The facts are she was given conflicting instructions and shot in the face several times at point blank range. There is no open mind to be had, the video evidence is clear. There was no imminent danger warranting lethal force.
If.. and I do mean if there is a concern for life of the officer in question, yes, that is actually the expected response. And also yes, the officers in question are investigated afterwards, because you do want to know if the gun discharge was warranted. I watched the videos from several angles ( what a time to be alive ) and I will admit I would like to see how her car got into the middle of the road, but.. I can't automatically say yay or nay. What I do know is that she had a choice to get out of the car, but chose to press gas.
As others have noted, I don't understand how anyone can view that video and believe that any ICE agent was at risk of losing their life, but shooting at someone behind the wheel of a car that is heading towards you is not the correct way to resolve that situation even from a purely selfish and pragmatic perspective. We even see the "why" in this video. Dead people can't control the accelerator or the wheel. A severely injured person might just mash down on the pedal harder as a reaction. The car's most violent acceleration comes after she's been repeatedly shot.
The results quite explicitly show how lacking the training is for these ICE agents.
It was unnecessary to shoot the woman even if doing so could potentially be a good way to stop someone that is driving towards you, but it also patently is not a good way as evidenced by the fact that doing it caused the car to accelerate significantly more than it ever did before she was shot, before it crashes into the parked cars.
Many police departments have explicit policies here.
They're explicitly prohibited from using deadly force unless they reasonably believe their life is in danger or they are under threat of significant bodily harm, which is obviously not the case here. It's also explicitly prohibited to use it just because a subject is fleeing, unless they have reason to believe the subject fleeing will allow them to kill or significantly injure others - again, obviously not the case here.
The ICE agent acted in a way that goes against DHS policy, against standard policy in general, and in a way that would have zero productive outcomes even ignoring the fact he murdered some poor lady.
<< It was unnecessary to shoot the woman even if doing so could potentially be a good way to stop someone that is driving towards you
Full disclosure. I have/had some cops in my extended family so I might come across as biased. If someone is driving towards you and there is an indication it may hurt you, all bets are off. It is a simple question of survival. Now, a lot will rest on that 'reasonably', but based on the video alone, it is not nearly as clear as some would have you believe that he could not reasonably believe that his life was in danger.
You may disagree with it, but that is the current state. We can talk about adjusting the policy, but thats day after considerations.
I disagree, and have direct personal experience in having cars moving towards me at that sort of range and that sort of speed. I was afraid I might get my foot run over or bashed about a bit, but it was plainly obvious to me, even in the moment, that unless I intentionally did something very stupid there was no risk of anything more than maybe a broken bone, and that even avoiding that would be trivial.
But we can ignore that and work from the idea that he could reasonably fear for his life there. It doesn't matter.
Because again: Shooting someone driving a car towards you at that distance makes you MORE LIKELY TO GET HIT. As evidenced by the fact the car wildly accelerates and is out of control after she is shot. It is one of the reasons that officers are often explicitly trained not to shoot at someone driving a car towards you at that sort of distance - because it isn't effective!
My stance (and I have interacted with Commonwealth LEO's, lawyers, and prosecutors about this very question) is this was a failure of training and procedure.
Forget this "last mile" analysis where you're looking at a crowd of agents about a car in slow motion and an officer standing in front with an already drawn weapon.
Less than a minute earlier that vehicle was motionless and parked up.
Everything that followed happened as a direct result of ICE agents acting as they acted.
One of them yelled and screamed at the driver from the get go, attempted to reach in through the window to open the door and waved a weapon. Another put themselves in front of the vehicle and drew a weapon .. which likely wasn't seen by the driver as they were busy trying to reverse, turn, and get out of there .. it's entirely possible the first time they saw the shooter was an instant before the shot.
As a reasonable good and honest citizen "on the Clapham omnibus" how would you react to people that beeline in on you in that manner?
Do that repeatedly and events like this will occur with frequency.
ICE is a clown show and politicised from the outset to maximise this kind of stupidity.
<< As a reasonable good and honest citizen "on the Clapham omnibus" how would you react to people that beeline in on you in that manner?
Honestly, I am not sure and tbh most of us will hopefully never have to find out. That said, I can tell you what I did when the raids were happening in Chicagoland. I stayed home and when I did go out, I took papers with. Why? Because there is one sure way to not get oneself in trouble: not being where trouble are. That is why my first question is: why was she there to begin with?
<< Do that repeatedly and events like this will occur with frequency.
I won't lie. It is a concern.
