XPost: alt.niggers, talk.politics.guns, rec.autos.driving   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: nigger-lovers@disney.com   
      
   Natural selection.  Running over dumb animals in the roadway is   
   not a crime.   
      
   Jared Benjamin Lafer, who last September drove his SUV through a   
   tiny assemblage of Black Lives Matter protesters in Johnson   
   City, Tennessee, and then sped away — leaving behind a man with   
   a concussion, brain bleed, and two broken legs — will face no   
   charges.   
      
   On Monday, a Tennessee grand jury returned a “no true” bill — a   
   declaration by jurors that there was not enough evidence to   
   indict the 27-year-old even after a judge had reduced the   
   charges against him from aggravated assault, a Class C felony,   
   to reckless aggravated assault, a Class D felony. Among the   
   materials that apparently left the grand jurors unmoved was   
   cellphone video documenting Lafer rolling over the protester   
   with his truck, narrowly missing the protester’s dog, and almost   
   striking a second person who jumped out of the car’s unswerving   
   path before it accelerated away from the scene.   
      
   The same footage made the rounds on social media last year as   
   Tennessee police conducted a two-day manhunt for the hit-and-run   
   driver, who they identified as Lafer after witnesses identified   
   his out-of-state licence plate number. Lafer never returned to   
   the scene to check on his victim, but instead drove to his home   
   state of North Carolina, hired a lawyer to talk with the cops on   
   the case, and turned himself in two days after committing the   
   crime.   
      
   By the time of the arrest, Lafer’s earlier social media posts   
   joking about running over protesters had been scrubbed from the   
   internet, preserved only in screengrabs captured by a local   
   progressive news site.   
      
   Victoria Hewlett, who was sitting in a parked car with her   
   husband at an intersection just yards from the scene, told The   
   Daily Beast that protesters were crossing the road in a pattern   
   consistent with the walk signal. She says that Lafer pulled up   
   behind her car, then swerved around her vehicle “pretty   
   aggressively,” before rounding the corner and driving “directly   
   into where the protesters were in the crosswalk.” She says — and   
   Jonathan Bowers, Lafer’s primary victim, also states in a   
   hospital-bed affidavit and subsequent testimony — that Lafer   
   rolled slowly, without breaking, into the intersection, “bumped”   
   him with his truck, and then suddenly “floored” the vehicle,   
   running him over and leaving him unconscious in the road.   
      
   Bowers, Hewlett recalls, regained consciousness shortly   
   thereafter, “screaming in pain” and asking about his dog.   
   Hewlett and her husband, who had already begun filming, caught   
   the scene and immediate aftermath on camera. She told me she saw   
   no one beating on or otherwise attacking Lafer’s car, which   
   comports with what’s captured on video.   
      
   “The only thing that had occurred” before Lafler ran over   
   Bowers, Hewlett recalls, was that protesters “kind of looked at   
   him like, what the fuck? That’s where he apparently feels   
   threatened. After he drives into people and they’re stunned and   
   throwing their hands up, like what are you doing, that’s what   
   he’s trying to construe as being in danger,” Hewlett told me.   
      
   This issue of safety, Lafer’s in particular, is where defense   
   lawyers centered their argument, claiming that Lafer “found   
   himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, faced with what he   
   perceived as a dangerous condition, dangerous situation,”   
   according to defense attorney Mac Meade. “His entire family, his   
   wife and his three young kids under the age of six were all in   
   the car with him. And he did what he felt was necessary to get   
   out of a situation that he felt was dangerous to his family.”   
      
   There were about 10 assembled pedestrian protesters at this   
   “dangerous situation,” most of whom the video indicates were at   
   a distance from the car until they ran to check on Bowers (who,   
   for the record, is white) after Lafer mowed him down and ran him   
   over.   
      
   The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project identified 69   
   malicious ramming attacks against protesters between May 28 and   
   September 15 of 2020. Another group of terrorism researchers   
   from the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Threats   
   found that between May 27 and September 5 of 2020, people drove   
   vehicles into protesters 104 times. At least 43 of those cases   
   involved drivers with obvious malicious intent, demonstrated by   
   the yelling of racial epithets or other aggressive acts. Of   
   those 104 drivers, just 39 faced any criminal charges.   
      
   The fuel for these attacks likely came from multiple sources.   
   “Run them over” had become a rightwing social media catchphrase   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)