George Floyd...
- Thread starter BlackSG91
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Drew
Forum MVP
Dammit, you're right.
Adieu
Well-Known Member
Kevin Sorbo's career haven't been functional in decades.
spudmunkey
Well-Known Member
The jury is asking to see the drone footage that is at the center of the defense's motion for a mistrial. I think that's going to push the issue for the judge and we might never find out what the jury determines...
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You mean the footage that shows Rosenbaum making his final mistakes?
StevenC
Needs a hobby
TIL throwing socks is a murderable offense.
Chokey Chicken
mouth breather
Yeah, Rosenbaum was just chasing him with fifty other people to give him a hug. The guy who shot the gun just before was just celebrating their new found friendship with Kyle.
Adieu
Well-Known Member
A unarmed mob chasing a guy armed with a rifle is idiotic. A guy with a rifle shooting one of the unarmed guys in the mob chasing him is equally as idiotic, though.
I think we all know that Rittenhouse is likely to walk free from this. I think that whether he is locked up or goes free, ultimately, it sends an equally as dangerous message to society, because either we are saying a) it's okay to insert yourself into a tense and dangerous situation as long as you have a gun and take out a couple of other people who were stupid enough to insert themselves into the same dangerous situation or b) it's not okay to defend yourself from an angry mob chasing you. Thanks to the combination of public stupidity, the incompetence of the prosecution, and the flamboyance of the judge in playing this out as everyone expected (and then acting like it's the media's fault for portraying him for whom he really is), there is no winning outcome.
It's the loss of subtlety that's the real criminal here.
Maybe I'm missing something. Is he still culturally relevant to certain political groups or are we just being shitty toward people with brain injury? I can't tell the difference anymore.
Adieu
Well-Known Member
Why isn't ANYTHING done against/to a random youngster running around in public with an assault rifle acting super suspicious (or at all, really) considered automatic legitimate self defense?
Jonathan20022
Engineer
Okay, if we're really going with this perspective on "dangerous situations" then every single person protesting at night is equally inserting themselves into a needlessly dangerous situation as well.
There's literally 0 reason to protest in the middle of the night, and no this didn't happen at 6pm after everyone dipped out of their day job to go protest. The shooting happened at fucking midnight, it's easier for bad actors to conceal themselves, makes tracking of events a fucking shitshow. Our right to protest should be exercised, but if there's some reasonable degree of holding intent, then every single person there carries some of the responsibility to a degree.
Regarding the AI/iPad commentary here a few pages back, I tuned into a few of the live streams. The reason the argument was brought up in the first place, was because they were using zoomed in drone footage to determine the angle which Rittenhouse had his weapon set to in this specific moment.
I don't know about any of you, but no matter what position I was in, if my fucking life rested on the balance and this was the "evidence" used to ascertain what I was doing in any given moment. I'd tell the prosecution to fuck off and find better evidence.
Devices that capture media absolutely spit out content that is inherently modified via algorithms and AI. No, it will not alter clear in focus subjects in a drastic way, but some shit in the background you had to zoom in on? Yeah your device is going to make estimations of what it's seeing and modify the result depending on the device/applications used.
There's an argument to be made for tech illiteracy in antiquated systems, but hold yourself to a higher standard and at least look into the situation. Anyone would contest evidence like that being presented as critical to convicting you on life sentence(s).
Drew
Forum MVP
I mean, if you're going to make this argument, that's fine... but it then requires some evidence that there WERE bad actors present, Rittenhouse knew there were bad actors present and believed he was shooting one, or was mistaken in his belief that bad actors were present and he was shooting one but at least had robust enough reasons for those beliefs that he was acting in good faith.
Short of that, you're starting with the presumption that protesters were guilty (which, I'll note, even then doesn't entitle Rittenhouse to shoot them, simply because they were assumed to be bad actors), and the entire premise of the US judicial system is innocent until proven otherwise. Rittenhouse deserves due process, and if the crux of his defense is that people protesting at midnight were probably violent criminals hell bent on murdering him because who else would be out at midnight, that's a pretty poor defense.
That's exactly what I've been saying.
The prosecution has definitely been highly inept throughout much of this process. I don't think any reasonable person would say that they did a good job at this point. And yes, if the prosecution doesn't do their job, it would be unjust to use that as an excuse to convict people.
Ideally, self defense is only applicable (in Wisconsin) when a person is in fear of their own life. Oddly, this defense removes culpability for both intentional and accidental death. For example, if I reasonably felt threatened, and pulled out a gun and shot at a person who was threatening me (the law does not specify what that means, BTW), and missed, and shot a baby and/or pregnant woman or whatever, I could just say "whoops, sorry, it was self-defense," and Wisconsin would be like "Oh ok, we're good here, carry on." So, Rittenhouse's defense, had he only shot Rosenbaum, could have been that he was shooting at whomever was firing those other shots and missed and hit Rosenbaum multiple times on accident. The state would have likely just shrugged and let him go.