<< clown show and politicised from the outset to maximise this kind of stupidity.
Look at the bright side, if there is a chance to limit some of the police powers at federal level, I could not see a better opportunity.
> That is why my first question is: why was she there to begin with?
It's my understanding she and the other onlookers live there in that city.
Unlike the masked bandits airdropped in from elsewhere.
Further, IIRC, there was a note on Letters from an American to the effect that the woman had registered herself and had some minimal credentials at least as Constitutional Observer (?) and was there to watch and record the ICE activity.
That seems like an admirable patriotic concerned active citizen thing to do.
Again, that hardly matters - from a wide angle and looking at the footage from minutes before the shooting occured, she was set upon by masked thugs who were eager to kick doors, breach windows, and shoot fellow citizens at the drop of a hat for kicks.
It's a flawed country that allows that to happen.
> Look at the bright side, if there is a chance to limit some of the police powers at federal level
That sounds so last year, TBH - the US has deeper problems now that the veneer of safeguards, checks, balances has been thoroughly ripped open .. if I were a citizen there I'd be looking for some wider deeper constitutional reforms and restructuring - just as Benjamin Franklin advised when he signed off on the first draft as being a decent draft and sufficient until a despot ignores it.
We run a Washminster system, it has it's issues, but it was built upon looking at both the US and the UK systems and tweaking them; it's a lot easier to swap out the active head of state here if they're not serving the broad interests of the majority and grifting hard.
> if I were a citizen there I'd be looking for some wider deeper constitutional reforms and restructuring
Yep. It has become more and more obvious that there just isn't any actual mechanism to resolve the executive branch just doing whatever it wants the way things currently stand. As a US citizen, the rest of this term and the term or two after it are going to determine whether I remain in the country or not. How much farther do we slip? Do we realize this is all an awful idea? If the opposition takes power next time, do they use it to actually resolve the underlying issues, or do they just wield that same power against the other side?
If the presidency and congress don't work to fundamentally implement an actual enforceable division of powers over the next decade, even if things don't "get worse" from here, I don't think it's a place that makes sense for me to stick around.
Nothing in that video, even if taken at face value, disagrees with a single point I made.
The ICE agent is maybe pushed by a car moving at low speed. Maybe. He is still never in danger of losing his life or being seriously harmed. The car still accelerates more after he has shot the woman than it did before he shot her.
Meanwhile taking that all at face value relies entirely on low res and heavily compressed video taken at a distance, vs. what we appear to see in the much closer, much higher res, much less compressed footage. We even see the officer after the shooting holster his weapon, calmly move around without any sign of injury, no limp, etc.
<< The ICE agent is maybe pushed by a car moving at low speed. Maybe. He is still never in danger of losing his life or being seriously harmed.
The standard is whether the agent reasonably believes he is in danger. It is not based on whether the car is going too slow to cause damage based on an arm chair's expert claim online.
Now, if you are saying there is nothing in that video that makes you question some of your assumptions, we can stop this conversation now. You are too motivated to make 'your side' win.
He continues shooting after he is to the side of the car to the point he is shooting through the open driver window. He is to the side of the car. He is not in it's path even remotely while still shooting.
Even if we assume the first shot was justified (which I disagree with but whatever, we're not going to change each other's minds) the remainder are not.
Lethal force is not on the table for punitive actions. It is meant to be used as a preventative measure.
It is a more reasoned argument, which I can't automatically reject. I suspect I know what the defense here would be, but I guess we will learn that later on. It is still a little crazy to expect perfection with a moving target, but I am willing to accept it as a premise.
It's pretty clear from the videos that there was no danger to the officer that fired.
They approached from the front, and stepped into the path of a turning "fleeing" vehicleto get a better shot at the driver and then jumping to the side.
> I will admit I would like to see how her car got into the middle of the road
I'm also curious about this, but in Australia this would have zero bearing on the "right" of a LEO to use lethal force.
> What I do know is that she had a choice to get out of the car, but chose to press gas.
She reversed, turned wheels to arc into the exiting lane and was shot by an officer who was already drawn prepared to fire.
That officer had the option to step either way, that officer chose to step into the turning arc to get a better shot and then side step clear .. they were not in any danger other than the danger they put themself in.
It's not acceptable here to kill people for fleeing.
I realise it's more common in the US which has a reputation for LEO's shooing unarmed people in the back.
<< They approached from the front, and stepped into the path of a turning "fleeing" vehicleto get a better shot at the driver and then jumping to the side.
