EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Most straightforward? I think it's about equal in complexity with a regular incompetence narrative. Like, who is "they"? Although apparently some requests were denied for extra support, but others were granted, so it's not so clear-cut. The Trump shooting also took place just after a big NATO event in Europe, where presumably the USSS needed a few more hands for. Also, there are variants that range wildly depending on who you think was in the loop, and all of that is resting on the background assumption that "they" even wanted the shooting to happen, which is pretty doubtful given the USSS's documented and historical pro-Republican leanings. If "they" refers only to top leadership, presumably political appointees, it's extremely doubtful they would have the means to directly and without a trail interfere in specific event planning. They are just too far up the chain of command.
No, the simplest explanation is that they attempted to stop the shooter but did not do so due to a combination of laziness/complacency (it's been several decades since a major attempt; it's hot outside; local police can handle it; someone else's problem), communication troubles (USSS over-delegating in the planning stage, bad day-of communication about the exact status, location, and threat level of the person of interest)
Okay, fine, second simplest. Again, who exactly is "they"? Like, if we say that one of the two counter-sniper teams deliberately withheld their fire until after the shooter fired, that's probably the simplest explanation, but even there we can see at least one less-damning explanation accompanies it, such as the team declining to fire due to rules of engagement/not knowing if he was armed/over-caution at creating a PR nightmare by shooting first. I'm hesitant to actually advance a theory given the paucity of the info we have to work with right now (new stuff is only coming out slowly recently, such as today we discovered per the FBI that the shooter fired 8 shots, or at least they found 8 casings) but I strongly disagree that the ingredients that we currently have lean more towards a conspiracy angle. Not that a conspiracy is impossible, on the contrary we absolutely need to keep such in mind.
And even beyond that, it's far from clear that a lot of heads in the USSS won't roll, but to fire someone in an agency like that practically requires that a formal investigation runs its course first. So that's still on the table.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
I’m referring more to things like how NYC set up a whole board to review use of force cases and then the police refused to give them the actual footage or even allow them to interview cops thus making their job almost impossible. That went on for several years IIRC. So things like that, and union resistance, and systemic opposition. I don’t like relying on high profile lawsuits to regulate behavior when there are better more long-term accountability schemes.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Optically, Cooper seems like a great choice
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Also, water is heavy. The pot appears to be a least medium size, but probably large, it's a proper pot and she's using two hands. You can't actually throw pots like that very far, especially since the water tends to slosh around making them pretty unwieldy.
I mean, I don't want to come off as needlessly pedantic but "he tells her that if she does he'll shoot her" seems like a phrase that doesn't quite capture it. He's screaming at her. He draws and points a gun. And even as communication goes I don't think it's effective at all. If you tell someone practically anything at the same time you point a gun at them, you know, chances are they aren't going to process it because they are busy processing a gun being pointed at them. <Okay, yes, he yells at her and then immediately draws the gun before she can respond, but it's still the same processing window> Clearly there's a disconnect -- in fact if you had paused the video at even the second "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" (pause right afterward that is) and asked me, assuming I had no context, "what do you think would happen next," her being literally dead in less than 10 seconds flat would not be on my bingo card, right? To me this doesn't come across as an "ambush" which implies premeditation, but rather an irrational stress reaction directly tied to the cop's aggressive response. Her behavior up to that point was less deranged and more simply someone possibly a little on the dumb side and clearly without their life together. Assuming maximum hostility just feels wrong here and I feel like cops often aren't fully aware how their actions appear on the receiving end. I mean for God's sake, the first words out of her mouth are "uh - okay - uh sorry" and crouching down. Surely that's not the language of someone angry enough to assault a cop, right?
This is a little flippant, but I do wonder if, similar to how if you're given a taser many police departments would require you to be tasered first just to know how it feels (or pepper sprayed for similar reasons), if cops were threatened with their lives at some point if it would affect their respect for their given power. Human psychology is just not well designed for instant compliance in a crisis.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
I mean he was shot dead within a matter of seconds. The potent and important questions all deal with the situation before any shots are fired…
Great find!
As you point out, the fundamental question is one of awareness and communication. The key questions going forward almost all have to do with who knew what, and when. As you point out, leaning out the window would let you see him, but would they know to lean? Did some people assume that the entire roof was observed when it clearly was only a portion? The video obviously disproves the "roof was slanted and therefore dangerous" but I don't think almost anyone took that cope seriously in the first place despite who shared it.
