https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595868
It's interesting to me that submissions like this routinely get a dozen or so upvotes very quickly, on what is transparently a very politically inciting headline promising a contentious political editorial.
"including US citizens" is weasel wording here. ICE operates on reasonable suspicion, as they are legally entitled to do. Furthermore, they are federal LEO, and as such may arrest people they know to be US citizens if those citizens commit federal crimes.
This is all quite clear in the law, and even reported by left-wing sources in the same breath that they claim the footage contradicts things that I (from watching it myself) believe it reasonably supports (subjective rhetoric aside). In particular, the victim in the recent case was "blocking the path of an officer’s vehicle", which the SF Chronicle explicitly calls out as valid cause for such an arrest.
LEOs tend to shoot at those who resist arrest in a manner that endangers their lives. That endangerment is not required to be itself an attempt at murder.
The other thing I find interesting is that the officers were not masked in this case, contra the usual narrative.
This is not defensible in a democracy. Never mind that ICE is not wanted in these cities by the citizens or their elected officials. This is massive federal overreach for political reasons.
Speaking of weasel words, "reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime" is a higher standard than you imply. It requires the officer to be able to articulate their reason for suspecting a specific crime. Huh, crime is a funny word, actually. Did you know that overstaying a visa is a civil offense? But I guess it's possible, though perhaps not reasonable to suspect, that she crossed the border illegally.
So, if that's the crime, the agent would need to articulate their reason for suspecting that the woman had illegally crossed the border. Did he ever articulate that reasoning? Did he ever even articulate the crime?
> LEOs tend to shoot at those who resist arrest in a manner that endangers their lives.
Oh, I guess we'll just ignore all that "RAS" stuff, then. If that's the case, the agent didn't have the authority to arrest the woman at all. So, rather than resisting arrest, she was defending herself from an unlawful assaulter (with the intention not to kill, as you seem to admit in another comment). And the assaulter, in a fit of rage from seeing her attempted escape, shot her in the head three times to, er "defend himself" from a moving vehicle.
Honestly, I've read enough of your comments to know you're not stupid. Why go to such lengths to defend these actions of the agent in question? Do you really not think the agent should be expected to behave more professionally? Regardless of the fear he felt, I don't believe you simply can't see how he needlessly escalated the situation well before the woman tried to drive away.
I didn't use the word "articulable", but the fact that someone does not articulate a basis for suspicion does not imply that the basis cannot be articulated.
> So, if that's the crime, the agent would need to articulate their reason for suspecting that the woman had illegally crossed the border. Did he ever articulate that reasoning? Did he ever even articulate the crime?
All of this is completely irrelevant. You are conflating entirely different things. The point about "ICE operating on reasonable suspicion" relates to their general operation with respect to suspected illegal immigrants, which justifies the fact that on occasion their targets happen to turn out to be US citizens. They are not legally required to be correct 100% of the time.
The current case is about someone explicitly not suspected of being an illegal immigrant, whom federal ICE agents were nevertheless completely legally entitled to arrest, because of their judgment that she was committing a federal crime: specifically, obstruction of (federal) justice.
And, as it turns out in my current research, they were legally entitled to order her out of the vehicle even without intent to arrest her nor suspicion of any crime (although she was caught in flagrante delicto with regard to the crime):
> If a police officer lawfully orders you to exit your vehicle during a traffic stop, you are required by law to comply.... In the Mimms case, the Court ruled that police officers can instruct drivers to exit their vehicles during a traffic stop without needing additional probable cause or reasonable suspicion. This authority was expanded in Wilson to include passengers. It is important to understand that an officer does not need probable cause or reasonable suspicion of another crime to issue this order. Additionally, officers can also instruct vehicle occupants to re-enter the vehicle."
> If you refuse to comply with a lawful order from an officer, you could be arrested. This scenario assumes the traffic stop itself was lawful, based on reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
(via https://jmarshlaw.com/can-you-refuse-to-exit-your-vehicle-wh... many other sources can easily be found with a search engine. Emphasis theirs. It should not require explanation that "the car is perpendicular to the road across the middle" is sufficient justification for a traffic stop. Traffic is already stopped!)
