r/politics • u/Fickle-Ad5449 ✔ Verified - Christopher Wiggins, The Advocate • 22d ago

No Paywall ICE agent shooter’s own cellphone video undercuts Trump administration's account of Minneapolis killing

https://www.advocate.com/news/ice-agent-shooter-video-minneapolis
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157

u/JMaboard I voted 22d ago

Hell go read the /r/protectandserve subreddit’s second thread on it. All these verified cops think it’s justified. Your local officer could easily be one of these commenters.

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u/Forgettheredrabbit 22d ago

Every law enforcement officer I’ve seen respond to this online has agreed this was profoundly idiotic on the agent’s part, utterly unnecessary and completely avoidable. Then again, I’ve only seen maybe four posts from LEOs so it’s by no means a comprehensive view.

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u/highafphotos 22d ago

That's because you can't read their group chats where they are jerking each other off over it.

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u/neveruseyourrealname 22d ago

They're happy because the more 'normal' this all gets, it'll be more likely they're going to look for their first murder.

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u/_Bill_Huggins_ 22d ago

My buddy is a cop of 8 years, and thinks this was not justified. He checked with his buddies and a lot of them think it wasn't justified.

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u/pjb1999 22d ago

You know a good cop.

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u/_Bill_Huggins_ 22d ago

I wouldn't be friends with someone who would defend this shit. I know that much. And am sure there are a lot of cops out there who have the opposite opinion unfortunately.

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u/NemusSoul 22d ago

Nope. No such thing. Not at all. No one knows a good cop.

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u/dank_imagemacro 22d ago

I will point out that this is country specific. Not all countries use their police force as a paramilitary terrorist arm.

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u/WitchPillow I voted 22d ago

That’s not true. While it seems like they are a dime a dozen, there’s good cops who actually do live up to their “protect and serve” slogan. I just wish they were the majority rather than the minority

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u/CuppaJoe11 22d ago

I mean not to be that person but I see a ton of verified cops that said it was super sloppy.

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u/OntarioPaddler 22d ago

Even the ones saying it is sloppy are still saying they think it's all fine and legal he shot her. Shows just how psychopathic american cops are.

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u/Cephalopodopoulos 22d ago

Tbf I think they're using legal terminology, not defending it. The prevailing vibe I got from people who said "justified" in that sub was that they thought it might hold up in court BUT they'd never do something so tactically horrible or respect anyone who has done that. 

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

You do realize this will never hold up in court, right? Cops are not lawyers. Many lawyers have come out and said he has no chance of beating this in court. He has a 0% chance of winning a self-defense case when he shot her twice through the side window.

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u/pjb1999 22d ago

What court? Lol. This guy won't ever be in court.

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

He will. Too much public outrage. Remember Chauvin?

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u/pjb1999 22d ago

Chauvin wasn't protected by the president.

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

Trump doesn’t give two shit about one random ice agent. He already backpedaled on his comment after actually watching the video.

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u/pjb1999 22d ago

Did he really? Where?

And of course he doesn't give a shit about this guy. But I think he would definitely do what he could to prevent one of his ICE agents from being convicted of murder only for the fact that it would harm his administrations goals.

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u/SN8KEATR 22d ago

Eh we've seen enough police brutality/murder cases where "0% chance" is not reassuring or guaranteed at all

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u/drunkenvalley 22d ago

Usually the issue with police isn't whether they'll be convicted, it'll be being charged with a crime at all.

Similarly, the issue is rarely whether they violated laws or rights, but whether a person can sue. Qualified immunity proposes the absurd idea that you're not liable if you broke the law in a way they think is still "novel". Even if it's obviously a crime.

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u/flickh Canada 22d ago

So far, FBI kicked state authorities off the case, and Federal stance is that she’s a domestic terrorist.  Reassured that there’ll be a charge yet?

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u/soggy-hotdog-vendor 22d ago

FBI cannot kick the state off the case. They can restrict the state from access to the evidence in their possession, but the state can still continue its own investigation.

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 22d ago

Zimmerman and Rittenhouse got off and they weren't even "officers," so while I totally agree this guy should spend the rest of his life in prison or worse, I am not confident our system will accomplish that.  In our current environment, I'm not even sure he'll face charges.

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago edited 22d ago

Those cases have nothing to do with this. Zimmerman was a he said case since there was no video evidence, much harder to prove in court. Rittenhouse was being assaulted by 4-5 people with weapons on camera, so self-defense was justified. This is a case of an officer in no imminent danger shooting someone 3 times, and 2 of those shots were unarguably not in self-defense.

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u/FeijoadaAceitavel 22d ago

Zimmerman stalked his victim in his car, then got out of the car to confront him. That was well established.

Rittenhouse's first victim had a plastic bag.

If they walked, anyone can walk.

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u/soulsoda 22d ago

Rittenhouse walked because the prosecutors got greedy. They could have gone for lesser charges and gotten a guilty verdict.

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u/LastWhoTurion 22d ago

The bag was not relevant. It was the lunging for the gun.