Edit: I should add that there's also a second line of inquiry equally worth pursuing, though it's not new -- who approved and set up the plan in the first place? For example, was putting a team in the water tower actually viable/practical?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
None of points 2-4 are incompatible with this at all. They are all imply at least one takeaway that indicates the cops have work to do and improvements to be made. I never at any point made any claim that unjustified killings were anything other than rare!
The attitude that we should ignore these improvements and instead circle the wagons around police who we should portray as doing no wrong almost always is a problematic one, and doesn't logically follow!
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
I think specific incidents can provide useful frameworks and relatable examples for talking about broader issues, though I agree there's often a methodological kind of issue if we make a habit of starting conversations from individual incidents, rather than bring up an incident as an illustration of a larger problem as I mentioned. Bayes' rule type considerations are absolutely something that should be front of mind.
I mean maybe the location of my replies in this thread might imply otherwise, but fundamentally I'm not one who thinks racial inequity is the biggest problem in policing. I think far bigger problems are principally ones that have to do with the general accountability structure, which is straight up broken. No organization can ever do well indefinitely without these checks and balances. And smaller problems with police mindset and training. For example, cops seem to generally lack some de-escalation skills, though my vague impression is that they've gotten slightly better. Recruiting from the military has always struck me as a problem too, because the fundamental mindset and paradigm are IMO mostly incompatible. I'm also moderately concerned about privacy type issues, though this is rarely a popular concern.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
While Kamala has bad motives probably, I'm not convinced that the aggregate statistics show what you say they do. Like, biased source, but here we see that we're getting 1 million people on the receiving end of force per year, 250,000 injuries including 85,000 of those requiring hospitalization. I'm not including deaths here because I agree those are inherently tricky to generalize from, though the source does emphasize that in some areas. More interesting to me is the second chart here which showed (caution y-axis) a very significant upswing from the early 2000s to ~2012 after which we see a decline back to middling levels. Still, those numbers I don't consider "vanishingly small". I think they are large enough to merit examination -- especially in the context of other countries not having quite the same issue with police as we do, speaking broadly. You could argue part of it lies in media attention, but I think most observers agree there are some actual differences, such as if we compare it to let's say the UK.
Also from a philosophical standpoint, high responsibility roles require high trust and high scrutiny. As the only force allowed a virtual monopoly on mostly-legal violence in the country, I think it's weird to just instantly give cops a pass. Personally, I really think that police departments should be given both increased funding as well as increased accountability in a structural way, which sadly most BLM-aligned "reform" groups seem to miss despite being probably the best and most moral solution. Because if you look carefully, it's pretty obvious that the accountability structure is broken. From an economic/incentives perspective, that's something important to fix.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
While I'm less certain of the location, the provenance seems to check out -- I believe it to have been taken back when he was just a "suspicious person" with a backpack or a rangefinder or behaving oddly around metal detectors. Being local law enforcement also means the quick leaking makes a lot of sense, as they are well known for texting around photos like this and/or leaking them quickly especially around a big event.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
The truly brave people in the Trump assassination attempt weren't really the Secret Service, they are just doing their job. Nope, it's the photojournalists. You have some pretty wild footage from one journalists video-recording glasses here where you get a close-up of the huddle around Trump (which looks extra sloppy from this view) and taking the now-famous photo of trump pumping his fist with the flag in the background. You also have a longer piece here where some of the photographers talk about how they literally started rushing to take pictures the second gunshots started, having recognized the sound right away. I mean, one of them literally captured a bullet whizzing midair, which is crazy. Their instincts to run towards danger because it means a better photo is mental.
Also, the person who snapped the photo of Trump on the ground with blood dripping down his face is literally named Anna Moneymaker, which is hilarious.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
No, you're right, I probably should have been more specific. To the extent that racial justice people and cop critics are separate groups, I suppose I was really talking about the second group, and the related arguments there.
EverythingIsFine
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3mo ago
It's actually not uncommon for news orgs to reach out directly like that. I wouldn't call it "unsourced" just "nonpublic". There are names. The CNN bit specifically cites "Catalin Grigoras, director of the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver, and Cole Whitecotton, Senior Professional Research Associate at the same institution." Since the university posted a link to the CNN article on Instagram, seems legit, and the credentials and experience also seem authentic.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
To be clear, the shooter was tagged as suspicious (but apparently not "threatening") for using a rangefinder earlier on. They didn't speculate much, but a rangefinder is usually a monocular-type handheld thing, often with a laser, and not the same thing as a scope which is something attached directly to a rifle. So telephone games happen a lot after events like this but actually nothing in this respect so far seems to be inaccurate. However, the thing about the roof slope seems to be fairly well established -- the barn the counter-snipers were on was not actually much higher elevation than the building the shooter was on, and distances and geometry make the angles not very good for the counter-snipers, giving the shooter a lot of cover.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
I agree, but it's also true that a lot of local attempts at change have been stonewalled. Does that mean going national is the logical thing to do? I don't really think so, but I somewhat empathize. It happens with things like housing too, right?
