And speaking of not knowing all the details, now we are getting witnesses that say some officers were telling her to move her car while some were telling her to step out. If they were yelling for her to move AND step out. IF that's true that changes things a lot, at this point we don't know. Again, we need all the facts before condemning either side. That's what a jury is for.Well, most of you know how I feel about Trump and his folks. But I'm a moderate in spite of that and here's my two cents:
It's pretty obvious to me that this woman was breaking the law. Whether it was as a peaceful protest or something else is beside the point. Her car was crossways in the road and she was impeding federal law enforcement officials. Just as above with the peace protest part, whether you agree with ICE methods or not is beside the point. They were conducting a Federal operation and she was intentionally in their way. That's grounds to arrest her right there.
And it appears to me that that is what was going to happen. The officer told her to step out of the car and she refused, she then attempted to drive off. That's resisting arrest... I think there's little doubt about any of that.
I've also heard that it is not standard operating procedure to stand in front of a car with a suspect in it. Again, I can't see that there's any bearing in the matter whether it was procedure or not. She either tried to run him over or not.
I've heard that this officer was dragged by a car in a previous incident and that he may have been affected by that. And again, I don't see that there's any bearing in the matter at hand. He either acted properly or not.
I've heard this woman referred to as a domestic terrorist or a simple mom of three kids depending on who's doing the talking. Do we know these things for sure? Certainly I have trouble believing the officers knew any of that in that moment, so I don't see that having any bearing in the case.
I heard Vance say that this officer had blanket immunity. That is TOTAL ********. Officers certainly DO NOT have blanket immunity and in fact are bound by what they may do in given situations. There are many cases to this point where officers acted outside the bounds of the law and were jailed for it. No bearing here, but I needed to say that.
In the end this boils down to whether the use of deadly force was justified or not given what happened in the moment.
Given that, there are several things that are NOT obvious to me:
While I see the officer in front of the car, I also see her wheels cut hard to turn the car away from him and frankly it didn't look like he got more than brushed by the car. So when I hear she tried to "run down the officer", that doesn't seem cut and dried to me (as Vance and others in the Admin are saying).
That being the case, I do see that at least two shots were fired by the officer while he was beside the car and was in no danger of being run down. Does the use of deadly force continue to be OK when the situation that justified it has passed? I honestly don't know the answer to that and obviously the situation was ongoing at the time.
As usual, I take the moderate view that we simply don't have all the facts of the case in front of us and until we do, we can't know what the right thing to do is. I say let the courts decide. So I think both the feds and the state should investigate and let the cards fall where they may.
In general, I support law enforcement and although I really, really don't like the way ICE is doing things, that opinion has nothing to do with this particular case. In this case we see a woman clearly in violation of the law. The officers attempted to take her into custody and she attempted to escape by doing what she did. The only question here is whether the officer genuinely felt his life (and those of his fellow officers and the general public) was in danger and the use of lethal force was justified. Again, we don't have all the facts here, but given what we saw I'd have difficulty finding the officer guilty.
Vance is correct in blaming the media for calling this murder immediately. But Vance is also off base for calling this woman a domestic terrorist that tried to run down an officer when no one knows all the facts.

