Connecticut woman killed after attempting to "ram White House barricade"

boing
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Your response seems to pull in opposite directions. Are you actually asking for more security, more surveillance, and more invasive measures? Because in other posts you seem to reject this mentality, and suggest that you are poked, prodded, and X-rayed in areas like this (though the truth is that nothing like this happens: I was never stopped or searched in a year and a half of walking by the senate buildings & Capitol on a daily basis, though it is true that those who park in government parking lots by these buildings have to open their trunks when they enter).

I think if the government had some sort of magical technology that could tell exactly what was in a moving car, be it a bomb or a child, airport security and roads in places like Iraq would be a lot safer.

Also, if they do put the security measures in place around the Capitol and/or White House that you seem to be calling for, it won’t be to prevent the death of someone who might be planning on attacking the White House/Capitol. It will be to prevent an attack and facilitate neutralizing threats.

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I think she meant to say ‘spikes.’ Spike belts are typically placed when they know what route the suspect will be going, and they obviously require some advance planning. I’m not sure how helpful they are when your main concern is not so much a prolonged high-speed chase but a possible attack by the occupant of the car. They could conceivably help, though.

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OK, spike belts. Usable only when you can blockade all other traffic from that road.

I still think that’s confusing TV/movie policing with real world policing. The gimmicks and tricks just don’t work as well when you can’t write them into the script.

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What exactly is it about their system of thought and organization that led them to conclude she was a threat was wrong? What should they have concluded from the way she acted (i.e., strikes barrier at White House, runs over fence, strikes secret service officer, leads high speed chase, strikes police cars, almost hits police officer who have drawn guns pointed at her, resumes chase and is finally stopped when she hits a security post)? How does this indicate that she was not a threat, and that neutralizing her was inappropriate?

I guess I do disagree that this, in terms of the response from the police, went terribly, terribly wrong. I’m not sure they made the wrong decision, and the easiest way to prevent this outcome would have been for the woman to make different decisions. She may not have been capable of making better decisions due to her mental state, but her actions forced the police to assume the worst.

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Yes. Spikes. My bad.
Now let’s see if I got accused of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist, lol…

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I think I must have given you the wrong impression. Yes -I absolutely value my privacy. I’ve been through metal detectors at the courts, and worked in federal facilities where you had to allow your bags to be searched and go through 4 levels of security just to get into your office. Spent years with a Native American who couldn’t get through an airport without us getting stopped because of the color of his skin. This IS a level of personal invasion that has never before existed. Part of my perspective is from having lived at SAC Headquarters during the height of the Cold War, where friendly foreign leaders would come to get up on beefing up their own air forces. Everything is gated You show ID just about everywhere. But…even there, you only opened your trunk when a particular murder investigation was under way.

So, I don’t hate security measures, per se. I don’t adore them, but military installations are a darned good place to pay attention to such things. I mean, I grew up at Ground Zero., And even there, even when there was major perceived threat levels, we didn’t get subjected to this kind of invasive scrutiny! It wasn’t because they were dumb, or just because the tech didn’t exist yet. With proper ID, you can still today walk into all kinds of military installations without the kind of stuff you go through just to board a train today. My objection is limited to senseless prying that shows no actual benefit…and now, the lack of some tools that could make securing an area work better without all that.

I find this post 9-11 stuff insane, though. And I do question whether we shouldn’t develop our technology into some other, more highly targeted, tools such as I mentioned for situations like these. That is to say, not to be used on everyone, all the time - though the contractors who build and sell the stuff would love it. But use it only when there is probable cause. As in, we have robots used for bomb detection and smoke and other detection devices that are NOT used or which do nothing until or unless the dangerous situation actually arises. To do it faster and more efficiently and reduce danger to the public rather than increase it just makes sense. It’s not a case of can’t. It’s only a case of ‘hasn’t been done YET’.

You want to use drones? OK. Use them for this kind of thing. Equip them with useful sensors, keep them at the ready just as you would handguns, and send them up…WHEN there is probable cause. Program them to lock in on a target, just as long-range weapons can do.

In most places, you can listen to the police bands from any droid device these days. I have the app myself. So, why do these agencies not monitor one another’s calls, when they are working a relatively small geographic zone? What? They can snag our personal comm, but can’t even talk to each other? Nah. Doesn’t wash. That’s not even a case where the tech doesn’t already exist. That’s just an organizational screw-up.

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Whoa, whoa, hold up, conspiracy theory man! I can speak for myself, there’s no need for you to “spin” me.

I would simply like to see a picture of the objects she is supposed to have hit. Preferably, while she was hitting them, since there were probably surveillance cameras everywhere. Normally such pictures are easily come by when someone hits something.

Your previous reply to my post contained a completely false claim - either a mistake or a lie - and you aren’t fixing that by making insinuations against me.

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So you’re saying that your choice of words “the barrier she rammed with her marvelously undamaged car” didn’t contain any insinuations or suggestive language, and in itself wasn’t a false statement? The fact remains that she didn’t “ram” any barrier. The language describing her initial contact at the White House is much more subdued, saying she struck a post and knocked down a barrier. It does not describe contact with a singular object that could be thought of as “the barrier she rammed.” Based on that, and my prior discussion of the barriers at the end of the chase, I assumed you were talking about those barriers, none of which she “rammed.” Furthermore, I haven’t seen anything indicating her car is “marvelously undamaged.” Maybe you can show me reports or high-resolution photographs indicating that her car is undamaged?

As for images from the White House encounter, it’s pretty clear that the powers that be have chosen not to release the video at this time. Again, however, I’m asking why you need footage of this. Again, I’ll point out it is pretty clear that she did strike police cars, yet her car still appears to you to be “marvelously undamaged.” Why is the apparent damage to her car a material consideration at this time?

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Man, I’m just asking for pictures. Why are you flipping out? Do you know something I don’t know? If I see photos of the barriers and poles that this car struck will the Earth fall out of its orbit and go spinning into the Sun?

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It doesn’t look to me like this vehicle was ever “attempting to ram [a] White House barricade” so naturally I wanted to see what kind of wimpy barricades were being talked about. If that car really struck a pole at more than a slow walking pace, it’s better built than any other car I know of these days. I mean, look at it - ignore the pulverized back end - that nick on the fender looks like she hit a marshmallow.

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Seconded purely out of curiosity; I’d really like to know more about exactly what happened where, not because I want to challenge anything but because I’d like to have a few more facts and a bit less pure speculation.

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Right. You’re just asking for pictures (as well as complaining about me making completely false claims, and possibly lying). And I’m just asking why they are so important.

If you tell me why you want to see the pictures will the Earth fall out of its orbit and go spinning into the Sun?

My impression from the WaPo piece I linked to earlier was that she indeed was going at a very slow speed when she initially hit a barrier/pole at the White House. I imagine if she was “ramming” things at high speed then shots would have been fired at that point as well (not to mention that it would be difficult, and make no sense, to try and throw a small barrier in front of her car at that time. It also would have made it very difficult for everyone here to suspect she was just lost and panicky when she was at the White House—ramming a barrier tends to dispel these trains of thought fairly quickly.

Anyway, if I had to guess, I would guess that the Secret Service feels that releasing video may reveal sensitive information about how they respond to threats. It’s understandable if they don’t want to disseminate that information. Maybe they’ll release some additional information down the line. I’m not sure why it is so important why we see pictures, and you’re not doing much to clear that up.

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