Miriam Carey definitely acted recklessly and erratically enough that law enforcement was justified in using lethal force, but I think they could have avoided it and it saddens me that they didn’t.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I keep wondering why they didn’t shoot out the tires or otherwise disable the vehicle. In essence they killed an unarmed woman and endangered her infant for what were traffic violations. In fairness, they thought it was much worse. Still, it seems that the police increasing jump to lethal force.
I think you can make the case that she was using the vehicle as a weapon. Shooting tires won’t immobilize vehicles and the danger of ricochets is much higher. That didn’t stop them from firing at her. It’s sad but they are lucky no one else was seriously hurt.
Did you ever drive a car with two blow outs? I have. You don’t get far.
Shooting out tires was not necessarily the best option nor without risk. Looks to me like they gave her every opportunity to give herself up at the barrier closest to the WH. I don’t know that a hail of bullets was necessary at the end of the chase.
Serious question: how easy is it to shoot out the tires of a car? I know that in most situations even trained professionals can’t hit a person reliably.
It’s a big target. The news reports I saw said she was climbing the stairs with the car. You can’t do that going fast. In any case, I asked if they tried.
It looks to me like they panicked and decided to kill her. And everyone but me is ok with that. I’m sorry, I don’t think ten cops shooting at an unarmed woman on foot is justified, even if she had killed another cop with the car moments before. When she was unarmed and afoot, she was no immediate danger and should have been apprehended and tried. The ONLY time deadly force is justified is an IMMEDIATE threat to life. I don’t like cops deciding to execute people they are mad at.
Those were no ordinary traffic violations.
Considering what happened at the White House, I have no doubt some of the officers were wondering if she had tried to kill president.
Or if the car was rigged with explosives and she was trying to get close to a government facility to detonate it.
But it wasn’t.
Maybe she was even a Communist agent!
I think it more likely the child was the communist agent.
We actually don’t know what happened at the WH. Or have the details of what happened when she was stopped near the SCOTUS building and shot to death.
All we have is the video from when she was stopped in front of the Capitol and escaped.
There’s also a video of a cop ramming his car into a concrete pillar that may or may not have had anything to do with the incident. And appears to be the only law enforcement professional that required medical attention.
I find it terribly disturbing that most people are cutting a large number of cops so much slack. For professionals, they collectively demonstrated panic and reliance on guns. Like a gang of George Zimmermans in a situation that may not have been as murky and threatening to themselves.
I see driving into a barrier and failing to stop for a police officer. Also speeding and reckless driving.
Hardly capital crimes.
She hit one of those officers. That’s attempted murder.
Didn’t see that in the news. Or did you mean hit his car? If hitting the car is attempted murder what about the guy who deliberately ran over the biker in New York?
There are evidently a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is that would have subjected bystanders to (even more) risk. The whole thing is just tragic, even if it seems like there may not be much else the police could have done.
I also wonder if the shutdown spurred this. Was she only trying to see Obama or Harry Reid or Boehner?
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From my diary @BooMan.
For once I agree with every word of Booman’s post.
just tragic all around. What strange times in washington these days.
Death by cop? I dunno; anything’s possible. She seemed to be determined about getting through and was willing to risk her life and her child’s to do it.
If I see a large black SUV barreling towards me, driving erratically, I’m going to react. But I do wish it had ended differently. Very sad story.
agree
She must have been crazy if she brought the child with her.
She wasn’t driving an SUV.
As for “She seemed to be determined about getting through …”, this is speculation and not supported by the current facts in evidence. She was stopped at the WH and left. Forced to stop by several police cars when she was in front of the Capitol. She escaped from that location and was later stopped and killed.
As the reporting on this continues to come out, it is becoming more obvious that this woman was likely suffering from mental illness. This would help to explain why she seemed so oblivious to efforts to stop her and simply continued on what, in her mind, was a very real mission.
If you have ever dealt with someone who is delusional and paranoid, then you know that all rationality to explain or understand their actions goes right out the window. This was a tragedy of epic proportions for her family, and another indication that our society just does not yet have a good grasp on the tenuous world in which many mentally ill people reside.
As someone who has a loved one who suffers from mental illness, every circumstance in this incident just makes me very, very sad.
Me too, Mike. I understand completely.
One really has to live it to even remotely understand. Sadly, it sounds like you know what I’m talking about.
Yeah, ask me about ECT sometime if you’re curious about it. Its extreme, but in our case it worked great. Very expensive, though. We’re still carrying some of the debt from 10 years ago.
