Jastine Valdez found dead. No Ana discussion please. Mod warning post 1

chicorytip wrote: »

I don't believe that claim would be upheld in a court of law in Ireland. Take a hypotethical situation: If I were accosted in a dark alley by a knife wielding drug addict intent on robbing me, removed my legally held revolver from my coat pocket and blew his brains out, what would the likely outcome be for myself? A first degree murder charge, that's what. All police forces should be entitled to use firearms in dangerous situations but, I strongly believe, in a proportionate manner to the level of risk involved.

No such thing as "first degree murder" in this jurisdiction.

The law here is "reasonable force". If you believe that your life (or the life of another) was in immediate danger and you had no way of reasonably escaping then you would be within your rights to shoot him (were the laws here such that you could have a legally-owned revolver on your person while you are just wandering the streets) or to use as much force as necessary to stop the threat.

So, the question become - do you believe a person charging a Garda poses a deadly threat? The objective answer is yes. Here is a similar scenario in the UK which ended in a dead unarmed policeman: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/22/parliament-attack-police-officer-four-dead-westminster

Similarly you have this case, where an unarmed police officer attempted to subdue a mentally ill man with a knife and was stabbed to death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jonathan_Henry

I find it interesting that you keep ignoring the Honduras example and I will continue to urge you to look it up as it show how quickly things can go terrifyingly wrong. The google search terms are "honduras police vs knife video". The video is on youtube.

TomOnBoard wrote: »

This morning's news reports are depicting Hennessy as someone who's been out of his head for some time before Saturday. There's also reports that he was fuelled up on coke on Saturday night on top of whatever booze he was taking, and again on Sunday morning.

What a tragedy that someone who was in such a tailspin came across that poor woman. She had no chance!!

Dont like this no chance talk.

Exact same report states she fought for her life gallantly.

The report came after a drug dealer contacted Gardai. He/she could be very fast and loose with the truth.

Paul Williams made a good point, as much as I don't like him.
Why didn't the Gardai give a press conference of their operations thus far, and provide updates?
During any incident in the Uk, they'll always give updates to the media on their operations.
This would help kill a lot of the speculation.

I live near the area MH was driving around on Sat evening and very close to where poor Jastine was found. I was walking home on Sat evening with my three yo around the time the abduction happened. This terrifies me. I generally don't worry about the bogeyman beyond taking reasonable precautions, and in fact was just having a conversation on Sat with someone about cotton wool kids. But now I've shifted perspective.

pjohnson wrote: »

Basically every "expert" and "friend of a garda" was completely wrong on every count.

That's not fully true true, there were some posts that turns out were quite accurate

o1s1n wrote: »

I do know what you mean, however people already use a tonne of items incorrectly in criminal/dangerous ways (knifes, bleach, tools, sports equipment, bricks (!) therefore I don't see pepper spray being added to that list to make much of a difference. If someone wants to harm someone they have the means currently available already, and legally.

On the flip side, allowing people to use it as self defense could potentially make a huge (and non lethal) difference to some particularly hairy situations.

"Misuse" of defensive weapons doesn't necessarily mean people buying them to use in robberies, but can also include the weapon being used on the person who owns it.

Police officers have the spray on a belt, in an easily accessible location, they see it every day, they know how to use it.

A woman will have a small canister at the bottom of a messy and overloaded bag, that she sees once every 3 weeks and may have forgotten what the instructions say.

In the heat of the moment, and in her attempt to fumble for the weapon (rather than, e.g. scream and run), she may be more vulnerable and subsequently have it taken from her and used against her.

I'm not saying it definitely doesn't work, but I'd like to see evidence that personal defence weapons are effective before making them legal.

Things like rape alarms may be arguably far more effective because they can be kept easily accessible, require no brainpower to activate and can't be used against the victim.

whiskeyman wrote: »

Paul Williams made a good point, as much as I don't like him.
Why didn't the Gardai give a press conference of their operations thus far, and provide updates?
During any incident in the Uk, they'll always give updates to the media on their operations.
This would help kill a lot of the speculation.

It's not the job of the Gardai to quell speculation tbh.
With investigations where you are still searching for someone, speculation and rumour has a tendency to get in the way, to cause energies to be focussed in the wrong place. That's why the UK cops give regular updates.

In this case it's just an investigation now, the Gardai have nothing to gain by spending time dispelling rumours.

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Its just so difficult to comprehend how one human can do that to another without a seconds thought and really upsetting.

It's probably worse than you think. I'd say there are a lot more people out there who are just barely able to stop themselves from doing crazy sh1t like this. It's probably a very fine line between acting on these urges and not acting on these urges.

tretorn wrote: »

I dont think the site where Jastine was abducted from was searched until the following morning at daybreak.

If the phone had been found very quickly after she had been abducted then it could immediately have been established that she was missing.

Why did they wait until daybreak to search the area? If they had received reports of the abduction at around 18.30 - 19.00 and acted on them like they say they did then they would have still had two maybe three hours of daylight.

nc6000 wrote: »

Why did they wait until daybreak to search the area? If they had received reports of the abduction at around 18.30 - 19.00 and acted on them like they say they did then they would have still had two maybe three hours of daylight.

Most likely concentrating completely on finding Jastine .Then they knew the car , knew she was gone and it was vital to actually search and try locate her . She was not there where she was taken so I guess they were just all out trying to find her .