| Your interpretation of the facts and institutions here are thoroughly alien to me. There's so much unpacking to be done I'm not sure I have the time on my smoke break but I'll give it a shot. First, law enforcement as a concept is not static. It is a social construct. For me, the only acceptable reason for LE to draw a firearm is to exercise deadly force to protect civilians from a deadly force. For you, it seems you find it justifiable for agents of the state to exercise deadly force against people for vandalism and protest. I do not accept your view. Calling people rioters doesn't really change any facts except to bias the reader against them. Stating that the protesters were armed is not a good argument either. In Texas it is legal to open carry firearms so that is not a justification for deadly force. You don't actually know that these people tried to break into a government facility. The case centers around the protesters allegedly luring law enforcement out of the facility. Sort of the opposite. Then the prosecution said the intent was to create an ambush. But all of that is "well technically". The root here is that ICE is now an unaccountable irregular military equipped occupation force. When someone, anyone, raises a firearm toward you, you can either get shot to death and hope they get convicted after the fact (and again I point to Pretti and Good) or you defend yourself and then deal with survivor problems later. Just because someone has a badge and a uniform does not mean you don't have a right to defend yourself from them, even if the courts are not honoring that right. |
Using deadly force in self defense against law enforcement officer is only justified when that law enforcement officer is acting outside the bounds of the law. The fact that said law enforcement officer had a drawn firearm does not make it legal to shoot that officer. The officers having their firearms drawn was also reasonable given that the rioters were armed with guns. These officers were making a legal arrest, and thus any claim of self defense by the rioters is moot.
Like it or not, ICE is still law enforcement. You don't get to just say "I don't like this agency, so I am justified in gunning down any member of that agency that tries to arrest me."