> Oh, I guess we'll just ignore all that "RAS" stuff, then. If that's the case, the agent didn't have the authority to arrest the woman at all.
Search engines tell me that "RAS" stands for "Reticular Activating System", a structure found within the brain. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You beg the question without even stating it. I have no idea what the antecedent of "that" could possibly be in "if that's the case", but also you have to establish it to have a logical argument.
> So, rather than resisting arrest, she was defending herself from an unlawful assaulter
No, she was not assaulted. There was no threat to make unlawful physical contact with her.
There is also no reasonable possibility that she could have failed to understand that she was dealing with ICE officers, who definitionally are federal LEO. There were identifying markers all over the place, she had already seen one up close and personal (the sarcastic "I'm not mad at you" moment), and multiple witnesses have corroborated that there was an active anti-ICE protest and that she was there to participate in it.
> And the assaulter, in a fit of rage from seeing her attempted escape
The only way I can possibly imagine that you think this makes sense, is if you are under the incorrect impression that the officer saying "get out of the fucking car" and "fucking bitch" is the one who was struck. The evidence directly contradicts the first (it was said by the other officer who approached the driver's side window) and does not support the second (no evidence of who said it, despite widely disseminated propaganda). There was simply no time in which to "see her attempted escape" and process it in any conscious manner. The simple, obvious motivation is the objective fact that a car was headed towards him in the instant before the shots (and did strike him, and did visibly cause him to lose his balance, as corroborated from multiple angles).
> Honestly, I've read enough of your comments to know you're not stupid. Why go to such lengths to defend these actions of the agent in question?
"Come on, you're better than this" is still fundamentally ad hominem. But I am not at all "going to lengths". I am pointing out things that anyone who examines the evidence impartially, and who knows the law (or even attempts to find it out), can clearly see.
> Do you really not think the agent should be expected to behave more professionally?
I see no fault in Ross' professionalism. In fact, he did an excellent job of not succumbing to Good's partner's provocation.
As for the other agent, I am willing to excuse the use of the word "fucking" on the third or fourth iteration of "get out of the car" without any sign of compliance, given that that is a lawful order.
> I don't believe you simply can't see how he needlessly escalated the situation well before the woman tried to drive away.
To be able to see it, it would have to have happened. The evidence directly contradicts you, very clearly.
Ross did not even speak to Good during the supposed "escalation". He was dealing with her partner, outside the vehicle on the far side, before walking back to his peers taking a path in front of the vehicle (under the reasonable expectation that the car would stay put, because Good was being ordered to get out of the car and also just on general principle).
It is Good's partner who escalated, by choosing to use her freedom of speech to engage belligerently, and then by encouraging Good to "drive, baby, drive".
The other officer was issuing a lawful order. If you appear to be obstructing traffic generally, and especially in a way that blocks the path of a law enforcement vehicle, that is a crime, and when they are federal LEOs then federal jurisdiction applies. When an LEO lawfully tells you "get out of the car", you are legally required to get out of the car. In practical terms, you get out of the car and talk to a lawyer later if you have reason to suppose it wasn't a lawful request.
Shame on anyone who supports this.
Yes, but I'd point out that I was intending to speak "to the person" with those words. It is not to say "you're better than this" but instead to say I know you reach a certain baseline level of skill in critical thinking. Given that, I am genuinely not sure why you would choose to defend the actions of the agents. I suppose that's not really different, though.
Regardless, I guess I have my answer. "I wouldn't be murdered because I would comply with all of the agent's unreasonable demands." I will spare you an attempt to explain either the clear lack of reason in the agent's demands or the folly of this reasoning.
Apologies for not responding to the rest.
Because an application of critical thinking to the available evidence clearly exonerates the agents in this specific case.
> I wouldn't be murdered because I would comply with all of the agent's unreasonable demands.
