Secret Service agents protecting Biden’s granddaughter open fire when 3 people try to break into SUV
Secret Service agents protecting Biden's granddaughter open fire when 3 people try to break into SUV
FTA:
Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden’s granddaughter opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Awesome that they were trying to break into a car, and it turned out to be an unmarked Secret Service vehicle.
That is some seriously bad situational awareness combined with some terribly bad luck for those thieves.
One of the agents opened fire, but no one was struck by the gunfire, the Secret Service said in a statement. The three people were seen fleeing in a red car
Then there is the fortune that they were allowed to flee the scene.... unharmed....
Would they be dare to open another chest, knowing it may become a mimic really fast?
Are we not acknowledging that an agent opened fire on people for breaking into a vehicle? There's no danger to anyone's life yet a Secret Service agent just opens fire in public where, based on the article, there were likely hundreds of other citizens around shopping.
Crazy that they opened fire on people trying to break in to an unoccupied vehicle.
EDIT: Jesus Christ people. Do you think it's ok to discharge a firearm in public to attempt to wound or kill someone trying to break in to an unoccupied vehicle? That's insane.
A secret service vehicle likely has fully automatic weapons inside as well as encrypted radios with current keys and who knows what level of sensitive real time info on presidential movements. It wasn’t just an “unoccupied car” it was a liability that could lead to real danger to the public.
None of which likely constitutes legal justification for deadly force without evidence the offenders' intent was more than just burglary of an unoccupied car (an occupied car would be a different story). There might be a case for the fleeing felon rule after they stole guns, but it would be weak.
I don't have much sympathy for burglars, but shooting in an urban area poses a considerable risk to bystanders and should be reserved for imminent threats to life.
A secret service vehicle likely has fully automatic weapons inside
No one should be leaving weapons and especially full automatic weapons unattended in a god damn vehicle!
...who knows what level of sensitive real time info on presidential movements.
How fucking dumb do you have to be to leave sensitive security information lying around unattended in a vehicle!
It wasn’t just an “unoccupied car” it was a liability that could lead to real danger to the public.
Any vehicle so stuffed with weapons and confidential information that it needs to be defended by lethal force shouldn't be parked and left unattended on a public street! Everything that you've offered isn't justification for lethal force, it's describing behavior so negligent that it would literally rise to the level of CRIMINAL PROSECUTION for any regular person.
You're downvoted but that surprised me as well, being the Secret Service and not [local] police. The perpetrators fled in a vehicle. Doesn't sound like they were a threat; just car thieves trying to flee.
Important to note that only one Secret Service member opened fire. That makes me more suspicious that it was an unjustified use of force.
That's an irresponsible reason to discharge firearms in public. Not worth risking innocent bystanders' lives over petty car thieves.
I expect this armchair analyst from reddit.
Welp, looks like we got them here too
The Secret Service are cop-adjacent to the point that they more than deserve a side eye at the best of times.
But a visibly unarmed person trying to get into the car could very easily be carrying explosives. Since... that would be a reason you would try to compromise the vehicle of a high value target. It goes against basically all gun safety, but driving them off from a likely populated area is probably in that "Net good?" territory.
This is America.
If the secret service didn't use excessive force they would probably be reprimanded!
The Secret Service are police. They are most well known for protecting presidents and their families but their original and primary mandate is to protect the integrity of US currency. They have jurisdiction over all federal financial crimes and a particular focus on counterfeiting.
There's an entirely different calculus around the protection of a country's leadership.
Shh
Car thieves are a blessing and have to be protected at all costs.
The continued functioning of the government?
Naw lemmy tankies don't have time for that.
Good. If you try to break into someone else's shit, you should reasonably expect to get shot at.
It is worrying to me that the supposedly highest trained security guards in the world couldn't actually hit their target. I would expect better in terms of both accuracy and fire discipline.
It is also worrying that if a citizen like you or me tried to defend ourselves and our property in the same way in much of these nation including DC, we would go to jail. I think we deserve the same rights as 'important people'.
Imagine living in a country where people are so obsessed with guns that everybody has guns and everyone is a potential threat or one insult away from doing a mass shooting. It's gotten so bad that America has become a parody of Grand Theft Auto, where you can actually feel safer as a character in a video game that glorifies violence and crime.
Your nation has gone beyond ape shit.
There isn't another developed nation in the world where gun violence is as big a problem as in America.
