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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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The cop has been charged with murder. First-degree murder in fact.

The problem is even if she was throwing the water at them, a pot of water thrown across a room by a skinny crazy lady isn't a threat of great bodily harm. If she actually throws the pot basically nothing happens; they get splashed a little. If she tries to throw the water out of the pot, from that position, most of it probably ends up on her; she certainly can't hit them anywhere they'd be severely harmed.

I was curious so I took a pot of out into my back yard gently flung the water towards a tree. She could easily have doused the guy from that range. I wasn't even trying and threw it further than that.

I find "How far could she have thrown the pot?" questions kind of irrelevant. This is exactly the sort of thing we see after incidents like this where everyone suddenly becomes an expert on guns, knives, sprinting speeds, or the ability of old ladies to throw pots of hot water and how much damage hot water can do. It's all useless because there are too many variables and no one is actually making those calculations in the moment.

Like, let's stipulate that in theory she was physically capable of throwing the pot far enough to splash the cops. Still not buying that this was justification for them to react the way she did.

It's all useless because there are too many variables and no one is actually making those calculations in the moment.

The cops sure as hell should be. Whether one is in reasonable fear of grave bodily harm depends on that.

Like, let's stipulate that in theory she was physically capable of throwing the pot far enough to splash the cops.

If we accept that she was capable of and appeared to be about to throw the pot far enough to douse them (not just splash them) with the boiling (or just off-boil) water, they have a good case for self-defense.

A two-handled large pot, from above your head? I tried it (with a half-full pot, since she had dumped some out) and mostly the water landed about 2 feet from me. I can throw it further, sure, with a good backswing. But not from that position.

Oops, no watched the video again and realized it was a two handled pot, I'll have to try with that type. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard with both hands, but maybe I'm not picturing it right.

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