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[BudokaiMR2]

What a mess of a thread....

Even if we take the BLM comment at face value, I can't imagine how anyone could consider that as just a distraction tactic to make the robbery easier. It is possible of course, but seems unlikely.

Isn't the entire point of that sort of tactic asking something mundane so as not to raise the target's suspicions?

Something as controversial (and yes whether you agree with the movement or not, for better or worse it IS controversial) as BLM being brought up is just going to serve a target to put their guard up. It's not ordinary conversation you would have with a complete stranger.

I sincerely doubt the assailants are actually part of the movement in any way, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be racially charged.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

What a sick bunch of fucking shitheads. I hope they're all caught and suffer the consequences of their horrible actions.

 

[CenturionKei]

The guy is a decorated marine vet. Why the hell would he lie? Seriously, some of the comments are downright disrespectful towards him. Victim blaming at its finest.

It COULD be racially motivated. There's racist people among every ethniciy, I'm sure everyone would agree with that.

 

[hokahey]

I swear this same thing happened here in St. Louis on the metro. Some teens asked the same question before assaulting a white male.

 

[Jonm1010]

Great post. There has to be an understood difference between not believing the story as told without further verification and accusing someone of lying. Skepticism can't just automatically become an active accusation of dishonesty, unless the context of the skepticism would suggest something more than a person wanting a bit more info. Let's not judge a person for wanting more info. Happens too often here.

Skepticism is fine when applied appropriately, but pretty much every example that drew scorn was a case of selective skepticism or outright declarations without evidence.

The main poster everyone focused on, aya, straight up said he/she didn't read the article and was in here defending their position of selectively not believing certain parts of the story while accepting others without question(for instance he completely accepts without question Marquez said what he said, he just doesnt believe him). Then injecting completely unsupported assumptions about true motivation and timeline of events that he came up with in his head and then stood behind those assumptions confidently and defending them.

I really don't see any martyrs in this thread TBH.

 

[Laughing Banana]

I mean, I really don't know what to say to you tbh. You are literally trying to argue semantics lol! Dude, not believing something doesn't make it a lie. This is common knowledge.

You and many others are getting bent out of shape because I took a position to not outright 100% take his entire words as fact but instead decided to "in your own eyes" see it fit to call out the notion that he might be lying and calling him a Liar....

...Hiding in your oh so transparent comments that I am basically trying to call him a racist, as if he had motives to lie because I have some narrative I want to protect. Even to perhaps, link my comment with some pro-blm context that I'm not saying out loud and here you are adding to that same entire idea lol.

You aren't even trying to disagree with me but perpetuate your petty beef with what I said because you believe otherwise and that's okay. I provided no evidence because we have zero evidence to believe what he said is right. And because I and everyone else has no evidence, I can be skeptical of a statement that has no proof. I apologize if bullshit was too harsh of a word to describe how I feel about it but it is what it is.

But furthermore, since it looks like I can't be skeptical of this, I'll leave the thread so you can continue.

And just for the record... All of this was said and not once did I say, his attack was any less disgusting. It was all around a shitty thing for those teenagers to do and I hope they do get found. Bye.

"I don't believe him but that doesn't mean I am calling him a liar" is just... what.

 

[EMT0]

The best late-night D.C. food joints don't have drive-thrus. They also aren't McDonalds, though.

Speaking as someone from Northern VA, I'd never be caught dead in 90% of DC at night if I can help it, and my job literally sees me leaving DC in the dead of the night.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

Speaking as someone from Northern VA, I'd never be caught dead in 90% of DC at night if I can help it, and my job literally sees me leaving DC in the dead of the night.

Really? I love cycling in the middle of the night. No traffic, monuments are empty, nice and quiet. And in the winter? No one is trying to be outside..except me!


----


Hopefully we get the full story soon. Wait and see, as they say...

 

[Madouu]

What a mess of a thread....

Even if we take the BLM comment at face value, I can't imagine how anyone could consider that as just a distraction tactic to make the robbery easier. It is possible of course, but seems unlikely.

Isn't the entire point of that sort of tactic asking something mundane so as not to raise the target's suspicions?

Something as controversial (and yes whether you agree with the movement or not, for better or worse it IS controversial) as BLM being brought up is just going to serve a target to put their guard up. It's not ordinary conversation you would have with a complete stranger.

I sincerely doubt the assailants are actually part of the movement in any way, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be racially charged.

It's not always about not raising suspicion. I have been mugged in the past (by 3 people, age 17-22) and the tactic was rather to fake a dispute so if someone ever walked by, he'd be more hesitant to intervene thinking it's some personal matter. They don't need a lot of time to get what they want if they're good about it.

In my case, one of the guys told me I disrespected him by looking at him funny or something silly like that.

 

[ryan13ts]

That really sucks, hopefully he'll recover from this. I hope they find those idiots and lock them up.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

It's not always about not raising suspicion. I have been mugged in the past (by 3 people, age 17-22) and the tactic was rather to fake a dispute so if someone ever walked by, he'd be more hesitant to intervene thinking it's some personal matter. They don't need a lot of time to get what they want if they're good about it.

In my case, one of the guys told me I disrespected him by looking at him funny or something silly like that.

That's a good point and makes more sense in this context. Was just going off some earlier posts that mentioned it was common to ask the time and such with such a distraction tactic.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

This is disgusting no matter who it happens to.

