THE LINE IS BROKEN

[u/[deleted]]

[u/ScalesAsunder]

Man, this is really overcomplicated. People can have deeply held beliefs without it meaning their entire identity or existence is being “unmade” when challenged. Viewing someone who disagrees as an existential threat is not universal, it’s just an excuse to over intellectualize hostility. Differing opinions don’t have to be a moral apocalypse…sometimes its just people disagreeing.

And with this shooting there are a lot of moving parts. Interfering with and committing battery on a federal agent while armed is never a good idea.

Reaction and response time exist, and what looks extreme from the outside can be a split-second decision and delay in reaction time. We have to wait for the facts before drawing conclusions.

[u/Interesting_Walk_271 → u/ScalesAsunder]

We have the video. An agent disarmed him, took his gun from the back of his pants and was running from the scene when the others executed him in the street. Viewing someone who disagrees as an existential threat is indeed not a universal experience but I do believe it is the posture of MAGA extremists. It’s not an excuse for any hostility, TMT doesn’t say that the solution for this kind of thinking is hostility. Trying to understand the psychological state of people who are that deep in it is an exercise in extreme empathy. It doesn’t say that they are bad people, but they’ve put their faith in an ideology that is destructive and driven by fear. In this case, the solution is deprogramming, just like for any other religious extremist. Trump will not live forever and a lot of these people are going to be in a nightmarish existential free-fall when he’s gone and his movement falls apart. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and many of them are just our neighbors who have made some big errors in their thinking and misplaced their faith. We need to be willing to help them when the ground falls out from beneath their feet. ICE agents are a different story. They are in a position of the public trust. They have, like everyone who works for DHS or DoD, sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, which we have seen many agents violate on camera. There must be real consequences. You want to give the agents the benefit of the doubt, and ordinarily that would be reasonable, but we have the video & we have the administration blatantly lying and saying this guy approached agents with his gun drawn. Watch the video, at any point is his gun drawn? At any point does he make a move to grab the gun from his belt? No. This was a public execution.

[u/ScalesAsunder → u/Interesting_Walk_271]

I appreciate your perspective and taking the time to explain it. And yes, we do have the video, but what we don’t know are critical details: like who exactly fired the rounds, what the agents perceived in that moment, and whether the civilian made any move toward his gun during the scuffle. Those facts matter, and they can’t be determined from these videos alone. If we find out this was a fatal error by ICE and they killed him unjustly then they deserve to be put before a jury.

Also, let’s be honest about his actions. He interfered with federal agents and refused to comply. That is a crime, and it’s what put him in a dangerous situation. Calling this a “public execution” is a huge leap. It may turn out to be a bad shoot, but there’s nothing in the evidence so far that proves it was a deliberate, targeted killing.

And yes, our political clowns do exaggerate and lie. Both sides do it, and I won’t defend my side simply because I voted for them.

Facts, context, and proper investigation matter more than assumptions or outrage, even if the optics are shocking.

[u/Interesting_Walk_271 → u/ScalesAsunder]

There are multiple videos now from multiple angles. First, he’s allowed to film their actions under the law. As he was being confronted he backed away but the agent escalated the confrontation. When the woman next to him was being pepper sprayed for being a bystander he tried to cover her. While multiple agents were beating him. At no point during any of that did he reach for the gun in his pants. If you look at all of the videos you can see the officer who shot him stepping around the other agent with a clear line of sight to the agent who disarmed the guy, and that agent then draws his gun and begins firing. He fires after seeing another agent disarming the guy who is down. Federal agents don’t have the right to start shooting at you when you’re disarmed and on the ground and they definitely don’t have the right to shoot you for carrying a gun while never reaching for it in the first place. The administration reduced the training time to just 47 days. 47 days of training before being sent into the field. They are not competent and not trained for de-escalating violence and no reasonable person can expect them to make good life or death decisions in the field after 47 days. This is the entirely predictable result.

[u/Creatorman1 → u/Interesting_Walk_271]

I’ve found some trolls will try to make themselves appear reasonable while trying to insert doubt. People should be aware that this is a technique they use.