Where it gets sticky, legally, is that no one was really supposed to be there. Rittenhouse had no business there. He was told by authorities to disperse. The crowd was likely told the same thing. There was a curfew in effect anyway. Where the defense went with this was that these three "shootees" (can't say victims here, so I had to make up a word) were threatening Rittenhouse (which whether they were or not is immaterial in Wisconsin, as long as he reasonably believed he was threatened), so it was self defense. Where the prosecution went was that you can't claim self defense if you instigated the threat, meaning that he wasn't supposed to be there (he wasn't) and he was acting in a threatening manner (he was, but to what extent, we don't know). But, unfortunately for the prosecution, none of these things are worded clearly in the law, like at all, and there really isn't any case law from Wisconsin that parallels this scenario too well. So it is ground breaking in a way. But not at all in a good way.
The way I see it (this is purely opinion) is that, assuming you find yourself in a situation where you are about to be attacked by a mob, and you are armed with a deadly weapon, you are authorized to use that force only when you have no other option. If I'm running away from a mob, and one of the guys in the mob is faster than me and gaining on me, I may suspect that the guy will try to take my weapon and use it against me or other people, but, I should only be able to use that weapon against him once he's within range to take it. That seems to be the case, according to evidence. In the moment that would seem to be self-defense.
Shooting number two. Again, Rittenhouse is being chased. This time the guy (Huber) who caught up to him hit him with a skateboard and tried to disarm him. I'm having a tougher time with this one. A reasonable person would understand that they just killed someone, so people are going to try to disarm me for their own protection, but, an unreasonable person might think that everyone is just out to kill them. Here we get into some actual trouble with the 2nd amendment. You have the right to self-defense, according to the constitution, but if everyone could simply vaporize any person who poses any sort of perceived threat, knowing how crazy some people are, we would all be dead, surely, so you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say "this is reasonable" and then whatever is not reasonable isn't protected under 2A. From a mile-high view, I doubt Huber intended to kill Rittenhouse, but rather was trying to protect others from being shot. I doubt Rittenhouse understood that, and he probably felt that everyone was trying to kill him. So he shot Huber and killed him, under quite a bit of emotional distress having had just killed someone and actively being chased by a mob.
Shooting number three. Grosskreutz approached Rittenhouse to neutralize an active shooter. Rittenhouse shot him and ran away. Again, Rittenhouse was probably not thinking clearly and maybe Grosskreutz would have killed him, because, in his mind, he'd be stopping a potential threat. Maybe the lesson for Grosskreutz to take away from this would be to shoot first. At least, if we throw away the conclusion that he maybe shouldn't have been there at all in the first place, that's probably the most logical conclusion we'd be left with.
This is generally what happens in a world where everyone is amped up on misinformation and political vigor and also armed with a deadly weapon. things will ostensibly devolve into shootings where everyone thinks everyone else is trying to kill them, and maybe they all are trying to kill each other. But, none of these people should have been there in the first place, so, in retrospect, these shootings were almost an inevitable outcome of the poor decision making that led up to the moments themselves.
Huber and Rosenbaum are dead. Did they deserve to die? I don't know, but I guess it doesn't matter. Did Rittenhouse kill them in self defense? Yeah. Does self defense work as a legal defense when you are the aggressor? No. Did the prosecution prove that Rittenhouse was the aggressor? I guess we'll find out soon. But I think the more important angle to this is whether self defense works as a legal defense under nuanced circumstances where you are somewhere neither you nor the person from whom you are defending yourself are supposed to be, and both parties showed up to start trouble with each other. For instance, after the Boston Marathon bombing, would I have been legally in the right if I grabbed a rifle and went down there from Vermont with the intention of apprehending the two guys who were on the run? If I did so, and ended up cornering some random unarmed Chechen guy who was not one of the bombers, pulled my gun on him, and ordered him to freeze, and he charged at me to get away, and I misinterpreted his action as a threat and shot him, would I be able to successfully argue self defense? I don't think so, because that's ridiculous. Right? But, probably in that exact moment, if I discount the rest of the situation, I might honestly and appropriately be able to argue that I truly believed he was going to try to take my gun away and then shoot me with it. The problem isn't in the moment the shot was fired, the problem is in the 100% bad decision making leading up to a situation that has no possible positive outcome.
Adieu
Well-Known Member
Wtf?
"Oooh a riot, mom can you drive me? lemme bring my ASSAULT RIFLE" is the effing DEFINITION of a bad actor
Btw, I still firmly believe that it is the disgrace and deriliction of duty of American law enforcement that they didn't threaten to shoot him on sight and didn't follow through after like maybe 3 seconds if he didn't surrender and faceplant into the asphalt. Just for showing up to civil unrest with an assault weapon, never mind firing it.
"Oooh a riot, mom can you drive me? lemme bring my ASSAULT RIFLE" is the effing DEFINITION of a bad actor
Btw, I still firmly believe that it is the disgrace and deriliction of duty of American law enforcement that they didn't threaten to shoot him on sight and didn't follow through after like maybe 3 seconds if he didn't surrender and faceplant into the asphalt. Just for showing up to civil unrest with an assault weapon, never mind firing it.
spudmunkey
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Yep, throwing socks can be pretty dangerous.