 

[Cindres]

Snopes already has a page!

I was reading various reports, and yes people here had a definite cause to fear that this would paint BLM in a bad light for no reason. Because it did. You are mostly seeing it on blogs and non-news sites, where they are literally calling them 'Black Lives Matter' Teens in some instances like USMC LIfe which said "Marine war hero from famous Iraq photo beaten and robbed by gang of 'Black Lives Matter' teens".

Also several reports were mentioning a previous incident and places they charged the stolen card; Liquor Store, Five Guys, etc.

So about snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/marine-attack-blm-claim/



Hats off to The Washington Post for doing their job unlike so many other news outlets and Snopes for documenting it.

This case like many others illustrates THE NEED TO WAIT FOR MORE INFORMATION.

To me this whole story just sounded like something fabricated so conservative racists would have a new thing to share around Facebook to get angry about those blacks. Only thing that made me doubt was the fact there was footage and something happened, but that only shows there was an attack, right?

 

[Nipo]

On the "why is he a marine" important part. I live near that neighborhood and the only reason we heard about the story is because of his war record. This year has been worse than most with groups of black teens attacking people on the street and metro. The black victims get no press, white victims make local news and list serves, the war veterans make it to national news and apparently neogaf.

 

[boiled goose]

I dont see the relevance of the BLM things and the fact that he is a vet....

The article has this weird flavor of us white Patriots against black people.

 

[Lead]

I'm not even American and I know of this guy. He's a celebrity in military circles around the world. I heard of him while I was on my tour in 2010.

So yeah, he's well known, this would be like a Hollywood actor getting assaulted and robbed pretty much.

And for the record, I will say I believe everything he said and claimed had happened, but I think it's downright ignorant to think that these criminals represent BLM in any shape or form.

Last time I checked BLM isn't some kind of singular entity that would approve of something like this.

 

[Red Hood]

I don't see how it's relevant that he's a decorated marine. Did they specifically target him because he was a marine? If so, then sure, but it seems more like a random approach. As for the kids, hope they find him and punish them accordingly. These youth have boiled up anger from the BLM stuff that they feel justified harassing others in the name of it. Not knowing they're only hurting the cause in the grand scheme of things.

 

[stump sock]

Speaking as someone from Northern VA, I'd never be caught dead in 90% of DC at night if I can help it, and my job literally sees me leaving DC in the dead of the night.

weirdly, chinatown is one of the areas that I've never considered to be a "bad" place to be at night. dude got beat down right across the street from the FBI building.

 

[ManUnkindH]

I'm not sure I understand what him being a former Marine has to do with the story.

Everyone expected to fuck those guys up with him being a marine and all...

 

[Vitten]

Expected a 'they-picked-the-wrong-target-and-got-their-ass-handed-to-them' story.

Left disappointed.

 

[marrec]

I don't see how it's relevant that he's a decorated marine. Did they specifically target him because he was a marine? If so, then sure, but it seems more like a random approach. As for the kids, hope they find him and punish them accordingly. These youth have boiled up anger from the BLM stuff that they feel justified harassing others in the name of it. Not knowing they're only hurting the cause in the grand scheme of things.

It's relevant because he's a rather well known Marine who previously ran for congress (D) in California. I don't think it's meant to be a shield for his credibility rather than a part of who he is known as.

As for the kids... I agree that they need to be arrested, obviously, but the BLM stuff is redic and probably largely irrelevant to the story. "boiled up anger" from a social movement for change isn't going to drive kids to rob someone. They're going to rob someone because they wanted to rob someone. If they did mention BLM before attacking this guy, I doubt they did it out of any real concern for the movement or the marine's racial motivations. They're shitheads, not political activists.

 

[Trojita]

This article needs to have that same approach applied as well for the time being.

We still don't have a definitive picture of what transpired. Heck this actually makes things even less clear. Including what the order of events of this altercation even was. Whether the statements made to The Daily Caller are legitimate or not. What that discussion was. Who the kids are and their motivations.

Just goes to show the dangers of making assumptions and assertions without having all the evidence available. Skepticism is healthy, declarations of absolutions will always be foolish. There was a lot of the latter in here.

Of course I agree with that. The investigators need to finish doing their job.

 

[old manatee]

I dont see the relevance of the BLM things and the fact that he is a vet....

The article has this weird flavor of us white Patriots against black people.

Aside from motive?

 

[Trojita]

Aside from motive?

If it was said it was likely a distraction tactic. It's a common tactic to throw someone off and have another person steal or assault while the victim is distracted.

 

[HawksWinStanley]

If it was said it was likely a distraction tactic. It's a common tactic to throw someone off and have another person steal or assault while the victim is distracted.

So the fact they were black and asked the guy if he thought black lives mattered was just a coincidence?

 

[Stinkles]

So the fact they were black and asked the guy if he thought black lives mattered was just a coincidence?

No, they were taking advantage of trope to confuse a victim. They were muggers. You having trouble with the distinction?

 

[Byakuya769]

Speaking as someone from Northern VA, I'd never be caught dead in 90% of DC at night if I can help it, and my job literally sees me leaving DC in the dead of the night.

This is kind of pathetic.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

This is kind of pathetic.

It's definitely weird..