Looking [1], it does appear that Renee attempted to run the car right into the ICE officer, the wheels were still pointing slightly left, and the officer was still in front of the car. Also in [2] you can see that she was looking directly at the officer during this initial acceleration attempt. The only thing that saved the officer in that initial attempt was the loss of traction due to the icy road.
After that, indeed the wheels were pointing away from the officer and arguably there was no more danger to him, but after the clear attempt to hit him, you cannot realistically expect the officer, in a split second, to re-evaluate if her intentions to hurt anybody changed or not. At this point his life was already threatened. He doesn’t know what she is doing and waiting to find out could mean that he is dead.
The more condemnatory are the 2nd and 3rd shot from the side window. This is pure cruelty and disregard of human life which in a parallel universe could be one of your family member. Anyone justifying this deserves no sympathy from rest of the human populace.
Appeal to mental ineptitude is not a defense of murder. If a person can't distinguish between intention of person to kill others vs escaping when driving in a completely different direction then that person does not have right to posses a weapon which can take human life.
Also interesting that you do not address the 2nd and 3rd shot at all.
No, I am not claiming that. I explained previously why it looked to me that Renee intended to hit the officer with her car, very hard, and the only reason it was a slight hit was because she lost traction on the ice. [1] And also she did hit the officer, this was even acknowledged in the NYT analysis of the event. Again, he got lucky that he was able to jump out of the way, only because the icy road caused her wheels to lose grip.
At that point, I would think there is an argument to be made that the officer’s life was threatened, and he is allowed to use lethal force, he does not have the time to second guess if Renee is going to change her mind and not hit anyone with her car. I am NOT saying that the officer is definitively absolved, just that based on what I’m seeing, it is not as clear a case of murder as a lot of people claim.
Also interesting that you do not address the 2nd and 3rd shot at all.
This is confusing to me and I don’t really know what to say about that, the lethal intent is there with the 1st shot. Is it that we expect the officer to go from deciding that she is enough of a threat to be shot, to deciding that she is a non-threat in the split second after his first shot?
[1] but just for posterity: a) when she accelerated, she still had her wheels pointing just left of center while the officer was directly in front of her. b) she was looking directly at the officer when she accelerated.
She made contact with the officer. And that is only because he had to put down his recording phone and take out the gun instead of focussing on stepping out of the way. This framing feels even more egregious when you consider that he casually strolled to take a glance at dead mother and escape the scene.
> only reason it was a slight hit was because she lost traction on the ice.
> only because the icy road caused her wheels to lose grip
It is winter season and all roads are layered with ice. Ice was not a lucky coincidence at the spot she was shot. When you drive in ice for months every year you gain the intuition of vehicle motion. Before being killed, she had reversed in that spot and had a good idea how much gas creates how much traction like any other person driving in snow does. You can not claim her intent to hit based on how fast the wheels are spinning. Grip is immaterial, what matters is how fast the vehicle was actually moving.
> This is confusing to me and I don’t really know what to say about that
> deciding that she is a non-threat in the split second after his first shot
If you can make a decision to step aside and fire subsequent shots from side window instead, your intention is no longer own safety but to kill, in common parlance, murder. A woman driving in different direction, clearly escaping is somehow more of a threat than the masked gunmen surrounding her.
> when she accelerated, she still had her wheels pointing just left of center
Do you drive? If you did you would know that it is not a discrete process of turning and forward motion. It is easier to turn when you are moving. Whatever the direction of wheel at the moment, the rotation towards right while the masked gunman is on left corner makes her intent clear.
> she was looking directly at the officer when she accelerated
Because he is a masked gunman with ability to leave her child motherless which he actually did.