Friend. Just from pure logic if the path was blocked by ICE agent then her pressing a gas means attempt to run that ICE agent over. And if you look at the vid in slow motion, he does jump to the side to avoid a swipe.
<< That officer had the option to step either way
And I guess this is where the lawyers will have a field day. Best I can say is that he is lucky to have protection that comes from being LEO, where the standard is just different.
<< I realise it's more common in the US which has a reputation for LEO's shooing unarmed people in the back.
To be fair, here it was literally face to face.
<< She reversed, turned wheels to arc into the exiting lane and was shot by an officer who was already drawn prepared to fire.
As I am rewatching the video in slow motion, it does seem like he was preparing for the eventuality, but the entire interaction and change in stance takes mere seconds.
<< this would have zero bearing on the "right" of a LEO to use lethal force.
To me it is not the question of whether they are right, but whether she had a good reason to be there. If she was following them around and ended up in that situation as a result, I might be more inclined to give ICE a pass. If she is an actual random individual that simply did not know what to do and panicked, then it is an actual problem.
That said, it does not appear atm that that was the case. FWIW, I am not happy about it as I believe it further undermines existing system, but what I think does not really matter.
> To me it is not the question of whether they are right, but whether she had a good reason to be there.
To me that's irrelevant - FWiW I come from a largish extended family with more than a century of history in various military and civil conflicts.
Well trained personnel should handle the situation of a vehicle blocking traffic in a civilian non theatre of war context in a manner that doesn't lead to escalation.
> If she was following them around and ended up in that situation as a result, I might be more inclined to give ICE a pass. If she is an actual random individual that simply did not know what to do and panicked, then it is an actual problem.
Either way, regardless of her background, three agents gave conflicting instructions, acted in a bullying manner, escalated a situation and shot a citizen.
If she was there in protest, in a country that boasts free speech and the right to protest, that doesn't justify or give a pass to the clown show on camera.
<< Either way, regardless of her background, three agents gave conflicting instructions, acted in a bullying manner, escalated a situation and shot a citizen.
This should be the rallying cry. But it isn't. As I noted in previous posts, I am not super happy about it, but at this point, the case is alreadya political football.
It's hard to deal with a parent who doesn't respect your boundaries. I agree, I don't think more transistors can adequately solve what is actually a communication issue. I hope OP looks into codependency/enmeshment, because some parent-child relationships, especially mother-son ones, become enmeshed, and this results in things like the mother not having appropriate boundaries with the son. This might look like, for example, frequently interrupting you in a private space.
Maybe the reasons he doesn’t get into is that the only working toilet is only accessible through this room and his mom cannot avoid going in several times a day. Maybe it also stores her Polly Pocket collection and she has a strong need to check a specific doll multiple times a day. Knowing moms I consider the later more likely
The nice thing about boundaries is you are not required to explain yourself. "Hey, please don't interrupt me between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, unless it is an emergency. I need to get work done, and interruptions break my concentration. Thank you for understanding." You also don't need to build complicated devices.
Not every complaint needs to have a goddamn essay attached describing some utopia. Sometimes you just need to kvetch, and I'm sick of getting tone policed otherwise about it.
Mercifully, nobody's forcing you to visit HN or read specific posts or comment threads. :) I mean, nobody's forcing me; I guess I can't speak to your specific situation, but presumably you aren't being coerced into consuming HN material.
Lmao sure. Every comment I make about unions gets downvoted, and every comment about "maybe it's okay to destroy the planet for one more solid quarter" shoots into the stratosphere.
More projection here than a drive-in movie theatre... This website sucks, but not because of any (incorrectly) perceived leftwing bias.
I don't know when this retcon happened, but this was never actually a site for hackers. People here complain because they like the modern web, because it pays their salaries. They get fabulously rich because of the steady enshittification of the web.
>Wait until you hear about the true costs of transit. A transit ride in a large city is typically MORE expensive than a car ride. Even when you take into account the cost of depreciation, insurance, financing and other related expenses.
Meanwhile, we're barreling toward 2-3 C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Oh, sorry, that doesn't have a line item on the toll receipt, silly me.
>It's THE real reason we have a failing democracy. Thoughtless social experiments with subsidizing transit have led to distorted housing and job markets. You can't just subsidize one facet of life and hope for it to work.
No the most eco (and financially) friendly model is high density areas where you can walk and bike to school and work. The transportation costs under this model are effectively nil.
Land aside, building a single story house is much cheaper per sq ft than a tower.
Medium density streets, like UK terraces can have enough density to support commerce nearby etc. but also low enough density to use a lot of solar to power houses directly.
