So if any of the shots are murder, then he’s a murderer. Regardless of whether the first shot was ultimately the one that proved fatal. That’s irrelevant to his guilt
Yeah, and what I haven’t seen mentioned much yet is that the placement of that first shot through the windshield could be damning. The first shot is extremely close to the A pillar and we know where he was standing when the shot was taken.
I’ll leave it for others to conclude where you obviously have to be standing to shoot through the windshield in that spot and get a head shot.
Yeah it’s still absolutely murder. It’s just the last two are a flat out execution committed live on camera, no defense lawyer is talking their way out of them, thin blue line or no.
I’d like to toot my own horn here - I was right, state investigators can indeed conduct their own investigation, and I’m very glad they’re doing so.
I’ve seen the video recorded by the shooter, and I’m now not so sure. (This gets called “bodycam” video, but it seems it may have been from a smartphone held in his left hand.)
It looks like the car came close to him - probably delivered a glancing blow. It’s not a wild reach to believe he - accurately or not - perceived a serious threat.
And the driver’s wife about to open the passenger door, then shouting “Drive, baby, drive!” as the car starts forward is not a good look.
Never mind, already addressed. Back to catching up with the thread.
And yes, it was murder.
Just possibly (with a good defense lawyer and a pro-cop jury) but that doesn’t get around the fact that shooting her doesn’t prevent the threat, and that is required for a self defense case.
But it doesn’t matter as the other two shots cannot conceivably be explained away like that. They were flat out murder, so whether the first shot was or not is academic. It’s murder.
This is the problem - we’re used to seeing actual bodycam footage, so when the camera suddenly jumps, our brains assume the body was hit.
But that’s not the case here. It was a hand-held phone, and the camera jumps because he suddenly drops his hand while drawing his gun. It doesn’t tell you anything about if the car actually hit him, or where the camera was in relation to his body.
Which I’m sure is not proper DHS procedure. Which speaks, again to how this was not a federal agent conducting his duties in necessary and proper manner, so he has no immunity from state prosecution
I may be wrong - I’d understood that the requirement is for an officer to have had a valid reason to believe there was a serious threat to his safety.
Somehow, a fascist piece of shit cosplaying as a brownshirt and murdering an innocent woman who didn’t “respect his authoritay” with proper deference while wielding the gun in one hand and a cell phone camera in the other seems to just be about the perfect summation of America in the year 2026.
I agree that a state investigation is needed due to the federal government having rushed to a highly implausible judgment (“domestic terrorism”) before investigating.
If the state charges the shooter, he will try to get the case into the federal system on grounds of it being part of official duties. The federal judiciary then has to rule. If it gets to the Supreme Court while Trump is still in office, I expect the case will be federalized and Trump will pardon. But maybe I am making too many assumptions.
The important thing, which will not happen during this administration, is to train ICE agents in how to safely do car stops. Teaching police how to deescalate would violate Trump’s guidance against police being “too nice.”
Here’s what came up via Googling:
The legal requirement for a law enforcement officer to shoot in self-defense is that the officer must have an objectively reasonable belief that the suspect poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others. This standard is based on the Supreme Court ruling in Graham v. Connor (1989), which requires that the use of force be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with 20/20 hindsight.
It is? I don’t think that’s the standard, and I doubt you have a cite for this.
Is this really how juries decide cases? They rule on individual shots? In my experience, a defendant’s decision to shoot, and not the number of shots or where they hit, is what is up for consideration.
From where are you deriving your “necessary and proper” standard? Are you citing a law of some kind?
I believe that you are citing the law as you wish it was. Alas, I sympathize, but that’s just not the standard at play.
As I understand it (IANAL) the law says he must have a valid reason to think it will prevent a serious threat to his safety (in most cases, e.g. someone carrying a weapon, that’s implied but not when someone is driving a car)
Yup see the link I posted above
Although federal officers do have immunity in some circumstances, that protection applies only if their actions were authorized under federal law and “necessary and proper” in fulfilling federal duties. When federal officers violate federal law or act unreasonably when carrying out their duties, they can face state charges.
Let me Google that for you….
courts have recognized that all individuals have the right to protect themselves from harm and may use reasonable force in order to do so.
In this case shooting the driver does nothing to protect the cop, or anyone else, from harm.
That doesn’t appear to align with the quote I posted, which requires simply a belief there’s an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.
Note that this link pertains to the general legal issue of self defense, not the narrower one of use of force by a law enforcement officer.
If the question is whether a person has a right to use deadly force in response to a person driving a car at them, the answer is “yes”. A vehicle when aimed at somebody is a deadly weapon.
Unfortunately, the law is going to protect this guy, most likely. What? You thought America didn’t have a hidden undercurrent of fascism this whole time, did you?
But that doesn’t mean that I am not outraged.
What bothers me most is the very fact that this shooter drew his gun in the first place.
I don’t see him pulling his gun because she is driving towards him. I see him pulling his gun because she is not complying with the other guy pulling on the door handle (I, personally, never hear any officer telling the driver to leave; I hear them telling her to “get the fuck out of the car”) and he then shoots when she starts forward.
He had no basis to initially pull the gun. He was intending to draw on a woman who had, to that point, interfered with traffic, and wasn’t getting out of her car.
(Yes, I think her lunging forward startled him. And in reaction he fired the shots. But he had no reason to draw his weapon - nobody else had done so. And I don’t think he can claim that he pulled his weapon because she drove towards him - he wouldn’t have had enough time to do so).
So, were I in charge, absolutely fired and then criminally prosecuted. But the reality of legal immunity for this kind of stuff is usually infuriatingly broad.