As an objective matter of fact, the demand to exit the vehicle was reasonable and legally justified, and she was legally required to comply with it. I have already repeatedly explained why, and given appropriate citations.
The evidence does not support the use of the term "murder" to describe this killing.
> I will spare you an attempt to explain either the clear lack of reason in the agent's demands or the folly of this reasoning.
Your claim of "clear lack of reason" is contradictory to evidence and you have not even attempted to make a case for it beyond bald assertion.
This is obviously false.
> you have not even attempted to make a case for it beyond bald assertion
That is correct: I am not attempting to sway you with the evidence you've already decided is in favor of your assertions. I instead "baldly assert" that said evidence seems to corroborate my perspective, the same as you.
No, it isn't. I showed the reason, repeatedly. And I cited the relevant law.
> I am not attempting to sway you with the evidence you've already decided is in favor of your assertions. I instead "baldly assert" that said evidence seems to corroborate my perspective, the same as you.
I clearly explained, with timestamps and extensive logical reasoning, how the evidence clearly does corroborate my perspective. I have calmly and repeatedly walked through it all and pointed out fallacies committed by you and others.
You have merely asserted that the evidence corroborates your perspective.
Why would any third party who sees this agree with you?
This is moot. Losing points in a debate competition does not invalidate the belief for which one is arguing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
You're not going to suddenly change your mind strictly because you realized you made a bad argument; admittedly, you might do so after your bad argument makes you rethink the matter but it's certainly not a guarantee. Critically, anyone's ability to change their mind starts first and foremost with it being willing to adopt such a change.
> You have merely asserted that the evidence corroborates your perspective.
This is all you've managed to do as well, despite using more words; there seems to be no reason to point it out. Of course, that is what we are both doing. Oftentimes it's called a "discussion". The problem I am having with this one, which I believe is shared by others, is that you don't seem to be taking other perspectives seriously. Why should I, or any third party who sees this this, offer yours that dignity?
I did not make this argument. I simply pointed out the difference between my conduct and that of others, and between the logical validity of my argument and that of others.
> You're not going to suddenly change your mind strictly because you realized you made a bad argument
Of course I am not going to change my mind, because I did not make the argument you ascribe to me.
>This is all you've managed to do as well, despite using more words
This is blatantly untrue. I provided evidence and reasoning. You provided neither.
> Of course, that is what we are both doing. Oftentimes it's called a "discussion".
This is not a discussion. It has not at any point been a discussion. It has just been me pointing out where you (and others) are factually incorrect, where you (collectively) have hypocritically made emotional appeals while falsely accusing me of doing so (which again does not make you incorrect, but hypocrisy is a moral failing), and so on. It could not possibly be a discussion, because you repeatedly ignored that I was focused on a legal analysis while incorrectly accusing me of conflating that with a moral analysis, while engaging in a moral analysis that I repeatedly told you I was no concerned with. Again, my only interest in morality here is because my moral character has been unfairly impugned.
It's been so extreme lately.
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.
> 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?
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.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1pjye82/ice_agen...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qb564f/minnea...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qb88n3/ice_ag...
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qaw2e9/ice_in...
[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1q9p1dp/man_kn...
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1q9xczh/ice_pu...
Entertaining the idea that they could be wrong goes against their principles.
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.
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.
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.
If you want to see where I am coming from rather than writing me off as one of the caricatures your media sources have told you to pigeonhole the opposition into, you can just read those threads in full: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543786
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.
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?
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.
And as an objective matter of fact, Trump won the popular vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...) after explicitly running on a platform that included these actions. That is as much of a "mandate" as a POTUS ever gets.
> 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.
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.
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.
> What do green usernames mean?
Green indicates a new account.
No great loss if I get kicked off the site, but for what it’s worth, my karma is net positive so far. I guess there are still enough others here who are apoplectically furious at our rapidly degenerating society.
And lest we forget: hacking is intrinsically a political act, anti-authoritarian by nature, though I understand that there are scant few actual hackers here these days.