This ISN'T NORMAL.
Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US are 33 times greater than in Australia and 77 times greater than in Germany. Gun violence accounts for over 8% of deaths in the US among those under age 20.
https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier
Imagine living in a country where people are so obsessed with guns that everybody has guns and everyone is a potential threat or one insult away from doing a mass shooting.
I don't know what nation you're from but America is nothing at all like this. Gun owners aren't like this.
People who don't understand American gun culture expect it's like GTA- everybody's strapped, fender-benders at traffic lights turn into firefights, don't dare tell anyone anything negative because they'll shoot you if they don't like what you say. This isn't at all the case though. Not even close.
Gun owners who carry guns look at it like a seat belt or fire extinguisher-- you hope to god you never need it, but if ever you do, having it might save your life. There is no action movie attitude of 'who do I shoot today?'. Gun owners recognize how serious a responsibility it is, and petty arguments rarely involve weapons fire, even in situations where everyone involved is armed.
We have a big problem with gun violence- but the majority of it is caused by our bigger problem of poverty and hopelessness in many areas. People turn to drugs, that are supplied by violent gangs who are all armed with illegal guns. Those guys commit the lion's share of our gun homicide.
Problem is, fixing it is a slow and expensive generational process. You need better schools, mental health care, child care, reproductive care, and real jobs for people to aspire to (not just flipping burgers). This costs billions.
If you want to criticize us for something- criticize us for spending billions/trillions on military (we have more military force than the next 10 nations combined, including all our major enemies) when our budgets are fucked and we can't even seem to take care of our own citizens. THAT is worthy of your criticism (and mine).
I'm not aware of another developed nation where getting cancer means you've got a good chance of going bankrupt. THAT ISN'T NORMAL and we should be fixing that shit.
Good. If you try to break into someone else's shit, you should reasonably expect to get shot at.
In many other contexts this would be downvoted to oblivion on Lemmy.
Good. If you try to break into someone else’s shit, you should reasonably expect to get shot at.
In many other contexts this would be downvoted to oblivion on Lemmy.
In many other contexts, this is fucking insane.
Exactly right. If the article says "home owner shoots armed robber attempting to kidnap children" you'd have people losing their minds about guns and violence. Also people would be upset that the person owned a home...
Yeah I've noticed :-( Lemmy overall seems much less tolerant of gun ownership or use of force than Reddit. Even when it is obviously justified.
The headline could be, "Good Samaritan opens fire to defend disabled orphan POC child and her blind 3-legged rescue kitten from white supremacist pedophile rape gang" and half the comments would be how the stupid hick Republican ammosexual who wants more school shootings is so worthless he needs to carry around a lethal penis extender.
But throw in a little criticism of government or police... Heh
Because a world where people are firing guns at each other all the time is INSANE, regardless of the context. Most of the developed world has figured this out.
If you look at the data, the vast majority of people who are 'firing guns at each other all the time' are gang members in low-income inner cities.
To distill a bunch of stats, half the people of the US own guns, and they own enough guns to arm the other half and have plenty left over.
Per FBI, there's about 10k-15k firearm homicides per year. That means on average an American has a 0.005% chance of being killed by a gun in any given year.
If we truly were 'firing guns at each other all the time' that number would be WAY WAY WAY WAY higher.
Name a country without crime. Go on. Democratic or otherwise. News flash: by your definition the world is a crime-ridden hellhole.
"The cradle of our democracy" refers to Washington DC in particular which is directly governed by the House/Senate. It also consistently ranks as one of the top cities in crime in the US by almost any metric (although ranking crime by city gets murky). Additionally it is notoriously poorly governed and has some really strange local laws that are almost entirely nationally political in origin. It also doesn't really help that the people living in D.C. get a diminished political voice by default.
I don't know if there's really grander conclusions to make other than having people govern a city that have no vested interest in the locals, with their actual constituents possibly 1000s of miles away, is a terrible idea. As for what it says about our government as a whole, I really think it's a better case for MORE democracy for the locals in D.C. rather than an indictment of the idea...
To read about D.C. and how it is governed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.
Basic crime stats for D.C.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Washington,_D.C.
It doesn't have to be zero crime, but Washington DC is a crime-ridden hell hole. Just for starters, the 2021 homicide rate was 32.78 per 100k people. Paris was 1.1, London was 1.1, New York was around 5, Los Angeles around 10.
