Ahmaud Arbery: Is this a strike against Citizen's Arrest, Gun Control, The Legal System, or All?

SupahEwok

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I thought even in states that have citizens arrests laws would never have allowed for armed men in a truck to chase an unarmed pedestrian down in the street and kill him.
They're not supposed to, but law enforcement in this country is generally as crooked as any other branch of the government.

Respect law enforcement, but never trust them.
 

lil devils x

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I don't think that quote or that article is trying to say "people are wired for fight, or else they are wired for flight", as you suggest. Rather, it's using "either...or" two present two actions a person can take. A single person can take either of those actions depending on the scenario.

There's no evidence to suggest some people are "wired" to be fighters while others are "wired" to fly. If what you say is true, you should be able to find a source that makes this clear in unambiguous language. That article even criticizes the binary phrasing of the mechanism.




What "data"? A handful of viral videos of shopkeepers fighting off armed robbers? That's not data. The plural of anecdote is not data.
"Usually people are " wired" one way or the other, and may have different reactions to different stimuli "

It is disingenuous to dismiss all of the links we have already discussed above and only focus on the examples of people attacking their muggers. We have the personal accounts of police officers, soldiers, trauma patients, in addition to the data we have collected for generations on the physical impact of fight or flight.

I am done here. I do not feel you are discussing this in good faith when you ignore what has been presented repeatedly in an attempt to present it as something it is not and intentionally attempt to change the context of what was already presented.

"We are just going in circles at this point. I have provided ample evidence showing you that this is a common, expected response that officers and medical providers are trained to recognize and address. You not wanting to recognize that and repeating yourself is not going to somehow change that this is in fact a well know issue.

Trying to blame the victim for being shot because his fight or flight response is different than yours isn't really making a case here. Armed men hunted this man down and murdered him in cold blood in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Trying to claim that him fighting for his life to defend himself should not have happened because " people do not usually do that" isn't going to change that it happens more frequently than you seem to realize. " Enough said. Good day.
 

Kwak

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I'm aware of all this. What is your point?



What do you mean by "common"?
Let's put it this way. What percentage of people, do you think, comply during a armed mugging or when police draw weapons? What percentage have a "fight" response?
What is your point? That he deserved to die because he attacked them therefore they acted in self defense?
That it was 'únwise'? So what?
 

Houseman

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"Usually people are " wired" one way or the other, and may have different reactions to different stimuli "
I can't find this quote in the article you linked, or rather, the article I think you intended to link. What you actually linked was just a picture of a man, so I typed the name of the article in google and found this:


So where did you get that quote from?

We have the personal accounts of police officers, soldiers, trauma patients, in addition to the data we have collected for generations on the physical impact of fight or flight.
The plural of anecdote is still not data, and the physical impact was never called into question, so I really don't see your point here.

What WAS called into question was

A) Under what circumstances fight or flight occurs
B) Whether running towards someone for 20 seconds is a fight or flight response
C) Whether people are 'wired' for fight instead of flight, or vice versa.

I have provided ample evidence showing you that this is a common, expected response
And yet you have never explained how it is that the majority of people are able to comply with the orders of a police officer when their guns are drawn, and how the majority of people are able to survive being mugged without fighting. You have never explained how this isn't a valid defense when the police shoot someone unarmed. All of these disprove that this is a "common, expected response".

That it was 'únwise'? So what?
So perhaps he could have lived if he hasn't tried to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
 

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I can't find this quote in the article you linked, or rather, the article I think you intended to link. What you actually linked was just a picture of a man, so I typed the name of the article in google and found this:


So where did you get that quote from?



The plural of anecdote is still not data, and the physical impact was never called into question, so I really don't see your point here.

What WAS called into question was

A) Under what circumstances fight or flight occurs
B) Whether running towards someone for 20 seconds is a fight or flight response
C) Whether people are 'wired' for fight instead of flight, or vice versa.



