Woman yells ‘tourist’ before ramming Key West cyclist with minivan, fleeing, cops say
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2026/03/24/woman-yells-tourist-before-ramming-key-west-cyclist-with-minivan-fleeing-cops-say/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
41 replies
Why not attempted murder?
Because it would be the easiest way to lose the case. Attempted murder in the legal sense and common sense are two wildly different things
Regrettably accurate. It does often feel as if car murderers get off really easily in the US.
If I was going to be an assassin, all I'd need was an average truck.
This always confuses me because if you're being arrested and you so much as sneeze on the officer you're gonna get charged with attempted murder of a peace officer.
It's usually assault on a peace officer. They are laws written for law enforcement protection and sometimes apper to ignore self defence or resistance as a automatic response. So if a cop assaults you you can't assault back.
I would love to live in a society where police are genuinely and unironically referred to as peace officers. It would be a step in the right direction—the destination of course being a society where they need not exist, at least in their current form.
Unpopular ^(or popular but unspoken) opinion: Despite what the ACAB crowd would proclaim, I believe there are plenty of officers out there who may deserve such a title already, for trying their best in spite of being painfully aware of the system's shortcomings and the public's perception thereof.
There are not "plenty". I will concede that there are, in theory, a few.
Those that join the police force with such positive things in heart and mind either get ground down and quit, a burned out cynical husk of a person, or get corrupted.
Very few have the diplomatic skills as well as the temerity to be able to stick it out. Those very few that can and do are working within a system that is at best so obsessed with measurable statistics there is no leeway for officer discretion, and at worst actively designed to incarcerate as many as possible.
Which version of the system you get exposed to is mostly a matter of one's skin colour and apparent wealth, which strongly suggests the number of "good ones" is so vanishingly small as to be statistically insignificant.
I guess over there there isn't a law particularly meant for addressing causing death by driving dangerously?
Because to get a warrant for an arrest the police have to pretty conclusively show something is true*. The prosecutor can always add charges before trial. This gives them time and an excuse to collect evidence without allowing the suspect to flee.
*Unless that person is black.
I DON'T WANNA HAVE TO DO THE THING THAT NO ONE IS MAKING ME DO!
How are you going to live in a place that's 97% reliant on tourism and then be mad that you saw a single tourist?
Weird thing to focus on. Tourists can be incredibly annoying. Not everyone can just move instantly due to that fact. But regardless the problem here is not that she wrongly judges tourists in general, it's that she is a murderous psychopath.
Weird to comment on the motive? If the driver had shouted a slur before hitting this person, would that be a weird thing to focus on?
If the psycho had said "damn Mexicans!" While living in texas and then commiting the same crime, and then the commenter said "why would you live in Texas if you hate Mexicans?" Then yeah that seems equally a weird thing to focus on. It's not like if she lived somewhere without people she hated it would make her any less hateful.
Edit: Also I do find it weird in an incomparable way to respond to an attempt on someone's life with "why you hating on tourists man? They got a right to be there!" Which is always a weird thing to say imo, but especially in the context of violence.
I can see the perspective you've laid out, though in a broad sense, when a person commits a wrongdoing of any sort, is it not reasonable to ask and discuss why they did the thing? Seems reasonable to me.
When the discussion is "she shouldn't live there if she is annoyed by tourists", then no. That's just op feeling defensive.
The discussion was 'the motivation for this action is x', followed by 'talking about the motivation at all is weird'. The minutiae isn't relevant to my initial point.
This seems to boil down to what is considered 'weird' behaviour. I guess I have a different view than you do as to what is strange to have a discussion about.
It will always be weird to defend tourists and that's obviously all this was. Maybe you can point to any value of the discussion that I missed? "Wah tourists are good for you" is not valuable imo
Key west has been a tourist area for a good hundred years. Are you really excusing her that she had no time to move out, nor did the last three generations of her ancestors?
Doesn't matter if it has been a tourist area for 10,000 years. Whether or not she should live there has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to whether or not she is allowed to be a psycho. The answer will always be no
I think the subtext here is that you are typically the annoying tourist (and thus defensive of something irrelevant to anything) and I'm typically annoyed by the tourists where I live. I'm not moving and I'm not hurting anyone either. I'm allowed to be annoyed. People are stupid and even more so on vacation.
No, I think the subtext is that it's asinine to be annoyed* by tourists, especially when you live in a place who's economy depends on them
Yeah I'm aware that annoying tourists cry in this very manner. Oh God guys my common understandable opinion is ASININE. The humanity!
I don't live in some place that would be a shithole if not for tourists. But even if I did, people who have zero spatial awareness would still be annoying.
So, you understand how all this comes off as you running defense for someone that purposely rammed a person on a bicycle? Because it seems like you don't understand that. I want to know if this is a bit, or if you're really just this dense
It isn't and it doesn't. What a weird troll
No, people take things slowly when they're on vacation, which doesn't harmonize with the day to day life of someone who loves there. Doesn't mean they're stupid. Stupid would be, when they would adapt the hectic lives of the locals because what a shit vacation would that be?
Look, I've lived in Amsterdam for 11 years. Yes, it's annoying that tourists block the bicycle lanes, but there's a lot to take in when you've never been there before and it's just something you have to deal with when you're living in a tourist area. There's a lot of psychos that would simply ride their bikes into those people. Fuck them, they need to learn to relax.
People in general are fucking stupid. If you've not noticed that, I wonder how you've been functioning with your eyes closed.
I thought it was that she used a car.
IMO hit and run should always maximise the penalty of the other charges, or at least the charge the striker ran from. They intended to and effectively tried to avoid responsibility, which implies they would do it again if they thought they could get away with, and may have done before.
I was once in an accident, was transported by ambulance to the hospital, treated and brought home, then received a call from the hospital saying the cops were looking for me and if I didn't "turn myself in" they would charge me with hit-and-run.
So, while I might agree with the spirit of what you're saying, it is absolutely not something we should grant law enforcement extra power to fuck over people's lives with.
I think yelling before hitting should be treated as intent.
But assault and murder laws dont apply as soon as you get into a car.
Luigi made a mistake, he should have run that CEO down in an "accident".
That implies premeditation. Running can just be because of panic.
I'm also okay with harsher penalties for people that demonstrably can't be trusted to do the right thing, for example by panicking and fleeing the scene.
The entirety of Olivia Street is 1.2 miles (1.9km) long, it passes the Hemmingway house.
The majority of that road is one direction and looks like this
It's an island... Not exactly a high speed area anywhere.
Yep. And a ton of the roads have cars parked basically every possible free spot.
Better a tourist than a terrorist like her.
I missed a comma and read “fleeing cops say” and thought “yeah, that tracks”