It is uniquely awful, both within the US and elsewhere.
Isn't it though?
North Korea? You don't even have to commit a crime and you go to a forced labor prison.
This happened in Georgetown, where the most likely crime you'd ever experience is how much the shops charge for a mediocre cupcake or expecting reservations to actually matter at Founding Farmers. It's a city like any other and, depending on the year, usually averages a bit lower in crime rates.
DC is alright I really wouldn't call it a hell hole. but I don't use superlatives to describe some regular type of shit. car hoppers are a normal thing in pretty much any city.
Technically Philadelphia would be the cradle of US democracy.
As illegal and unlawful as it would be, I think it would have been infinitely funnier if they had succeeded in car jacking a Secret Service SUV.
Can you imagine seeing some tutorial get uploaded explaining how to bypass the key starter like a KIA lmao
Note to self: Don't fuck with Naomi's car
Glad this was just a stupid GTA cosplay and not something much worse.
Area has an increase of car jackings, according to the article, so it was probably some unlucky thieves breaking into the unoccupied SUV.
I kind of think the bigger story is, why were Secret Service shooting at suspects trying to enter an empty vehicle? Unless there were firearms in the vehicle, feels a bit excessive to potentially kill 1 to 4 people over a car break in where no one’s life was in direct danger.
Maybe there’s more missing details that clear up the story so we’d have to wait and see.
There is a chance that documents regarding schedules and other sensitive matters may be in the vehicle. A security leak of that nature could be life threatening to a bigger target. Alternatively, being stranded would leave Naomi vulnerable to kidnapping and assault.
Not saying the shooting was an appropriate response given the location, but the agents are right to be aggravated given the line of work and stakes involved.
Something I haven't seen yet is there's the possibility (in the split second decision making, not hindsight) that they were attempting to sabotage the vehicle in some way. That vehicle would be their primary escape and disabling or trapping it could be the prelude to an attack or kidnapping attempt.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden’s granddaughter opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
The agents, assigned to protect Naomi Biden, were out with her in the Georgetown neighborhood late Sunday night when they saw the three people breaking a window of the parked and unoccupied SUV, the official said.
The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on Monday on the condition of anonymity.
The three people were seen fleeing in a red car, and the Secret Service said it put out a regional bulletin to Metropolitan Police to be on the lookout for it.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was carjacked near the Capitol last month by three armed assailants, who stole his car but didn’t physically harm him.
In February, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota was assaulted in her apartment building, suffering bruises while escaping serious injury.
The original article contains 249 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 31%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
What a shit title.
Imagine opening fire on people trying to break into an unoccupied parked car. That's the reaction in a normal country. /s
Did they blow any lungs out?
One of the agents opened fire, but no one was struck by the gunfire, the Secret Service said in a statement.
Sad news.
The title looks like it's trying to imply that the thiefs specifically targeted her, when the article makes it more clear that they likely just tried to steal the car not knowing it was from the Secret Service.
Gotta add that clickbait for the views 🙄
smaller detail has to stay on task--protecting their charge, not chasing down suspects that are no longer an immediate threat. others will do the hunting.
where in the article does it say that democrats are being targeted? In addition, I feel user Ragdoll is correct that the title makes it seem worse that the situation actually was (though I guess there isn't an easier way to write the title), the SUV was not occupied when the criminals tried to break in. If you're targeting someone, you probably at least have an idea of who should be inside and whether they just stepped out of the vehicle or stepped in. I doubt the vehicle literally said Biden or "Biden's family inside" so I doubt it was a group of people walking around, and taking the opportunity to attack Biden or his family. In addition, the article indicates that car jacking have increased 40% in the area, so it really seems like it was a random car jacking.
I kind of think the bigger story is, why were Secret Service shooting at suspects trying to enter an empty vehicle? Unless there were firearms in the vehicle, feels a bit excessive to potentially kill 1 to 4 people over a car break in where no one's life was in direct danger.
Maybe there's more missing details that clear up the story so we'd have to wait and see.
Sad thing is, it probably would have generated as many hits if the headline was more open. I mean that’s freaking hilarious in a morbid way - that the would be thieves just happened to pick the wrong car to try and steal.
The new and improved bait car with active defenses!
How would you have written it?
Not OP
Secret Service agents protecting Biden’s granddaughter open fire when 3 people pick the wrong SUV to streal.