Tribalism Breaks Our Bond With Truth
Duante Wright and Ashli Babbitt should both still be alive
Daunte Wright should still be alive. The twenty year old, killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, MN did not have to die. Officer Kim Potter confused her taser and her gun, yelled “taser” at the young man, and killed him. Watching the horrific and tragic body camera footage, she really thought she had her taser. But, she had grabbed her gun.
The taser and the gun were shaped similarly. It was a terrible tragedy. Those who call for defunding the police should be mindful that this officer made that mistake with training. We will not get rid of the police. Reducing their funding will cause more training issues and lead to more problems.
Duante Wright was pulled over driving a car with expired tags and had an outstanding warrant for his arrest related to aggravated armed robbery. Wright would still be alive had Officer Potter not confused her gun and her taser. Wright would also still be alive had he not struggled with police.
Those statements are all true, but tribalism and outrage have degraded our ability to distinguish and discern. Officer Potter is free on bond. Many progressives are outraged a judge would release her from jail and grant her bond. These same progressives want to end cash bail but would deny Potter her rights. The city council in Brooklyn Center fired their city manager for daring to say Officer Potter deserved due process. One council member said she voted to fire the city manager not because he deserved it, but because of what the mob would do to the councilwoman had she not voted to fire the manager.
The mob has moved beyond the facts. The mob, in their rage and tribalism, have broken their bond with truth. But it is not just them.
The police officer on Capitol Hill who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt will not be prosecuted. Babbitt was an American Air Force veteran. She sank into QAnon conspiracies and decided to go to Washington for the election protest on January 6, 2021. “They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours …. dark to light!” she tweeted the day before her death.
Babbitt joined the crowd at the United States Capitol. Camera footage showed how her life ended. She was not with the crowd of people aimlessly roaming the rotunda. She was at the front of a mob smashing windows to get into the Speaker’s Lobby. “F**k the blue,” the men with her yelled. “We will make a path, deadass,” yelled one of the men to the police officers blocking their access to the Speaker’s Lobby. Behind the police and the doors, members of Congress were fleeing. Once the members of Congress were off the hallway, the police officers moved away from the front of the door. A plain clothed officer behind the door pointed his gun at the door.
“Break it down,” the crowd chanted. “Let’s f**king go,” they yelled. “Go! Go!,” Babbitt herself shouted as the protestors smashed windows. “There’s a gun. There’s a gun,” some in the crowd yelled. Undeterred, two men lifted Babbitt up through the smashed window in the door. She stuck her head through the door. A police officer shot her. She fell back and later died. It was all filmed.
Ms. Babbitt believed the election had been stolen. A patriot and combat veteran, she intended to defend the American republic. But she was actually deluded and on the side of a lie she had become convinced was real. That lie led her to her death.
Some Trump supporters are outraged the officer who shot her will not be prosecuted. He should not be. He was defending members of Congress fleeing a mob smashing windows trying to storm Congress to stop an official act of government. Unremarked upon is the restraint of the officer — he fired just one shot.
Kim Potter should be prosecuted for her negligence, but Wright would be alive but for his actions too. Ashli Babbitt should be alive as well. In our tribal times, we have broken our bond with truth. We have an obligation to the truth that must outweigh our obligations to our tribes.
I agree with your assessment that both could be alive. But for their individual actions they would not have been killed in the manner they were. Unlike some, I don't automatically say Ashli should not have been shot. Nor do I say that she should have been. We have all seen the video. She most certainly was in a place she shouldn't have been, climbing through a broken window. Here is where I am going to go in a different direction. We also see in the video that there were armed police behind her. Maybe the officer on the other side of the door felt he should use deadly force, and if we knew his perspective, I might agree with it. But that information is not being made public. Therefore, we cannot conclude that he was absolutely in the right. Just like we cannot conclude he was absolutely wrong. Moving on to Duante. The focus is on the fact that the officer, based on her own words, clearly intended to use a taser. But is anyone considering that the officers knew that he had a warrant for a violation that included violence and the use of a gun. Why would it not be reasonable to conclude that when he broke away and lunged back into the car that he was going for a gun? And why would it not have been reasonable to use deadly force if that was the reasonable belief? And just to make a point, what would an officer have done in the exact same situation were tasers not even available? There has been no investigation to look into the details of the situation simply because everyone knows what she intended, and then accidently did. An investigation would be needed to determine whether or not deadly force COULD have been reasonable under the circumstances in the first place. Reaching a conclusion that she needs to be prosecuted and the capitol police does not without an investigation into either one is not reasonable. I would state firmly that anyone who makes a decision to engage in criminal behavior assumes the risk of dying, either by accident or design. And that is something both of these people did. I believe in this instance, Matt Walsh had a better take on it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. And wait for an investigation before jumping to a conclusion.
I agree, BUT I do have one small question.
As you know, we have a thirteen year young man in Chicago named Adam Toledo who is dead this morning, killed by a Chicago police officer while in the company of a 21 year old gangbanger with a criminal recors involving gun crimes. The bodycam footage reveals, IMO, an officer who, after chasing a clearly armed Toledo on foot, didn't see him discard his gun in a poorly lit area. When Toledo turned to face the officer, and began to raise his arms, he was shot.
The facts in evidence strongly suggest that this was, whether or not one tribe wishes to accept it, a justified shooting. And, I'm sure that the Chicago Police Department will soon release the officer's name, as it should - just as the Capitol Police should release the name of the officer who, I believe justifiably, shot Ashli Babbitt. The failure to release that name gives the strong appearance of a department, and a Federal Government, eager to hide something. I don't believe for a minute that is the case, but the continuing failure to do so fuels suspicion and dark fantasies among those who somehow think that breaking into the U.S. Capitol building was some sort of noble and justified action, just as withholding the name of the Chicago officer would similarly do for the other tribe. The Woke-O-Haram tribe will protest that action; let them tell that to the family of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota officer Kim Potter, who was doxxed within 24 hours of her shooting Duante Wright, and now live in fear behind a fence with 24/7 police protection as a result.
BOTH tribes need, for the good of all and the future of the Republic, such as it is now, to back off immediately. The center is not holding, as both tribes chip away at its legitimacy and stability. The ultimate goal here, as I see it, is for the Biden administration, and the radical Marxists who are running it, to Federalize all American policing, an action which, based on my experience living abroad during my military career, will result in less transparency, less accountability, more dead citizens at the hands of police, and the final surrender of the essential liberties of both tribes, and everyone else, to an authoritarian Federal government.