This brings back memories of the absurd way that people were behaving when they were burning down cities and the media came along to say that the protests were "firey, but mostly peaceful" while they were standing there literally in front a building that was being burned down. The level of excuses that people were putting forth in an attempt to justify their actions and destruction of property was pretty amazing and the fact that nobody did very much to put a stop to it was even more disgraceful.
I've said many times before that there is very little chance that this would ever happen where I live in North Carolina because we have castle doctrine and relaxed gun ownership laws meaning that if a person or persons is threatening my life and property I am allowed to use lethal force to prevent them from doing so. It's pretty amazing how the threat of getting shot can put an end to people's notions that they can just bash out windows and start things on fire with impunity.
That doesn't mean that some people aren't stupid enough to try though because this latest story comes from North Carolina although it is from Raleigh, which most of the people in this state that think like I do don't believe really represents what this state is all about anyway.
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Reuel Rodriguez-Nunez was approached by police when he was burning police cars in the parking lot of a police station. Officers approached him and told him to stop but what do you think he did?
A: Realized that he was destroying property and then complied with officers' requests
B: Attacked the police officers and got shot in the process
Well it wasn't A. Reuel ran towards the officers and threw a Molotov cocktail at them and then was immediately shot by the police.
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He did this in broad daylight in full view of everyone and drove his own vehicle to the scene. He clearly was not the smartest criminal in the world.
As you would expect there are some critics out there that are saying that the police used excessive force but if you read the full report you will see that the officers exhibited a great deal of restraint. They saw the explosive that he had and repeatedly told him "don't do it, don't do it." Well he did it and when you throw an explosive at someone who is legally armed in North Carolina you can expect some projectiles to come flying at you at around 1200 feet per second.
He was hit 4 times and later died in the hospital. I'm not celebrating his death. I do not know him nor what his motivations were. However, I think you have to be a special kind of stupid to attack a police officer with a home-made firebomb.
The claims made by his family about how he was "just protesting" are absurd and it really wouldn't surprise me if they try to sue for wrongful death.
To me this isn't even a question of the shooters being police officers. The way that it should be everywhere in my mind is that if someone is attacking me with something that can end my life I am now allowed to end theirs. This is the entire idea behind firearm-ownership and I fully support it.
It isn't even clear what it is that he was meant to be protesting. No one has answer to this. Regardless, there are ways to protest that can get results. My community protested lockdowns and other covid mandates by actually protesting and not complying. We got what we wanted and not a single thing was set on fire nor did anyone get shot in the process.