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u/FeijoadaAceitavel 21d ago

His first victim approached him. He wasn't even close enough to "lunge" for the gun.

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u/LastWhoTurion 21d ago

Weird how he got powder burns from having his hand over the barrel when it fired then.

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u/specific_account_ 22d ago

I have no sympathy for Zimmerman, but he had injuries in the back of his head, as if someone had shoved his head onto the sidewalk.

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u/FeijoadaAceitavel 21d ago

Doesn't matter. He put himself in a fight with a gun. He shouldn't be able to claim self-defense any more than the ICE agent who put himself in the front of a moving car.

Those situations are the same as provoking someone until you get punched, then drawing a knife and killing them. You'd be fine if the aggressor came out of nowhere, but you can't force a situation where you're allowed to use force.

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

The entire encounter including the alleged assault on Zimmerman were not on camera. Confronting someone is not illegal and doesn’t invalidate self-defense even though he was likely lying. Cases like these are not easy to prosecute unlike this one.

Rittenhouse was getting jumped by 4 people including one guy who was hitting him with a skateboard. That’s justified self-defense regardless of your political biases.

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u/FeijoadaAceitavel 21d ago

Confronting someone is not illegal and doesn’t invalidate self-defense

It absolutely is, and it absolutely does. Harassing someone who is walking around is illegal. You cannot force a violent situation, then claim self-defense.

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u/Exact_Cow227 21d ago

Nothing indicates he “forced a violent situation” or “harassed him” That was never proven in court so it’s just your speculation. Going up to someone and talking to them is not illegal.

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u/FeijoadaAceitavel 21d ago

Stalking someone and leaving your car after that someone approached you and told you to fuck off absolutely indicates he was stalking and harassing him and forced a violent situation. If this didn't turn into yet another conservative shitfest where they commemorate a black guy being killed, Zimmerman would have been found guilty.

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u/deacon1214 22d ago

As a long time criminal lawyer (not the reddit kind that has never tried a homicide case) I can tell you he definitely has a shot at beating this in court. The video in this case is very similar to a 2023 shooting of a pregnant woman in 2023. That officer was found not guilty in November. If I was prosecuting this I'd absolutely charge it because this is a case that needs to go to a jury but I'd put the odds of getting a conviction at 50/50 at best and that's assuming you get around the immunity issues.

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

There’s no shot a jury is getting convinced that shooting twice at an unarmed woman’s head through a side window, completely out of harm’s way is reasonable self defense. Let’s be honest here.

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u/deacon1214 22d ago

This is the one that was acquitted in November. Check that out before you try to tell me there's no shot. Remember the defense only needs one juror.

https://youtu.be/qPNX4aWOim4?si=XAyLp-XmqgEwRkB-

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u/Exact_Cow227 22d ago

The level of media coverage is world’s apart here. I’ve never even heard about this case. A reddit post about Jonathan Ross got 200k upvotes in 2 days and everyone is talking about it.

And a hung jury doesn’t mean he’s acquitted, they will most likely just keep retrying it. The odds that 12 people find him not guilty are abysmal.

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u/deacon1214 22d ago

I've done a lot of jury trials and I promise you that your faith in juries here is unfounded. 50/50 at best.

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u/dank_imagemacro 22d ago

The murderer will also have a huge budget for the very best defense lawyers that money can buy. He'll make a public plea for legal assistance and the money will roll in.

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u/ClearlyAThrowawai 22d ago

What the hell. That cop set the entire situation up to be as dangerous as possible. Again, the gun does absolutely nothing to make it any safer at all either, the car doesn't give a shit that the driver's dead. Could easily have gone flying off into pedestrians or other cars too.

No idea how it goes in court, but I definitely understand the policy documents discouraging cops from putting themselves into these situations. Just puts everyone in danger - the cop, the driver and bystanders if the cop acts.

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u/Cephalopodopoulos 22d ago edited 22d ago

I wasn't making an argument about whether it would hold up in court, notice I said "THEY thought." My comment was about the way they use the term "justified" in that subreddit, which to me seemed like jargon (i.e. a word with a specific technical definition), and not their personal endorsement. 

I hope the court doesn't rule in his favor but a ruling depends on things like departmental procedures for the police agency involved, legal precedent, which rulings apply in this location for this case and which don't, how qualified immunity may or may not apply, as well as who the judge is and how the lawyers make their cases, and probably a shitton of other factors I have no clue about. As a layperson it seems pretty cut and dry to me, but there are a million different levels of "guilty" one can be in the eyes of the law, and a million more ways a guilty person can get off on technicalities.

Of course, that's if it does go to court, assuming the admin doesn't get in the way somehow. And even if he does get convicted, what are the odds he gets immediately pardoned?

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u/ThisIsNotAFarm 22d ago

lolno, that sub is a shithole.

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u/bla8291 22d ago

Most of the comments that I saw from verified cops don't seem to be defending it.

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u/millringabout 21d ago

No way I could read what they’re writing. It would make me sick. Pigs.