Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/28/since-george-floyds-murder-104-drivers-including-8-cops-have-rammed-protestors-with-vehicles.html
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently proposed legislation that would provide protections to drivers who ram protestors, repeating a political stunt that failed in 2017.
These stunts by GOP politicians don’t really fail, though. Whether or not the laws are passed or not, their mere proposal by elected officials is just another element of creating stochastic terrorists.
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Here the aftermath of a Mercedes driver that rammed a group of cyclist and ended running in a restaurant, killing one of the customers. Got a manslaughter charge and multiple damages, and probabily was DUI.
Now I don’t understand how, even a conservative politician could possibly allow a behaviout that could be used in defence of accidents like this.
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DeSantis: fucking racist in plain sight.
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What really gets me is that, following up some of the stories - including one where someone drove against traffic to position themselves to ram into a massive crowd of protesters - is that the cops, when they actually find the driver, inevitably release them because the driver claims it was self-defense (i.e. that the crowd had “attacked their car”).
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This is an EXCELLENT piece of journalism. Meticulously researched and well written. This is what the US Dept of Justice should be doing, but refuses to do. Kudos to the reporter, Grace Hauck, for picking up the slack.
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There was recently on reddit in /publicfreakouts a vid of a “BLM” actist driving through a Nostradumbass rally of supporters. And OFC there was a “SEE BOTH SIDES” stream of comments.
They left off the context of these rally folks followed this woman to her car and harassed her en masse. Then screamed good luck getting out of here alive to her as they surrounded her vehicle. She did the only thing she had at her disposal to protect herself.
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These vehicle attacks and the rhetoric from their supporters (yes, in 2020 we now have Americans who are supporters of vehicle attacks), which is basically “stay off the road when I’m on it”, makes me legit more wary when I’m walking or jogging in my neighborhood. There are many stretches where I have to cross the street without a crosswalk (though given that many of these vehicle attacks occur in crosswalks, they’re no consolation either) or have to walk on the shoulder of the road. While I walk I just hope I’m not surpised by someone who a) supports vehicle attacks and b) has a strict definition of where pedestrians belong.
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Yeah, that appeared to be an actual case of a crowd attacking a car, which is the fantasy that right-wingers have dreamt up about protesters and which they use to justify vehicle attacks. Their hypocrisy and bend-over-backwards justifications for violence just get more and more outlandish and further and further from reality.
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These haters realize that this ‘Drive Thru Crowd’ move is a two-way street, right?
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It doesn’t help that you can pretty much kill with impunity in a car already. You can run over a whole family in a crosswalk, claim you didn’t see them, and not even lose your driver’s license as long as you don’t flee the scene or fail a Breathalyzer. Our system is already primed to give drivers a pass in “accidents.”
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THOM: Maybe legalizing vehicular manslaughter on protestors was a bad idea?
GOP POLITICIAN: I don’t know why you’d think that.
Attacking people exercising their Constitutional rights should be tried as treason.
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This guy was shot by police. He survived, and is now awaiting trial (probably delayed due to COVID-19)
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Because if you’re running over people not like you (aka Liberals) then it’s not a crime. If you’re shooting and killing people not like you it’s not a crime. Pretty simple standard to live by.
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Caltrops are a pretty good area denial weapon, and are super easy to make. Works against both wheels and feet. Just saying.
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Except guess who gets prosecuted/killed, and who doesn’t? Witness how Kyle Rittenhouse was treated (shot at a crowd, cops ignored him even when he told them he shot people), vs. Michael Forest Reinoehl (claimed to have shot a man in self-defense, tracked down, ambushed and assassinated by cops as he stood in the street).
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And they are next to useless on a march in an urban area. You create a massive hazard for people later, it won’t stop a vehicle at close range and once you get far enough that it is effective at stopping the vehicle, you’ve introduced another few intersections. Unless your plan for caltrops is for a stationary activity, it is going to require carrying around hundreds of pounds of invisible caltrops (cops will arrest the person with a large amount of visible booby traps).