And yet you have never explained how it is that the majority of people are able to comply with the orders of a police officer when their guns are drawn, and how the majority of people are able to survive being mugged without fighting. You have never explained how this isn't a valid defense when the police shoot someone unarmed. All of these disprove that this is a "common, expected response".



So perhaps he could have lived if he hasn't tried to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
If you actually read my posts above you would have already had your answer. This is a bad faith argument. I will not respond further.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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So perhaps he could have lived if he hasn't tried to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
It was, truly, entirely his fault. He should've obviously done whatever the two dudes who rolled up on him with a truck and jumped out while holding firearms and not identifying themselves said while they assaulted him. That's the wise thing to do.

And if he'd been pulled into the truck for "questioning" and was found dead weeks later, you could say he should've *obviously* fought for his life and it was his own fault for voluntarily getting into the truck and not fighting back.

Because that's all this line of questioning is: a way to shove some of the blame of a murder onto the victim.
 

Kwak

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So perhaps he could have lived if he hasn't tried to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
He would definitely have lived if he hadn't been shot by two piece of shit trash cowards. They are the ones responsible. No one else.
 

Houseman

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Y'know, there's a distinction between "who is guilty?", and "what steps could one have taken to prevent being a victim?" Those are two different conversations. It seems like whenever someone says something about the latter, people accuse you of trying to talk about the former. For example, I can't say "don't try to grab a gun out of someone's hand" without being accused of 'victim blaming'.

I'm going to exit this topic now. See you in the next one.
 

Dreiko

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So, there's a few inconsistencies I've seen based on the reporting of this story and the footage of it.

From the footage you can see a pickup truck is parked by the side of the road with a guy standing on its bed and the jogger runs up to the truck. He's an old guy so presumably he wasn't there while they drove, meaning they had to have taken the time to park, get out of the truck and climb in the back.

Yet, in the descriptions, people make it sound like they chased the guy with the truck, cut him off, then got out. Not that the jogger jogged up to the truck himself (which I guess indicates he could have jogged the other way and be safe)

That doesn't seem to be true, and I fail to see why there needs to be this discrepancy when we deal with basic facts.



Outside of that, yeah, you aren't a cop any more so you don't get to take the law in your own hands, if you have robberies happening call the cops dude.
 

lil devils x

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So, there's a few inconsistencies I've seen based on the reporting of this story and the footage of it.

From the footage you can see a pickup truck is parked by the side of the road with a guy standing on its bed and the jogger runs up to the truck. He's an old guy so presumably he wasn't there while they drove, meaning they had to have taken the time to park, get out of the truck and climb in the back.

Yet, in the descriptions, people make it sound like they chased the guy with the truck, cut him off, then got out. Not that the jogger jogged up to the truck himself (which I guess indicates he could have jogged the other way and be safe)

That doesn't seem to be true, and I fail to see why there needs to be this discrepancy when we deal with basic facts.



Outside of that, yeah, you aren't a cop any more so you don't get to take the law in your own hands, if you have robberies happening call the cops dude.
I disagree that the guy was not likely in the back while they drove. He likely climbed up there before they left, as that is actually not uncommon to see in the south regardless of you thinking "he is too old to do that". That is exactly how many down here hunt wild hogs regardless of the age of the hunter. Do not be so quick to judge older people, I had a single, petite, 83 yr old woman neighbor who not only climbed up an old, wooden ladder onto her roof with shingles thrown over her shoulder and fixed her own roof by herself , she mowed her own lawn and also held men at gunpoint with an old shotgun in her garage after firing a warning shot when she overheard them in there talking about using her own rope to tie her up to be able to rob her. Holding men at gunpoint in your garage after they broke in until police arrive when they are there to harm you is the "appropriate way " to defend your home. Not grab your guns, jump in a truck and chase a jogger down the road and cut him off as was said they did here.

Your presumption that he was too old to do that does not mean he was actually " too old to do that". He was only 64, if an 83 yr old woman can climb on her roof with shingles over her shoulder, a 64yr young man can assume the normal truck position for hog hunting. Him being in the back like that only confirms they were cruelly hunting this man.
 
