In relation to this, thinking about a new community for Political Activism. Calls to action, that kind of thing.
The rules would be super simple:
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Purpose is for protest organizing. [Country, City, State]
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Absolutely no calls for violent action.
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No links to fundraisers. Too rife for fraud and abuse. Stories about fundraisers would be fine, but no GoFundMes, etc.
Think there’s room for PolticalActivism?
Self-defense isn’t judged by hindsight or perfect outcomes. The law doesn’t require an officer to make a perfect decision — only a reasonable one based on what he perceived in split seconds.
Only an unreasonable person would believe that killing the driver of a car that you are no longer in front of would be self-defense. It goes against every policy I’ve seen related to use of force against drivers even if she had been intentionally ramming him. Maybe if this were a random person but he has been trained specifically about this scenario and has been in the job for ten years, cops have been charged for less in similar situations. He has no defense, but there likely won’t be a legitimate trial anyway.
Given how fast things unfolded, you can’t expect an officer to make a perfect decision — only a reasonable one based on what he perceived in that split second. Even if the video later shows the officer wasn’t directly in front of the vehicle at the exact moment the shots were fired, the issue isn’t hindsight with perfect vision — it’s what a reasonable officer believed at that moment under intense pressure. Federal use‑of‑force policy explicitly says reasonableness is judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, not with 20/20 hindsight after reviewing multiple angles in super slow motion.
A reasonable person must have believed they could get out of the way of the vehicle, of which the driver was not accused of any crime and was not acting belligerent, because his feet and legs were almost entirely to the side of the vehicle before he shot, and he continued shooting through the side window. If he has such a lack of awareness or emotional instability that his perception becomes so easily warped he should not be trusted in that role. Furthermore it only unfolded that quickly because of aggressive actions of the officers. They pulled directly up to the vehicle, trapped it with their bodies while she tried to comply with their order to leave, while also shouting conflicting orders in the first instant they got up to the victim.
And if we are looking at the full picture, what could their justification be for lieing about having medics or blocking medical aid for over ten minutes? Then once arriving, blocking the ambulance down the road. Actions after the fact attest to a person’s state of mind when committing the act. Why wouldn’t they comply with an investigation and stay on scene right away as well? I really doubt there is any official policy that you should flee the scene after you shoot someone in the face even in self defense.
Tactics, positioning, and conflicting commands absolutely matter and can affect whether the officer’s perception was reasonable. But under the legal self‑defense standard, what counts is whether a reasonable officer in that exact moment perceived an imminent threat of serious harm. Hindsight, video slow‑motion, or how the encounter started don’t change that standard — though those factors are relevant for accountability, training, and evaluating reasonableness. What happened after the shooting — including delays in medical aid, communication issues, or how the officers handled the scene — is absolutely relevant for accountability, policy evaluation, and potential misconduct investigations. Those actions can inform judgments about professionalism and whether proper procedures were followed.
I can’t say what he perceived but multiple agents were circling the vehicle while the driver was trying to leave, they yelled conflicting demands which included telling her to leave and then tried to open her door when she hadn’t done anything warrenting her apprehension, within seconds shooting her from the side of her vehicle. ICE has already murdered people, you could argue that she feared for her life, and rightfully so. She was in her right to defend herself from the masked unidentified agents apparently trying to abduct her.
The legal standard doesn’t disappear just because the situation was chaotic. What matters in a self‑defense analysis is what a reasonable officer reasonably believed at the exact moment the shots were fired, not how the encounter started or what someone felt later. Footage also shows the driver and her spouse talking rudely and appearing not fearful at all in the whole situation.
How the encounter started is entirely relevant. How can it be self-defense when the officer purposely and needlessly put themselves in danger? If you base an analysis solely on what the shooter says they felt in the moment how can you have any sort of objective investigation into any shooting?
The ICE agent wasn’t directly in front of the car until the driver reversed the car. He didn’t put himself in danger, the car motion did. Context matters, but the legal standard focuses on what a reasonable officer perceived at the exact moment the shots were fired, not how the encounter started. How the situation began can inform training or policy questions, but self‑defense under federal law is judged by split-second perceived threat, not hindsight or moral judgment.