot they do it to shoot to kill.

        They knew he had 1 gun, so he could have 2 guns. The officers don't see the angle most of the camera angles see. They see the perspective they see, from themselves. That is the perspective that will matter by law. What situation were they in and what did they see when they made their decision?

        You have the luxury of seeing a perspective the officer did not see, and the officer has the luxury of seeing a perspective you did not see.

        People who are in favor of throwing the officer's life away without knowing all of the details are doing basically doing exactly what they're accusing the officer of in suggesting that he threw away this person's life without knowing all the information.

        I don't know what Kristi Noem is on about, but she's a political appointee and not an investigator.

      • solaris2007 5 days ago

        The Sig P320 that an agent took off of him went off while it was in a federal cop's hand. This is the same Sig P320 that the US Army rejected and was mass recalled for going off on its own.

        Unfortunately, when the shot went off he was still fighting with them, actively resisting and not complying. Fighting with federal cops like that is a good way to get killed. He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.

    • inetknght 5 days ago

      > As far as I understand it, he laid hands on the officer, then struggled against arrest.

      That's not how I understand it.

      > Supposedly one of the videos shows him reaching for some black object. I don't know.

      It would be good if you'd watch this review.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIOwTMsDSZA

      • buckle8017 5 days ago

        The very start of the incident is an officer chasing a woman, she slips and falls, the officer chasing her catches up and then Pretti pushes the officer away.

        • CMay 5 days ago

          That's almost certainly not the start. It's very common to not show what you did to agitate the officers and to only record after they come after you. If there are longer videos I haven't seen them, but its a very common tactic to cut out critical context to maximize emotional reaction on social media.

      • CMay 5 days ago

        So I checked it out, but it's not really relevant. These activists appear to have followed the federal law enforcement. That highly suggests they knew exactly who they were. The officers didn't show up unannounced to the front door of someone who happened to be an activist. No reasonable court is likely to determine that they were unaware who they were dealing with.

    • avcloudy 5 days ago

      This is just lunatic speech. The one place he didn't have a gun was in his hands. You're out here acting like if he'd had a gun strapped to his ankle it would have been proof beyond any doubt he was intending to shoot and kill ICE officers.

      He was pepper sprayed and on the ground surrounded by 6 agents when he was killed. At the time when an agent said that he had a gun (this was after his gun was removed), he was physically pinned with his arms restrained. He wasn't 'reaching for an object'. He was carrying his phone in his hand before he was restrained and shot a dozen times.

      • CMay 5 days ago

        They don't necessarily know that's the only gun he had and the officers aren't Neo, seeing every camera angle at once. What you see from your outside perspective is not what they see. They have to act based on the information they have, which is why it's important you listen to law enforcement for your own safety. All the whistles make that harder, which might be part of the point.

        • avcloudy 5 days ago

          Again: he was on the ground, with his eyes sprayed with mace, and he was, at least until seconds before he was shot, physically restrained. It doesn't matter if he could potentially have had another gun. They aren't Neo but there were six of them surrounding him, and the one who shot him only took eyes off to mace another protestor.

    • oceansky 5 days ago

      There are multiple videos from multiple angles and a multitude of witnesses.

      The only investigation being done is by the DHS, who is blocking all other state level investigations. The same DHS who lied about easy disproven things that were recorded and destroy evidences.

      What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?

      • CMay 5 days ago

        In the case of George Floyd, that was local police. In this scenario, these are federal law enforcement officers so it probably is correct for this case to be handled federally as far as I know.

        I don't know what you're referring to about DHS lying about disproven things and destroying evidence. If you can give me links I'll look into it.

        > What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?

        I've seen enough video to know that it's not impossible the officer reacted within the spirit of the law. To get a sense for that requires testimony from the officer that fired the shot. Please watch court cases some time and you'll get a sense for how the application of these kinds of laws work. I'm not a lawyer, but if you ever have to defend yourself against someone you'll be thankful the laws work the way that they do.

