Spanga added, “Trump administration officials have claimed she intended to ram ICE agents before she was shot.”
In the end, it does not matter what her intentions were. Her actions, not her intentions, drive the analysis. She refused orders to get out of the car after obstructing the federal agents and then struck the officer.
The protests and the reporting seem entirely detached from the legal standard. It is much like the media mantra that the January 6th riot was an “insurrection.” It did not matter that no such charge was brought against Trump or others. (Only a handful were charged with sedition, which some of us opposed).
Omar explained:
“I mean, it is, the most BS statement again, that the administration, can put out. You see this officer clearly go in front of, the car as she reverses. You see his hands, on the car, you see, his feet is very far away from the wheels of the car. So there was no possibility, that he might have been afraid, of getting, hit by the car. And so it is a clear PR, it’s a defense, of a clear murder, that we see on TV, by the administration. And it is shameful, and it should not be acceptable is unconscionable. And I stand by everything that I’ve said.
…
“I am very comfortable with the word murder. There is no conscience way in which you watch the video that the administration itself has produced. And you do not see this person, this officer, Jonathan Ross, clearly murdering this woman. Not only does he shoot her in the face, but you see two more shots being fired on the side of the driver’s window. There is no way to explain this outside of it being a clearly thought out murder, an execution of this woman.”
A “clearly thought out murder”? The video shows a split-second response from an officer who was struck by the car.
The Supreme Court has stressed that the reasonableness standard is addressed “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” As the Court stressed in Graham v. Connor, “police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving[.]”
Notably, even officers who were able to evade or dodge an approaching car have been found to have lawfully used lethal force. No actual contact is required.
Given the strong arguments that can be made for this officer, one would think that CBS and other news organizations would avoid a declaration of murder. Even if you disagree with the use of force, it is not true that this can be reported as murder. There has not been a completion of the investigation, let alone an adjudication.