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is an inaccurate interpretation of the event. See my other comment here. She reached up from the ground and flung the water. Were she cowering, she would still be alive! Really if she chose any other option than lifting up the pot and throwing the boiling water toward the officers.
I think an experiment is in order. You may find the results interesting, but you also seem very confident, so maybe there’s something you know that we don’t. Just record it if so, and I’ll try to find an alternative to liveleak.
Do cops really have such shitty hand-eye coordination that they can't tell whether a mass of boiling water flung from a pot is going to hit them or not? It's a one-shot item; once she flung the water she was unarmed! What was the justification for not just leaving?
He would have to know the strength of the woman, the weight of the pot, how much water was in the pot, and when the woman was planned on releasing it in the throw. I imagine once he realized the woman was reaching for the boiling water and in the process of throwing it, he was intent on shooting her.
IMO this is all a game of “which world would you rather live in” —
Possibly schizophrenic woman throwing boiling water at “guy doing his job” is extolled as an innocent victim by the president and president elect, with “guy doing his job” being painted as a demon and going through a lengthy criminal trial
“Guy doing his job” is fired from his job because he is bad at it, but we don’t destroy his life, and we don’t valorize a crazy violent woman, we must move on and possibly implement nation-wide training for what to do in such an encounter
And he knew the first three things to reasonable certainty, especially number 2 and number 3, because he was an adult human presumably with some experience around a kitchen. And what those should have added up to is there's no way she could have thrown enough water across the room to do him serious harm.
I'm an adult human with tons of experience around a kitchen. I have no bloody clue how far anyone can throw various quantities of water out of variously-designed pots. To use the ML lingo, it's not a thing in my training set.
Good point. I worry that this incident is going to end up like the Harambee incident, where everyone and their mother suddenly claimed to be experts on gorilla behavior and have very clear understanding of the precise limits of a gorilla's strength within a day of the event happening.
You don't have experience with pots of water? Gorillas are a bit more out of the average person's experience.
You have a point. But there are many variables. Like @ControlsFreak says, I've never even considered pots of water as a weapon, or even throwing them. I have no clue what this particular woman could or could not do. And water can have a weird sloshing effect which fights you when you try to move it quickly.
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Indeed, being scalded sucks. Not quite so badly as having a hollow point punch into your skull and explode through your brains, but yeah.
Still, ignoring the fact that they were the ones that escalated the situation, those cops had plenty of other options. Such as:
• Do nothing (she was clearly not in a position to imminently threaten them when the shooting happened)
• Take a step backward
Having read your other comment, I will say that I do not share your faith that those cops were hyper-competent hyper-professional operators that noticed the situation turning ugly in a way we civvies can't comprehend. Especially given that it is crystal clear that it was the police that escalated the situation. They come across to me more like petulant bullies.
I will agree with you that she does reach up to grab the pot in the ~half second before she is shot. I don't think your analysis holds up beyond that. It's possible she reached up to grab the pot to put it on the ground because the cops were screaming about it. Silly thing to do, sure, but people do silly things when high on Adrenalin because people are yelling at them with guns leveled. anyone with a "top 0.1% intuition" would understand that. The awkward 'tossing' motion could be explained by the fact that she was just shot in the head.
But even if we accept - for the sake of argument - that she was fixing to throw the water at the cops with malicious intent, and we ignore the fact that they escalated, it's still a bad shooting. She was kneeling with her headline below the pot. she was a slight woman, it's a big pot. She was not physically in a position to throw the pot or the water with any kind of heft at the cops standing ten feet away. There was an entire kitchen counter in between her and them. Those cops were never in any real, or reasonably imagined, danger of any injury. Let alone a grievous one.
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