Comment by kreetx 4 days ago
Well, exactly. My recommendation would be not to carry a gun where there is law enforcement already there. Or if you do, don't resist capture.
I.e, I maintain that this was an accident. The police didn't want to shoot this person, nor did the person want to use his gun. But it appeared like that to both sides which then caused the event that followed.
The confiscated gun went off and the officers thought it came from the person being detained so they shot him. Waiting out to be shot would have been incompetent had he really been shooting.
Alex put hands on the officers first so there was an apparent reason.
> The confiscated gun went off
Do you have any source for this? If that was the case, the DHS would have reported it as it would support their narrative.
> Alex put hands on the officers first so there was an apparent reason.
This not true! Alex moved in front of the ICE officer who just violently pushed the woman to the ground. He had this cell phone in his right hand and he raised his left hand in a protective manner. He does not even appear to touch the agent at any moment. This is when he got peppersprayed in the face. Then he tried to help the woman up. This is when an agent grapples him from behind and Alex gets wrestled to the ground. At no point did he behave in a threatening manner! You can clearly see this in the videos.
For example: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/minute-minute-timeline-fatal...
I think he did have his hand(s) on the officer right after he raised it. To me this "protective raise of the hand" looked like taking his hands off of the officer. Also, while Alex may have had protectiveness as a thought in his head this may have not seemed so to the officers.
Regarding shooting, what seems clear that shooting started after the gun was taken from Alex. At the discovery of it an officer also shouted "gun", after this guns were drawn and then shots were fired. Which gun went off first doesn't appear from the videos, but after the first one did, I assume that the rest of the shooting was due to the first shot being interpreted as the victim starting shooting, as not all of the officers saw that the gun had already removed.
Still, don't bring a gun to a protest, don't engage in any physical activities with law enforcement, don't stop them from doing their work, don't walk and whistle along..
I'm not claiming that the ICE agent wanted to shoot Alex. I think the shooting itself was a case of gross incompetence. However, they intentionally attacked and assaulted Alex without any immediate reason. How are supposed to stay calm when you get peppersprayed in the face out of the blue?