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Agema

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So, there's a few inconsistencies I've seen based on the reporting of this story and the footage of it.

From the footage you can see a pickup truck is parked by the side of the road with a guy standing on its bed and the jogger runs up to the truck. He's an old guy so presumably he wasn't there while they drove, meaning they had to have taken the time to park, get out of the truck and climb in the back.

Yet, in the descriptions, people make it sound like they chased the guy with the truck, cut him off, then got out. Not that the jogger jogged up to the truck himself (which I guess indicates he could have jogged the other way and be safe)

That doesn't seem to be true, and I fail to see why there needs to be this discrepancy when we deal with basic facts.
Well that's obviously because the video only shows the last part of events, isn't it? The bit where the truck pursued him is before the mobile phone video starts.

You also need to bear in mind that the guy taking the mobile phone footage appears to have been a neighbour of the McMichaels (the guys in the pick-up truck) and is reported to have been assisting them in trying to stop Arbery. This suggests that at the point of the video, Arbery is between two pursuers: if he wants to get out of there, he's got to run past one of them.
 
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lil devils x

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Well that's obviously because the video only shows the last part of events, isn't it? The bit where the truck pursued him is before the mobile phone video starts.

You also need to bear in mind that the guy taking the mobile phone footage appears to have been a neighbour of the McMichaels (the guys in the pick-up truck) and is reported to have been assisting them in trying to stop Arbery. This suggests that at the point of the video, Arbery is between two pursuers: if he wants to get out of there, he's got to run past one of them.
"Meanwhile, William "Roddie" Bryan, who lives a few houses down from Travis, recorded the video, according to a memo obtained by USA TODAY written by the district attorney who previously led the investigation into Arbery's death.

The memo said Bryan joined the father and son in "hot pursuit" of Arbery."

"The video, which appears to be shot from a moving vehicle behind the runner, shows a black man jogging on the left side of a two-lane road in broad daylight. A white truck is parked in the road ahead of him; a man stands in the pickup bed and another is standing beside the open driver's side door.

The runner crosses the road to pass the pickup on the passenger side, then crosses back in front of the truck. Shouting and a gunshot can be heard, and the video shows the runner grappling with a man in the street over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. A second shot can be heard and the runner can be seen punching the man. A third shot is fired at point-blank range. The runner staggers a few feet and falls face down."

If he were just a "witness", as his attorney claims, why didn't he try to help the man, warn him about the danger ahead, call the police? Instead he was BEHIND him forcing the victim between the two vehicles recording him like it is a game. The victim was being pursued by two vehicles, cutting off his escape, making this even more terrifying than if there had just been one. Looks like they were intentionally trapping him and forcing him into a confrontation. One vehicle to flush him out, the other there to cut him off.
 

Agema

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If he were just a "witness", as his attorney claims, why didn't he try to help the man, warn him about the danger ahead, call the police? Instead he was BEHIND him forcing the victim between the two vehicles recording him like it is a game. The victim was being pursued by two vehicles, cutting off his escape, making this even more terrifying than if there had just been one. Looks like they were intentionally trapping him and forcing him into a confrontation. One vehicle to flush him out, the other there to cut him off.
I would argue he is just a witness, albeit not necessarily a neutral one.

Although clearly involved in the events of that day, it would be stretching for Bryan to be held responsible for Arbery's shooting. In order to find someone an accessory of some sort, we'd expect a standard that the person knew or should have realised that they were contributing to a criminal activity. As it currently stands, given that citizen's arrest is a thing, I'd say Bryan had no adequate reason to believe he'd end up contributing to a crime. Unless evidence turns up indicating Bryan did have reason to believe the McMichaels had malevolent intent, he should walk free. Although hopefully, feel bad about what he contributed to and learn a lesson from it.
 

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I would argue he is just a witness, albeit not necessarily a neutral one.

