Originally Posted by
Morgs153
As someone who trained, supervised, and spent a career as a practitioner of law enforcement the thing that bothers me is that the immediate escalation to lethal force was not obviously justified here. Just because someone is "breaking laws" does not mean they are subject to an instant execution. I have some familiarity with the continuum of a use of force response.
There were other fully equipped uniformed officers in the immediate vicinity of Ashli. Any one of those of whom could have effected an arrest, intervention, or redirection of her movements. Hey, some of them tried to render aid to her after she was shot. There is a considerable size differential between the shooter (as seen in the video) and Ashli. If she is trying to crawl through a broken window, with empty hands, you grab her and pull her through and down to the ground for apprehension. Options for low level or intermediate level use of force were neglected to go right for lethal force where it was not at all necessary. This is the crux of it, not the issue of - she was breaking the law.
There are lots of laws and lots of ways of dealing with people who are breaking laws. We don't catch shoplifters and then say, "Now turn your head to the right so I can put this one behind your left ear, cause you broke the law." We apply the use of force necessary to effect the necessary outcome. Ashli was not representing life threatening harm, or the possibility of such, to anyone in that immediate moment. Shooting her was the screw up of all screw ups and now it is covered up and protected at the highest levels of government.
The police officer in Minnesota who grabbed her gun when she thought she was grabbing her Taser committed one of those big screw ups. But she didn't mean to shoot the guy, she meant to use intermediate methods and she screwed up. This agent who shot Ashli Babbitt did not appropriately apply the correct use of force for the supposed threat at the moment. The officer in Minnesota has been identified and is being dealt with for her screw up. The officer who killed Ashli Babbitt is getting away with it.
Look, there was no case made that a high level Secret Service protectee was in the immediate area of where Ashli was killed. Nobody has yet shown me any signage that read something to the effect of - violators attempting to go beyond this point are subject to deadly force - like if you tried to get into a nuke weapons area of a military installation. Nobody has tried to make any rationalization for why immediate deadly force was necessary. They are just trying to make it - go away.