EverythingIsFine
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3mo ago
I don't think you even need to squint to see some potential grounds for profiling and unequal treatment going on here (such as their decision to keep investigating, and how they treated her which was not really very compassionate), though I'd attribute more of it to, like, I guess classism rather than racism, so I don't think it's really a great fit for BLM claims beyond the surface level. Just to be clear.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
Sorry, I've edited my comment to acknowledge the 'false positive' aspect. I perceive this kind of exercise as at least somewhat one of those tests where two people can see two different things in the same picture. So I think you really should be viewing both sides on some level.
EverythingIsFine
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3mo ago
This spacial analysis claims 4 sniper teams - two from the USSS, both with somewhat impaired lines of sight, and one or two police teams, including one they think was in the building but with window views that also didn't cover the roof, and the other which they think was much further away, but they didn't sound very sure about it. The article is nice because they have some of their own drone footage they used and also shows what they believe to be the window vantage you describe.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
She was asked and, like most of her answers, basically didn't answer it straight -- though she did throw out something not quite related. All she said was that in general, the Secret Service prefers "sterile rooftops". Either way I don't assign the comment much weight at all -- it's bound to be superceded by whenever we get an actual investigation report.
No, the real question is how quickly we get the report and how detailed the public-facing version is.
I mean, doesn't this body cam video kind of vindicate a lot of BLM-type people cop critics? We have a house call with slightly weird vibes that gets escalated -- BY the cops -- and someone ends up dead in their own home literally 10 seconds after what was previously a peaceful discussion. That kind of background impression, as a Black person especially, would be legitimately terrifying, right? That you could be having a rough night, maybe jumping at shadows, feeling a little off, you call people whose job is to protect and help communities feel and be safe, but you say or do the wrong thing in a moment of panic and you could end up literally dead?
It's sadly a bit self-reinforcing too of course. Nervousness around cops leads to irrational behavior around cops, so you could probably make the argument that demonizing the police is self-defeating behavior. But saying "almost all police shootings are justified" in a non-justified shooting moment is a weird take.
With that said I don't want to be too uncharitable. You're right that if we think about it in a false positive/false negative/etc. kind of sense, the false positives are usually very obvious and often overshadowed by the large amounts of true positives, so to speak.
And there are actually useful takeaways from the body cam video beyond "cops bad" or "cops racist" or something like that. I clearly see gaps in cop training here:
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Was it a good idea or not for them to continue investigating after "resolving" the complaint?
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Why didn't the cop in the first half of the bodycam video speak up more and act as a counterbalance to his clearly annoyed and apparently on a hair-trigger partner?
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Why was the cop so 0 to 100 aggressive in escalating things off of her strange Jesus comment?
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Was the cop's warning/threat to the lady effective in its actual purpose?
1 might have a larger discussion, but 2-4 show some clear missteps by the police - the partner was ineffective at his job, the cop escalated needlessly, and in a bad and ineffective manner even if he was going to escalate.
Edit: changed vocab to more accurately convey my point
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
This was absolutely a bad cop response. Like sure, she's acting a bit weird and they're annoyed at what's maybe a nuisance call, she's got a smashed window on her car so they are maybe trying to probe for some more information (they almost walked away from the call), and she's doing some random shit on her phone the whole team which would drive me mental, but overall she's just having a hard time finding her ID because the officer insisted on it rather than just have her spell it out. But the vibe isn't confrontational or anything. And honestly, even taking a long time to find where your wallet is, I will say, is a gender gap kind of thing -- a lot of women have multiple purses, and don't keep things in consistent spots.
Anyways, they are totally just chilling even if the cop who would later do the shooting is clearly a bit annoyed, she even says "one second" and goes to check the boiling water. She says "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" and he's like huh? and she repeats it. Definitely weird but it's not like she's screaming at them and again, there's no escalation going on. Rather than try to figure out what she's saying or whatever, remember the cops are a little ways away and across in the other room (also, have you lifted a pot of water? shit's HEAVY)... the cop literally turns the dial all the way to 11 and says in a very loud voice that he'll shoot her in the fucking head and puts his hand on his gun. Shots are going to be fired seconds later. She doesn't even get anything coherent out after he says that. She's clearly panicking, and you know? I maybe would too? Someone just threatened to shoot me in the head, kind of out of nowhere? I don't really know what she was trying to communicate with the Jesus thing but it doesn't really come across as threatening, if anything, the fact she was willing to repeat it for the cop who was confused seems to indicate that it wasn't a big deal to her? Like virtually 100% of the escalation was done by the one cop.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3mo ago
In fact reporting supports this. I saw a few articles that even identified a specific time frame where he made his decision Saturday night, identified who on his team knew about it, etc.