Although clearly involved in the events of that day, it would be stretching for Bryan to be held responsible for Arbery's shooting. In order to find someone an accessory of some sort, we'd expect a standard that the person knew or should have realised that they were contributing to a criminal activity. As it currently stands, given that citizen's arrest is a thing, I'd say Bryan had no adequate reason to believe he'd end up contributing to a crime. Unless evidence turns up indicating Bryan did have reason to believe the McMichaels had malevolent intent, he should walk free. Although hopefully, feel bad about what he contributed to and learn a lesson from it.
I do not see him as being an " innocent" bystander, but I do not see him as the one who pulled the trigger. Even though I still do see him partially being responsible for his death by assisting in forcing him into the lethal situation. If he was intentionally chasing him into the trap, he was a part of it even if he did not realize that would end in the man's death. Involuntary manslaughter is still a thing, and does not require intent.

I do not believe chasing a pedestrian with your vehicle into an armed confrontation would be considered as lawful action even in a citizens arrest. In addition, in Georgia, they can only legally make a citizen's arrest if a crime is committed in their presence. As there was no crime committed and the neighbor did not see a crime committed, his actions of trying to make a citizens arrest in the first place would been deemed unlawful. So the illegal citizens arrest attempt in the first place would have been participating in an illegal activity by both the McMichaels and the neighbor were participating in, which could be grounds for involuntary manslaughter charges on the neighbors part.

"Under Georgia code, Moore says a citizen can use force if they fear for their life, but they cannot create a confrontation themselves and then claim self defense after harming someone. Especially if they did not witness a crime take place.

"It does not allow us to create armed posses and roam the community looking for someone we think might have done something wrong," Moore said."
 
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ObsidianJones

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I do not see him as being an " innocent" bystander, but I do not see him as the one who pulled the trigger. Even though I still do see him partially being responsible for his death by assisting in forcing him into the lethal situation. If he was intentionally chasing him into the trap, he was a part of it even if he did not realize that would end in the man's death. Involuntary manslaughter is still a thing, and does not require intent.

I do not believe chasing a pedestrian with your vehicle into an armed confrontation would be considered as lawful action even in a citizens arrest. In addition, in Georgia, they can only legally make a citizen's arrest if a crime is committed in their presence. As there was no crime committed and the neighbor did not see a crime committed, his actions of trying to make a citizens arrest in the first place would been deemed unlawful. So the illegal citizens arrest attempt in the first place would have been participating in an illegal activity by both the McMichaels and the neighbor were participating in, which could be grounds for involuntary manslaughter charges on the neighbors part.

"Under Georgia code, Moore says a citizen can use force if they fear for their life, but they cannot create a confrontation themselves and then claim self defense after harming someone. Especially if they did not witness a crime take place.

"It does not allow us to create armed posses and roam the community looking for someone we think might have done something wrong," Moore said."
Piggybacking off of this, because this wonderfully puts the point in order, is that the McMichaels went out of their way to make this confrontation happen. The 911 operator was desperately trying to get a reason or a cause for police intervention, but McMicahel could not provide one. Just "He's a black man running".

Like Trayon before it, it was people erroneously taking the law into their own hands with the situation grossly in their favor (i.e. being armed) against people who weren't even breaking the law.

Put it like this. if 6'2 tall male me saw a little teen girl walking out of a store in a mall that has had a lot of shoplifting happen within the past month, and I just have a feeling that she took something. Which 'caused me' to followed her to the garage and pinned her on the wall yelling "WHAT DID YOU STEAL?!?!"... is there a court on this planet that wouldn't put me in jail for at least several years?

What if I gave her an elbow on the side of the head because she was reaching into her purse after I stalked her for a bit and I confronted her? Can I say self defense because she was reaching for an object? What if she stopped, turned, and pushed me yellling "WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME, YOU FREAK?!". Well, she pushed me. I'm obviously under attack. Can I teep her as hard as I can to get the situation back under control?

Everything started from the time that I decided to take the law in my own hands. I was the person inciting the issue. I made it worse by pursuing, and I had no cause to stop the person other than what I made up in my mind. From the other person's perspective, some stranger decided to hone onto them, follow them, and accost them. And given the fact that neither of the McMichaels have been deputized as far as my knowledge goes, Arbery had no reason to comply or even listen to them, save for the firearms they made sure to bring to give authority.

