Comment by LawTalkingGuy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LawTalkingGuy | Hacker News Reader

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> That implies the officer has the support of the moneyed class

Who do you think is walking through the city and driving to work? The idle rich?

The joyriding criminal was in a $100k car, he was hardly a worker.

You've got the class situation exactly backwards.

> It is entirely possible that the shooting of Nahel Merzouk was completely legal and the law says there should be no repercussions for the officer who shot him.

The people of France, and everywhere else, want the police to stop criminals from joyriding through their neighborhoods.

> That's rather the problem: the people, it seems, are tired of the arrangement the law presents and feel powerless to change it.

No, the rioters aren't "the people". They're generally also child criminals and race-baiters (his mother) and they're just upset that one of them got the consequences of his dangerous actions.

The vast majority of the population, including pretty much the entirety of the working class, do not support the riots or the rioters or the criminal.

> No, the rioters aren't "the people".

I wonder if this is what the bourgeoisie had themselves convinced was the case in the late 1700s before the Bastille was seized. After all, only about 600 people participated. Hardly "the people," not by a long shot...

> I wonder if this is what the bourgeoisie had themselves convinced was the case in the late 1700s before the Bastille was seized.

This guy was a criminal who preyed upon and endangered the working class. He didn't sell drugs to Macron's kids, or speed through a crosswalk where the elites would walk. That's why the riots are getting so little support from the average person, even other Algerians, despite the media telling us this riot is for them.

The rioters claim to be upset over a situation that nobody would have a problem with if anyone else had gotten shot, and which the media would have ignored if it hadn't fit the USA's racism narrative.

I think you might be missing the point.

The point is not arguing whether Nahel Merzouk was breaking the law, or whether he was a danger, or whether the shooting was legal.

The point is that the law that made the shooting legal may be sour. It puts a lot of power over life and death in the hands of law enforcement. It's also new for France; the authority to shoot drivers when the officers are in no imminent danger is only a power they have as of 2017.

The Bastille was stormed on the rumor that Louis the XVI was going to arrest the National Assembly, not on action taken. Just as these riots are fueled on the risk of what on-paper authority has been given to French police: if they decide you could be a risk to other people and you move your car one inch, your life is legally forfeit (their call, and you'll be too dead to offer counter-testimony). People believe that bargain of safety vs. their right to life is untenable, and don't believe the system is set up to allow them to change it legally. Hence, the riots.

Earlier, you said

> The people of France, and everywhere else, want the police to stop criminals from joyriding through their neighborhoods.

No disagreement, but I think the concern is the people of France don't want so much risk to their own right to life to protect the community's right to life. Letting the cops decide whether "You probably need killing; you look like a threat" is a huge power to hand to them, especially through the lens of out-groups vs. in-groups and subconscious assessments ("I have this power to protect the people from terrorists; this guy looks like a terrorist, therefore...").

> the authority to shoot drivers when the officers are in no imminent danger is only a power they have as of 2017.

That's not relevant here - they've always had the ability to shoot drivers who are using their car as a weapon or otherwise endangering the public. There's never been a time officers haven't been allowed to use lethal force to stop a deadly crime in progress.

> I think the concern is the people of France don't want so much risk to their own right to life

The only people who seem to be upset about this other than literally other child street criminals in France, are upper-class liberals from the USA who see it as an opportunity to push the racism narrative.

The law abiding people of France don't see themselves in this guy's shoes - fleeing from a justified arrest and endangering people. They see themselves as the people almost killed on the crosswalk, or in almost hit driving their kids home from school.

> Letting the cops decide whether "You probably need killing; you look like a threat" is a huge power to hand to them

The police didn't arbitrarily decide this guy was a risk, they had witnessed him risking people's lives just moments before. They shot only when he took off again.

> this guy looks like a terrorist,

His actions made him look like a threat.

I think we saw the same video and are arriving at different conclusions about the fact pattern, so we likely will not see eye-to-eye. At no point when the officer opened fire was the driver in imminent danger of harming or killing anyone. I agree the driver may have been about to become a danger again; there are myriad ways to deal with that (cutting the driver off with backup, for instance) that don't result in an immediate loss of life.

You see a justified shooting likely (definitely?) preventing other deaths. Those setting town halls on fire do not.

> The law abiding people of France

Again... The law-abiding people of France ca. late 1700s obeyed the orders of their King. Until a revolution swept that entire pattern away. Recoursing to "The law-abiding people's" behavior as inherently correct, just, or righteous fundamentally misunderstands the nature of why riots happen or what effect they intend to have.

> there are myriad ways to deal with that (cutting the driver off with backup, for instance)

Your ideas involve letting him flee and trying to stop him, which is how they got to this point in the first place. What happens when they cut him off and he just speeds off again, or dives onto a sidewalk to make his escape?

> You see a justified shooting likely (definitely?) preventing other deaths.

Justified because it stopped the risk.

> that don't result in an immediate loss of life.

The criminal who risked other people's life lost his, not an innocent person. Those are not equal outcomes.

> The law-abiding people of France ca. late 1700s obeyed the orders of their King. Until a revolution swept that entire pattern away.

The law abiding people decided they didn't want a king and they made it happen. The power of the masses.

> Recoursing to "The law-abiding people's" behavior as inherently correct, just, or righteous fundamentally misunderstands the nature of why riots happen or what effect they intend to have.

You keep shouting out to the revolution kind of like you'd enjoy watching another, but the point is that "the people" aren't upset about this situation. This is their police functioning as intended.

Pretty much everyone is France is sick of the riots and the rioters.

> Justified because it stopped the risk.

You can apply that thinking to literally anyone behind the wheel at any time. In fact, as of 2017, police basically have carte blanche to do that, by law.

That is concerning. Especially coupled to the perception that it isn't native white French people getting shot. Ever.

> The law abiding people decided they didn't want a king and they made it happen. The power of the masses.

Executing the king and establishing a new government was de facto illegal. There was no legal process for deposing the monarchy.

> You keep shouting out to the revolution kind of like you'd enjoy watching another

Oh, quite to the contrary: I believe it would be a disaster and leave the country in a much worse state. Which is why I'm positively praying the duly-elected leadership get its collective head out of its derrière and start listening instead of trying to blame, of all things, videogames. They'd be doing a much better job of serving their people (who, I hear, are sick of the riots) by doing so.

The US suffered a little over a year of BLM rioting because, among other reasons, the decentralization of US police authority meant the federal government could do very little to alter police policy (and, by extension, police brutality). When the New York police union responded to the videotaped death by strangling of a man on the street with a "Won't someone think of the cops" speech, there was little to be done. France, IIUC, has no similar division of power. I hope, for their sake, they chart a better course than the US did, because they aren't nearly as big; I don't know if they can afford a year and a month of this.

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