Two things allegedly contributed. One, yes, apparently he was taking longer to recover from COVID than expected, so half right there. Two, he got some polling data from the swing states, and oh boy was it bad.
In fact, and I found this interesting, they hadn’t done new major polling in swing states for almost two months! At least two sources I saw chalked this up to almost willful ignorance.
There were two counter sniper teams. Isn’t it possible the burst came from the other team, the one off on Trump’s left, but they missed because they were trying to respond in a hurry? But the USSS wanted to look good and so has emphasized the “one shot one kill” narrative. At least that’s what we know initially assumed to be the case, and it would also be consistent with 3 weapons.
Also, this special analysis from today indicates that the his specific spot on the roof was probably covered by trees from the second team, and also discusses theorized positions of two law enforcement counter sniper teams who also didn’t have a view.
Isn't there a bit of a vocabulary disconnect here? "Conspiracy" is obviously a bit of a slippery term and often used in a colloquial sense to refer simply to unpopular opinions. "Actual" conspiracies involve multiple people and a knowing deception of some sort, I think those are generally the two innate ingredients.
Like, take Iraq. What we currently understand about the flow of information in the lead-up to war was that indeed Cheney and a few people around him, probably including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, not only hid info that didn't match their desired conclusion but even manipulated the report-writing process by assigning top CIA analysts to other things and protecting their pro-WMD from challenge. This meets the definition of conspiracy easily. However, we should probably mention two things -- one, George W Bush was elected, along with Cheney who he chose himself after winning the primary democratically (basically, the people in representative democracy style are saying they trusted his judgement) but also Rumsfeld was confirmed by the Senate. I have often claimed and continue to do so that the buck probably does stop with Bush in the sense that he chose bad people to trust, but more direct blame can accurately be laid at Cheney's feet and the people around him who, and this has also been documented, wanted a war in Iraq for their own reasons (a mix of corrupt motives, such as oil and personal feelings, but also probably at least a little bit of ideology). Note that a lot of people in the government did in fact oppose this Iraq push, not everyone was corrupt, but they sadly did not win the day. It must be said however that at least in a loose sense, the Iraq war's legacy lost the Republicans the presidency for the next 8 years almost single-handedly, so even though that's obviously far short of the accountability we wanted, and the accountability we deserve, there was some change at least in a moving-forward sense. Also, quite frankly, it is actually worrying that not enough people acknowledge that Iraq does in fact meet the classic "conspiracy" definition. I am in total agreement in that respect.
Does Biden's age count as a conspiracy? While in a sense there's a knowing deception yes, some of the actions of his aides and close circle also resemble regular "spin" and clever politicking. Biden is probably still capable of performing 95% of his job even in his current diminished state, so even though we were clearly lied to, and I'm upset about it, I am not quite willing to say it was completely corrupt -- I think claims that Biden was/is actually incapable and that his inner circle wanted it that way so that they could control the strings or something is ridiculous. So of course "spin" can come quite close to a lie -- in fact we just heard something of that nature tonight in Biden's address where he at once claimed to never lie to the public and in the same breath talked about how he is stepping aside to be a bridge and protect democracy, which is an obvious falsehood as it's manifestly clear he was forced out by public and private pressure. It's a total farce. However, I think it's still useful on some level to distinguish between these sort of spin-lies and more corrupt ones.
Anyways all of this as a long-winded way to say that while I think the spirit of your answer was excellent and directly in line with what was asked, answering with substance which I applaud, I don't like the original question very much. There's a difference between being generally mistrustful about the government, and regularly placing trust in implausible conspiracies involving a ton of people. Like, specifically, the Iraq conspiracy only required a few useful idiots in the CIA (see for example this posthumous interview which talks about what I mentioned about the less-skilled analysts being assigned the WMD analysis and the lack of internal challenge) and only about 2-5 administration officials in the defense department (chosen by Bush, however) to effectively cut the President off from critical info. Contrast this with 9/11 conspiracies, which in their most popular form (the famous jet fuel can't melt steel beams) require a very large circle of complicit and perfectly secretive people across many areas of government. Basically, a good rule of thumb is the more localized a group, the more likely the conspiracy is, and the converse is a strong argument against many popular theories.
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