Land may be the constraint given the population of the world.
I'm essentially parroting the (settled and not at all controversial) consensus view of the urban design profession so there's no real end of citation.
Though there are few clear cut real world examples to point to because land use is one of the most highly politicized things and it is rarely exposed to real market forces.
It's a great thing to have arguments about because whenever you can point some examples, people will always nitpick at why it's not real (eg. Tokyo is affordable and dense thanks to low regulation and the market, but people will point at the relatively poor Japanese economy etc).
But from basic geometric principles it makes sense that automobile oriented infrastructure is ultimately unsustainable and more expensive because of the constraints of the real world.
Ultimately the issue one runs into is that a car is a box several feet wide by several feet long (6.7x17.4) for an F150. That's a lot of space both parked and on the road. So if everyone buys one (and largely drives around themselves) it's clear that one quickly fills up the size of the road. The cost of expanding roads is very expensive, disruptive, and occasionally impossible. And then it doesn't even really work in remarkably improving traffic because due to Induced Demand, it reprices driving cheaper, which encourages more people to drive, which refills the road again. Everyone's time is being wasted sitting in these large boxes that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
So the core problem is that cars are enormously space inefficient. The system simply doesn't scale and eventually reaches break down.
You simply have to give up and can't grow the city any further. So you have to push people out to other cities.
But if we think of moving people instead of cars, there's a lot more space efficient opportunities since people are very small.
So you look at things like a bicycle, whose costs are relatively near nil, a protected bike lane that is also effectively near nil (put some jersey barriers on an existing road) and you can move that same person for much less. Obviously the problem is that they can't go very far but a combination of different modes for different uses and you have a system that can actually scale.
Build compact mixed use neighbourhoods that one can walk and bike to for local needs, buses for inter neighbourhood, and trains for intra and inter city long distance travel.
Only with this approach can you can continue to scale a city and continue to have a large city that is functional.
Houston is able to scale even with the space inefficiencies of the car by leveraging sprawl. It is remarkably larger than NYC and has room to grow.
This is the relief valve I mentioned here:
> You simply have to give up and can't grow the city any further. So you have to push people out to other cities.
So a city that can sprawl like Houston, does so, and it grows outward, adding more cities on the edge and becomes effectively a loose federation of many cities, which aids in the transportation issue.
That is a solution that some cities on a plain can make use of to kick out the runway further, but it's unavailable to others with more constrained geography.
Nothing I'm saying is actually scientifically controversial. I'm literally citing facts from urbanist textbooks. It's just that the way I'm telling them is unsettling for the people who have never questioned the social-engineered "consensus".
The CO2 footprint question is a tricky one. The vehicle _itself_ is not the main source of pollution. Even if you compare the vehicles, the answer is not straightforward: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint The main source of pollution for transit are _drivers_. E.g. each bus needs around 3 drivers to function, resulting in driver-to-passenger ratio of just around 1:7.
So when computing true CO2 footprint, you need to look at a counter-factual scenario where bus drivers are doing something else. But this becomes extremely tricky extremely fast, as you can move into fantasyland where bus drivers are building CO2 scrubbers instead of driving CO2-emitting vehicles. Or where drivers are working on chopping forests for agricultural lands, resulting in huge CO2 increases.
The next best option is to look at different regions and compare them. E.g. Houston, TX with EVs would have smaller CO2 emissions than the current NYC, with climate corrections.
The article you cited doesn't support that assertion. Its thesis is that upzoning alone — i.e. relaxing regulations such that it is legal to build higher-density housing, without further interventions — may not be sufficient to create enough vacancies to lower rents.
The cited article alone simply admits that upzoning won't result in cheaper housing. Because the market is broken (and only socialized housing can fix it), but we must do upzoning anyway.
That article also doesn't support your assertion. For example, they specifically call out parking minimums and minimum lot sizes (both density-lowering regulations) as major drivers of high housing costs.
> No the most eco (and financially) friendly model is high density areas where you can walk and bike to school and work
No, it's not. Because for that to work, you'll need a large underclass that has to waste 2-3 hours a day in commutes and subsist on groceries from state-run stores.
But yeah, the elites will be able to live in nice walkable areas. I know, I lived in an apartment overlooking the Union Square in Manhattan.
No, it was in a friend's apartment that he bought as an investment property. Apparently, the rent in this building is about $30k a month.
The area is great and walkable, with tons of restaurants around. But of course, nobody working in these restaurants can afford to live anywhere close to it.
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