A media security guard has been arrested after a confrontation in Denver led to the fatal shooting of a conservative protester. The Denver Post. The incident occurred near the location of dueling rallies, one dubbed a patriot gathering by conservative attendees and the other a Black Lives Matter affiliated "soup drive". Police had broken up the BLM event after they tried to disrupt the patriot event. It is unclear what spurred the shooting. The suspect has been identified as a security contractor for 9News, a local NBC affiliate. 9News confirms that their contractor was taken into custody.
Several videos have been posted on social media showing the shooting and the lead up to the shooting. I will post them below:
Potato video, but here is the person shooting the gun at the #Denverprotests, and the scene after (Denver, CO) pic.twitter.com/N1FksCXWiW
— Kitty Shackleford (@KittyLists) October 10, 2020
Here’s the first part of that video. Twitter wouldn’t let me post the whole 1:37? Idk here’s more pic.twitter.com/mYJwNuop4b
— Rusty 5D (@rustyyyyy69) October 11, 2020
Video also shows the aftermath of the shooting where someone yells in support of the shooting, possibly the man in the above video who started the conflict.
Amplify the Voice's view of the scene as gunshots erupt. Someone yells something about "white supremacist," and "right in the fucking dome" Denver, CO pic.twitter.com/bczKtmpfYD
— Kitty Shackleford (@KittyLists) October 10, 2020
My Comment:
What a mess in Denver. I was waiting to post this as everyone suspected that the shooter was antifa and that it was politically motivated. I am glad that I did because the story doesn't appear to match that. Instead it's an even weirder story where someone working for the media shot someone.
It is unclear, even with the video I posted above, what caused this shooting. As the video posted by Rusty 5d shows it seems like there was a confrontation between what appears to be BLM supporter (though he wears a Black Rifles Matter shirt, which causes me to think maybe he wasn't since that's usually a conservative meme) and someone likely affiliated with the other protest groups (I don't have a good name but they are calling themselves patriots so I will likely go with that). There was a minor scuffle and some childish name calling on both sides but it seemed to be defused. The victim had mace out but he didn't use it.
Why did the victim mace the shooter and why did the shooter attack? I am not sure. Having watched the video it sounds like the shooter was cocking his gun before the mace was used. You see a guy putting away his collapsible baton and then another click that sounds like a gun being chambered.
If that's the case then it seems like the event happened like this. The victim walks away from the confrontation, the shooter chambers a round and then the victim maces him. Finally, the shooter shoots and kills the victim. I didn't hear any words exchanged or saw any other evidence that explains why the shooter would fire his weapon.
It seems likely that this was not a justified shooting. Though the victim in this case was not behaving very well, nothing he did justifies shooting him. Sure, there is an argument that pointing a can of mace at someone justifies violence, but we don't see that on video. Maybe the guy in the Black Rifles Matter shirt could have argued that but we don't see the victim pointing the mace at anyone else in the video. And given that the gun was chambered before the victim used his mace it seems like the victim was the one that defended himself.
That being said, you can never trust video alone. It's very possible that we are missing context here and that the shooting may very well have been justified. I don't know what that could be but that is what jury trials are for. Plus, I am no expert on Colorado law on lethal force.
I would also point out that it's possible that this shooting was indeed done for political reasons. We don't know anything about this security contractor and it's very possible that he was a left winger that saw the argument go down and decided to shoot the victim because of that. Without more information it's impossible to tell.
I do think that if this was a case of the guard being angry and deciding to murder it might have been the victims language. The Black Lives Matter called the victim the n-word and the victim repeated it by saying he wasn't one. Though in context it's not that offensive, I do wonder if the shooter killed the victim just because he repeated the word. If so that's just insane to me, saying the n-word in any context isn't justification for murder, let alone if he's not calling someone it, just denying he is one.
Regardless, the media has to take the blame for this case. It was one of their own that committed this shooting and it's very clear had they not hired this guard this incident never would have happened. I don't know if they didn't screen their man well enough and he was actually a political radical, or if he just was inexperienced or overzealous enough that he decided to shoot when it doesn't appear to be justified. Either way 9News screwed up and screwed up badly here.
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