The Conservative Cave

... Renee was a Christian ...

We were raising our son ...

On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. ...

That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts ...

... her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together ...

It is amazing how many people have ignored what happened when that lady's vehicle crashed into a parked car after being shot. That doesn't look to me like it would be the same kind of damage cause if all she was doing was trying to get out of the way and not trying to run someone over.

My community in Northern Virginia has a BIG minority population -- Hispanic, Muslim, and Asian. We have seen almost no ICE activity, an occasional arrest is all. ...

I’ve seen it all, and let me tell you, of all the analyses out there, podcaster Tim Pool has delivered the clearest and most persuasive breakdown of the video evidence from the shooting I’ve seen yet.

After initially giving Good the benefit of the doubt, Pool says slowed-down footage forced him to reverse his position completely, and his frame-by-frame analysis is fantastic.

Pool began by acknowledging his earlier assessment and then explained why it no longer holds up. “While I initially said that I believed she wasn’t intending to hit the officer and was trying to flee, but still put the officer in fear of harm — uh, no, I’ve changed my mind,” Pool said.

What changed his view was a close examination of the video at reduced speed. And trust me, lots of people have slowed down and/or enhanced the video, but most have simply done so and claimed it only proved their original conclusion.

Pool, however, walked viewers through the footage and pointed out details that are easy to miss at full speed, details others either missed or ignored, starting with the officer’s feet.
...
Pool highlights the moment the vehicle makes contact. “Look at his feet right here in the back left. … Notice his feet both slide backwards,” Pool explained. “You see his foot sliding? Yeah, he’s not taking a step. He’s being hit by the vehicle.”
...
“Here’s the vehicle reversing. The officer is not in front of the vehicle,” Pool said. “She reverses and now he is in front of the vehicle.” He adds critical context about timing and positioning: “He initially is to the right of the vehicle. By all means argue he should not have placed … himself in this position. We’re talking about seconds.”

The most damning detail comes next.

Pool paused the footage at the exact moment the vehicle stops. “The vehicle stops here. The wheels are pointed left. As you can see, the officer is standing right in front of the vehicle,” he said. Then comes the acceleration. “Watch the front tire right here. The wheels are pointed left, and she accelerates.”

What happens next undercuts the claim that Good was merely trying to escape. “The wheel spins out on ice,” Pool explained. “Then, with the wheels pointed at the officer, having spun out already, meaning the officer can hear the engine rev with it pointed at him, he draws his weapon.”
...
For Pool, her intent is now beside the point when you take the physical reality into account. “I don’t know what her intentions were, and it’s immaterial what her intentions were,” he said. The mechanics of the vehicle tell the story on their own. “The tire’s spinning out and slipping on the ice before stopping.”

Pool closes with what may be the most important takeaway of all. “There are two points that I think are important. Were it not for the ice, which you can see on the ground, the vehicle would have just lurched forward, run this guy over,” he said. “Seriously.”

I didn’t see a post on Facebook about this anniversary until too late in the day on Thursday to write about it, but this week marks the 70th anniversary of the most famous Christian martyrdom of the 20th century. On Jan. 8, 1956, Waodani tribesmen murdered Jim Elliot and his fellow missionaries, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and their pilot, Nate Saint, in Ecuador.

Elliot grew up in Portland, Ore., as the son of a traveling preacher who settled down when he had a family. His family belonged to the nonconformist Plymouth Brethren, and he became a Christian at the age of six. He believed that Christians shouldn’t get involved in politics, and his high school public speaking club nearly kicked him out when he refused to give a political speech. He also planned to register as a conscientious objector if the military drafted him to serve in World War II.

He studied at Wheaton College, and somewhere along the way, he felt the call to missions. He specifically wanted to concentrate on people groups that had never seen a Bible translated into their own languages.

While studying the Quechua languages at Camp Wycliffe, Elliot heard about the Waodani people, whom the Quechua referred to as “Auca” (savages) in their native language. The Waodani were notoriously violent and hostile toward outsiders. It was just the challenge that Elliot felt compelled to meet.
Elliot and Fleming made their way to Ecuador in 1952 to work with the Quechua people. Elliot married Elisabeth Howard in 1953, and their only child, Valerie, was born in 1955. Shortly thereafter, Elliot and his team of missionaries set out to reach the Waodani.

The five men used Saint’s plane and a loudspeaker to announce their arrival and lowered gifts by basket. They set up a camp nearby and even took one Waodani tribe member for a plane ride.

Things turned sour when a group of about 10 warriors from the Waodani met the missionaries. The warriors murdered the five Americans on Jan. 8, 1956.