The simple reason I don't have life and death struggles on the regular because I don't put myself in the situation. The only good that can come from this is that this citizen's arrest law will be altered so people don't want to live out their John Wick fantasies with innocent people's lives.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
The only reason I think that Ahmaud did the wrong thing is that he ended up being killed. If he was sucessful in getting the gun and killing one or both of his attackers then I would say he did the right thing. Given the information at his disposal I think the way he reacted made a ton of sense. Like, my hedro-life-partner was working in a pizza place when it was robbed, he had an opportunity to grab the gun but didn't, this is a guy who is like 6'3 and has been doing MMA for the past 11 years at the point he was at gun point, but he still didn't go for the gun and break the guy. Mainly because while it killed him inside not to do anything, he also knew that the robber only wanted the money and as soon as he got it, he took off. If you are accosted on the street by 2 assholes in a truck with guns then even if you are thinking rationally, you still want to attack them, cause you can't outrun a truck or a bullet, but if you can get in close, you can probably keep one from shooting you and you might get the gun from the other then it becomes a bit more fair and the one you are fighting probably can't use his gun effectively.
 

Dreiko

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So now I'm seeing a video where they show the jogger was wandering around in some type of construction space that he didn't have any job being in for about 5 minutes straight. Still doesn't give the right for people to shoot him but at least I understand the desire to film/chase him around cause they may be missing some of their materials that often lay around openly in construction spaces, that are worth money. Also apparently someone did call the cops but the cops failed to get to him before the neighbors did.


Ultimately that doesn't change how I see this but it does negate the narrative of this guy being menaced by random racist drivers/gunners and turns it into someone who prolly was up to no good meeting an untimely end.


 

Agema

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[Arbery was]... someone who prolly was up to no good meeting an untimely end.
Yeah, absolutely. Once you put it that way it's just as well they gunned him down because he'd obviously only have become a career criminal inflicting a lifetime of misery on other people. We need more people like the McMichaels to cut loose on these ne'er-do-wells, it's the only way society can be made safe for honest (white) people like us.
 

Dreiko

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Yeah, absolutely. Once you put it that way it's just as well they gunned him down because he'd obviously only have become a career criminal inflicting a lifetime of misery on other people. We need more people like the McMichaels to cut loose on these ne'er-do-wells, it's the only way society can be made safe for honest (white) people like us.
Nah, we don't need vigilantes. I'm just not gonna shed a tear for the aspiring thief lol.


Nobody's a good guy in this case. If you want to make the case that the shooters were worse people I'm with you. If you wanna make the case that the jogger was not a bad guy then you lose me.

He was a bad guy who didn't deserve to get shot, which is different from being a good guy not deserving to get shot.



You know, the more I think of this the more I end up being against the guns. Cause I think it was genuinely good that they chased him down, but if they didn't have guns to struggle over then they would have just captured him and wait for the cops who had been called already. Now, of cause, there is the argument that if you think you're chasing a thief you will be worried he will have a gun so you would want one too, but I fail to see how that isn't a gun control issue as well.
 

SupahEwok

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So now I'm seeing a video where they show the jogger was wandering around in some type of construction space that he didn't have any job being in for about 5 minutes straight. Still doesn't give the right for people to shoot him but at least I understand the desire to film/chase him around cause they may be missing some of their materials that often lay around openly in construction spaces, that are worth money. Also apparently someone did call the cops but the cops failed to get to him before the neighbors did.


Ultimately that doesn't change how I see this but it does negate the narrative of this guy being menaced by random racist drivers/gunners and turns it into someone who prolly was up to no good meeting an untimely end.


To put it simply and distinctly.

Bullshit.

There was no proof he took anything from the construction site, no proof there was anything at the construction site to take, and assumes there is no other reason a black man would check out a construction site other than to steal something.

Bull.

Shit.