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The House applauding this was nuts.
The anxiety that the GOP has put the country in can have lots of different expressions. One wonders if this was one of them.
Another is is the guy today who set himself on fire at 7th and Madison by the National Mall.
Wonder is Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC11) understands the potential consequences of his little stunt.
The police could likely have avoided shooting the driver had they not been operating out of worst-case-scenario car-bomb mode.
But the “individual responsibility” freaks are goint have fun with this one. Except they are already freaking out over Hillary2016.
And on Miriam Carey, the Daily News is the Daily News:
Capitol shooting: Slain mom Miriam Carey thought Obama monitored, filmed her
Could be injury, could be post-partum depression, could be reaction to psychoactive drugs being used to treat her.
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Many women go through the struggle of the baby blues or severe PPD. My daughter went through this trauma. You think you are strong, but without professional help and treatment the consequences can be severe.
Right.
The script is always followed when these more and more frequent events occur- from mainstream media, including “alternative news source” NPR: “Authorities are looking into why she did it”. and: “it was determined the incident was not related to terrorism”.
that’s real comforting to the numerous paranoid types that have bought into the “there’s a terrorist behind every tree” nonsense/propaganda.
Regarding the why; of course we have to pretend these events are just “aberrations”. we can conveniently ignore the low level psychosis that obviously many people are suffering from. we ignore until it impacts us personally, then it’s a problem.
Notice that media almost never asks: “why has the childhood poverty rate increased dramatically the past few years?”. we need to just accept that, too, as the new “normal”.
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At 02:15 pm Miriam Carey drove up to the entrance gate of the South Lawn at the White House and spoke to a Secret Service agent as her vehicle was not recognized. She was refused entry and the “chase began”. See map of location below in article.
CNN: “Thursday’s drama began around 2 p.m., when the woman steered a black Infiniti near the White House, a U.S. Secret Service source said. She drove up to a barrier at the 15th and E street checkpoint and was approached by Secret Service officers. She hurriedly made an erratic three-point turn, striking the barrier and backing into an officer before driving away. Police said the car sped down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, where security vehicles stopped it at Garfield Circle.”
Tell me how a Secret Service agent didn’t notice the one year-old child in her car. Don’t the Washington myriad of agents, plain clothes police, Washington and Capitol police communicate with each other? Total, total PANIC broke out as I witnessed LIVE on about 5/6 satellite stations in Europe: CNN, BBC, Sky News, MSNBC, Bloomberg and Al Jazeera. At the Capitol buildings, people are very lucky no one else got killed and no government agents and police got into a gun battle. This was not a display of security but paranoid, fear, insecurity and very, very unprofessional.
Miriam Carey: Woman killed outside Capitol Hill after trying to “ram gates” of White House
Shut down Congress and let ‘We The People’ get back our jobs. Congress should be in session for just a few months every year, the less these “representatives” can wreck in our lives.
See my diary @BooMan – In Loving Memory – RIP Miriam Carey.
Greg Mitchell: Gunfire on Capitol Hill
Greg Mitchell, The Nation: Unarmed African-American Slain by Police–But This Time on Capitol Hill
A woman with no gun and on foot. Of course, they had to kill her.
A few years ago there was a similar case in Chicago. After surrendering, the young woman dived back into the car to grab a cell phone. This was after midnight. She was shot dead in the act. The cops were crucified and the city sued for wrongful death.
Look, I’m not usually inclined to defend the police. But this woman had already attacked the White House and was heading to the Capitol. She hit one officer, which is attempted murder. She endangered other officers or other traffic. The police had no idea what she wanted, or what weapons she had. They only knew that she was endangering a lot of innocent people. Could they have stopped her some other way? Probably. Would you have wanted to approach that car? Probably not. It was a crisis situation, and it appear that they took reasonable steps. If we’re going to ask our police to be less aggressive, we have to be careful not to accuse them of inappropriate actions when there are none. After listening to you guys tell them they were wrong here, they won’t take anything you say about other situations seriously.
How is it possible that they fired that many shots and didn’t hit the kid? Or that a stray round didnt some else? That’s a miracle.
It does seem to that the cops need some non lethal was to stop a car. If you brush a cop while trying to escape from a cop they consider it attempted murder and can open fire. I get it but a 50 cal round into the engine block will stop you. So will spike strips. So will some things they are developing to create a powerful electric field that cooks the cars electronics.