The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Eddie Teach]

We invented Batman. Doesn't mean people should emulate him.

But that's a vigilante. This is more people just stopping a crime they see happening - tripping up a thief, chasing a terrorist with ivory, kicking them in the balls. It's the old idea the public are the police and the police are the public.

Well, I did say maybe. It's my impression there was a pursuit?

[DGuller]

Is he trying to kill more people or to flee?

People taking it on themselves to be police is a dangerous situation.

That's just one of the lunacies of the gun fetish ideology.  Pretty soon after the shooting starts no one will have a solid idea of which guy with the gun is the good guy and which one with the gun is the bad guy.  They just know whether a guy with a gun is shooting at other guys with a gun, go figure out whether pulling the trigger will be defending an innocent or murdering an innocent.

[Razgovory]

This wasn't fucking self defense.

Yes it fucking was.

You can't argue self-defense while committing another crime.

[DGuller]

This wasn't fucking self defense.

Yes it fucking was.

You can't argue self-defense while committing another crime.

And it's just a bad idea regardless.  Finish the crime first, then argue self-defense.

[Razgovory]

Well, the crime was illegally carrying the weapon...

The kid involved seems to have become a conservative hero.  That is troubling.  It's the first time a teenage mass shooter has gotten political support.

[viper37]

Okay.

Yep. The fact that there will be a trial will help establish the facts.

However, I am a little uncomfortable with some people rushing to pick up the bill.

yeah, all I saw was a 3 second clip of a walking black guy getting shot.  it does not tell me much.  I'm guessing we'll see more with the trial.

[merithyn]

Shooting in Portland. Patriot Prayer group drove through downtown during the BLM protests. Looks like one of the PP boys was shot in the chest. The guy was shot on the corner of my old office building.

This is going to get uglier before it gets prettier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/29/blm-activists-counterprotesters-clash-portland-leading-arrests/

One person is dead after a shooting in downtown Portland Saturday night following skirmishes between pro-Trump and Black Lives Matter protesters, the department confirmed in a statement.

A man was seen with a gunshot wound laying motionless on the ground in the area near where the opposing groups had fought and where mace had been deployed. Police and emergency medical vehicles surrounded the man. That in turn amplified tensions among protesters as police attempted to secure the area in a busy part of the riot-stricken city.

"Portland Police officers heard sounds of gunfire from the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street," the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. "They responded and located a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest. Medical responded and determined that the victim was deceased."

Police did not release information on a suspect.

Earlier in the evening, skirmishes between pro-Trump rallygoers and BLM supporters in downtown Portland left multiple people injured. The sparring groups threw punches at one another and hurled debris between vehicles, and some groups broke into open fighting in the street. Trump supporters in trucks were at one point blocked in by the Black Lives Matter activists, and began exiting their vehicles, precipitating the violence.

Blood was streaming down the face of one Trump supporter who had challenged an activist to a fight.

Tony Bartell, 26, of Vancouver, Wash., said one of the Trump rallygoers punched him after jumping out of a vehicle. Bartell had photographed his license plate, agitating a man.

"While he's in my face and I'm recording him, someone else comes up behind me and smacks my phone on the ground," he said. He said he was hit in the face and shaken up.

Earlier in the evening, activists met Trump supporters, some of them armed, who were waving flags and driving pickups on a highway on-ramp leading to Interstate 5.

The Black Lives Matter activists initially blocked traffic onto the highway as some yelled "Just go home!" and "Don't come to our city!" Others urged restraint, yelling, "Don't give them a reason!" They apparently were trying to ensure that a vehicle would not charge into the activists.

A small fight broke out at the head of the on-ramp before police arrived moments later and separated the groups, which had gathered earlier in the day at a shopping center just outside Portland. Police were seen making multiple arrests.

The truck-driving Trump supporters, some armed, planned to follow a highway route around the city, according to a route map posted on social media.

The groups were separated after skirmishes broke out, and they began hurling obscenities at each other from opposite sides of the highway.

[Valmy]

Man this is all going in a bizarre and disastrous direction.

This is Wiemar Germany shit.

[merithyn]

There's video of the shooting. Looks like the Patriot Prayer guy sprayed mace and then was shot for it. If you listen, someone says, "We've got one right here," before the mace is sprayed and the guy is shot.

Warning: very graphic video

https://twitter.com/TowelieTrades/status/1299931680447377408?s=20

A bit of background,  these guys have been coming over to Portland from the Washington side of the Columbia for several years. The guy who stabbed several people on the Max was a PP guy. They've been aggressive and have multiple arrests for it. They are a known risk to people in Portland.

[Syt]

[merithyn]

"GREAT PATRIOTS"...

They're white supremacists.

[derspiess]

Well, the crime was illegally carrying the weapon...

The kid involved seems to have become a conservative hero.  That is troubling.  It's the first time a teenage mass shooter has gotten political support.

So you're certain he had no right to self defense?

[merithyn]

Well, the crime was illegally carrying the weapon...

The kid involved seems to have become a conservative hero.  That is troubling.  It's the first time a teenage mass shooter has gotten political support.

So you're certain he had no right to self defense?

Does the guy who shot the Prayer Patriots guy in Portland get the same assumption of innocence from you?

[derspiess]

Haven't looked at that yet. And in the Kenosha case I'm just going by what I saw in the videos and the time line that NYT put together.

[Sheilbh]

So you're certain he had no right to self defense?

Based on the information I've seen - that he shot at people and is then mobbed, I don't know that self-defence is the right way of looking at it.

I'd almost flip it so we look at what are the limits of the people doing the mobbing. I don't think it's entirely the same as self-defence, but it feels like it's a sort of similar test could be applied (in England I think it's did the person genuinely think they were under threat and was their response reasonable) for people getting involved in stopping a crime.

So if I see someone mugging an old lady and decide to get involved (in reality - this would catastrophically for me), I think what matters is whether I am reasonable in stopping that mugging. Pinning someone against the ground - reasonable; kicking their head in - not. I've no idea if that's actually the law, but to me it feels weird to think of the self-defence rights of people committing crimes as opposed to the sort of limits on people trying to stop them.

Interested to see BBoy's take.

Edit: Actually just looked this up from an English perspective and this guidance for Crown Prosecutors is quite interesting:
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/self-defence-and-prevention-crime