        We have a justice system for a reason. It doesn't always work, but it lays out a process for evaluating evidence. Why do we do it that way? We do it that way, because it is not that uncommon that perceptions, witnesses, videos and many other things can be deceptive. They can make you believe things which are not true. So you try to establish all of the relevant facts as they apply to the law. Not based on how you feel, but based on the law.

        It actually hurts some of the witnesses that are obviously activists, because it means they aren't unbiased objective observers, but are predisposed to a perspective and have a possible agenda in mind which risks reducing the quality of their testimony. A law enforcement officer that thinks he might be found guilty also risks their testimony being weak. The video quality is also often bad and there are people obstructing important details at times. All of those things have to be considered.

        Of course when you are emotionally invested, you might want them to just rush to what you obviously see. Again, you will be very thankful that the justice system generally doesn't rush to those conclusions so readily if you ever have to defend yourself in court when you know you're innocent.

    • platevoltage 5 days ago

      He was killed for carrying a gun. How do I know that? Thats what they've been saying over and over again. Absolutely gross.

unethical_ban 5 days ago

Civil disobedience exists and does not deserve a death sentence.

At least, while decrying civil disobedience, you differ from the administration in one important aspect: You think there should be accountability for police shootings. That's different than the ICE leader, the DHS leader, the FBI director and the Vice President.

  • CMay 5 days ago

    From a sort of naive perspective it doesn't matter whether it's police or not. If you kill someone illegally, you should be held accountable for it. In many cases, whether it's illegal depends on how reasonable it was to do so. This is where it being law enforcement starts to matter even more.

    Law enforcement face a lot of violent resistance, so it can be very reasonable for them to see an uncooperative person as a serious threat to their life. If they kill someone, because they believe them to be a lethal threat even if that was not the reality, their perspective absolutely matters to the outcome.

    Civil disobedience is basically understood to be breaking the law in a civil manner. What I'm seeing in a lot of videos is not civil disobedience. One expected attribute of civil disobedience is non-evasion, but resisting arrest is essentially attempted evasion.

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/

    Again, I don't think anyone should have died, but to my eye I can tell the people who are unreasonable and lacking in critical thinking, because they have already prejudged and sentenced people as if they've already sat through the entire court case and had their own hands on the gavel as it went down.

    Social media, videos, news, activists and more are incentivized to rile people up. Let it be investigated.

    • actionfromafar 5 days ago

      Yeah, the victim is investigated. Kill anyone evading arrest. Bring in the tanks.

      • CMay 5 days ago

        That's not how the law works. In a case like this, all the events that led up to the moment he was killed are relevant as per the supreme court. They'll have to investigate both the officer and the activist and see how the law applies to it.

  • 0ckpuppet 4 days ago

    This wasn't civil disobedience. It was stalking law enforcement and then aggressively interfering. Not a capital crime, but still a recipe fir suicide by cop.

ncallaway 5 days ago

This is what collaboration looks like

  • CMay 5 days ago

    [flagged]

    • avcloudy 5 days ago

      > Don't let your compassion be weaponized.

      It's telling on yourself that you think compassion for other people, the core idea that other peoples needs might be more important that your own, is objectively a weapon. You're not wrong that there's a lot of disinformation about, but from a purely historical view, the one position that has never been right is fence-sitting.

      • CMay 5 days ago

        What you are basically saying is that justice is unjust and vigilantes are the solution, because the legal system operates under the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty.

        You don't want to live in a world where you are guilty until proven innocent, because you might like it when you're the one wagging the finger, but you'll be crying for the old ways once it's turned on you.

    • ncallaway 5 days ago

      No, of course not. I don’t think it’s a crime to be punished.

      I’m just saying I think you’re helping an authoritarian regime, and I think that’s bad.

      I’m saying it because I think you should feel shame, not to suggest you should be punished beyond those basic social consequences.