Sometimes, we hate being right. A few months ago, when defending future fellow Twitchy writer Amy Curtis from an unjust suspension, we predicted that if the police did not crack down on protesters who block traffic, that violence from fed up motorists would follow. Now it looks like two of them are dead in Panama.
An old man just shot 2 climate activists who were blocking a highway in Panama pic.twitter.com/F0iDRyALfb
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 9, 2023
And apparently it is worse for the protesters than End Wokeness suggests. The New York Post reports more deeply on this story:
Elderly American arrested in Panama after gunman filmed shooting dead two eco protestors blocking highway https://t.co/mYFFXCEjKn pic.twitter.com/XK2Go5LPqz
— New York Post (@nypost) November 9, 2023
From the article:
An elderly American has been arrested after a gunman was caught on camera walking up to environmental protesters blocking a Panamanian highway Tuesday and blasting two of them to death. …
Police later shared a photo of the suspect handcuffed to a pipe as he was identified as Kenneth Darlington, 77, a lawyer and professor who holds dual citizenship in the US and Panama, according to Newsroom Panama and Agence France-Presse.
So it appears he fired an unknown number of shots and actually killed two people. We have not seen any information on whether he fired at anyone else.
We admit the fact he is a lawyer and law professor raised our eyebrows. We have tried to locate any professional information on him—such as a faculty page at a university—but we had no luck. But this man links to a paper that claims to be local to him:
— Matt J Verbisk (@VerbiskJ) November 9, 2023
And that article has more details, including the suggestion that the New York Post doesn’t quite have his name correct:
The gunman was named in local media as Kenneth Franklin Darlington Salas. If he is convicted, Mr Salas could be sentenced to house arrest rather than being sent to jail because of his age.
Recommended
To break in for a moment, we are reminded of a grimly funny T-Shirt we have seen that says (with slight censorship): ‘Don’t p-ss off old people. The older we get, the less life in prison is a deterrent.’
Back to the article:
The protesters, who were opposed to a controversial mining contract, had blocked the Pan-American Highway in Chame, 51 miles from the capital Panama City.
Footage posted on social media showed the motorist walking from his car, demanding the protesters get out of the road.
Initially, Mr Salas removed tyres which were obstructing the road. The protesters, according to witnesses, shouted at the man: ‘Are you going to kill someone?’ The gunman replied: ‘You want to be the first?’
We have no idea if this outlet or the Post is correct on his name, so take both stories with a grain of salt. Still, this account has silenced footage of much of the encounter:
#WATCH : A 77-year-old man shoots at protesters in Chame, causing two deaths.
— upuknews (@upuknews1) November 8, 2023
The victims were protesting a mining contract.#Panama #Shooting #USA #USShooting #Shooting #latest #BREAKING_NEWS pic.twitter.com/bV7vFHOlM0
And there is more video, here:
The situation unfolded when the 77-year-old man, angered by a roadblock set up by protesters in Chame, west of Panama City, confronted them. This escalated to a shooting incident, injuring two individuals, including one holding the Panamanian flag. The disturbing confrontation… pic.twitter.com/sPKpaAC3k1
— Andy Gassant (@andygassant) November 9, 2023
#WATCH : Two people died this Tuesday when an armed man shot at one of the protests against a mining contract that has been taking place for two weeks in Panama.#Panama #Shooting #USA #USShooting #Shooting #latest #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/LylBv8kYWl
— upuknews (@upuknews1) November 8, 2023
This would appear to be local news coverage of the same incident:
#Chame / Al no poder avanzar a causa del cierre vial, el victimario se bajó del automóvil, amenazó a los protestantes y disparó a dos de ellos. Una de las víctimas fatales era docente y la otra era el esposo de una educadora. Video EFE / Carlos Lemos pic.twitter.com/T5pacQb2yx
— La Prensa Panamá (@prensacom) November 7, 2023
To circle back around a little, it’s worth quoting ourselves from when we discussed the issue of protesters who block traffic on purpose. Future fellow Twitchy writer Amy Curtis’ had been unjustly suspended because she was discussing this precise issue. She had seen a video of the Just Stop Oil whack jobs blocking traffic even after a woman informed them that she was trying to get her child to the hospital. Discussing that specific video, she wrote: ‘if my choice is let my sick child suffer or get him to a hospital, get out of my way or get run over.’ That got her suspended and we defended her as follows:
[F]or the record, in American law force might even be justified legally under the doctrine of necessity—depending on how serious the child’s condition is. Check your local laws, but it might be legal to just drive forward.
It is grossly irresponsible for officials to just let [these street-blockings] happen. If the government doesn’t get things under control, violence will happen. For the safety of everyone, they need to remove these freaks from the roads.
Again, we hate being right.
Also, for the record, this author doesn’t know anything about Panama law, so we can’t say anything about the legality of the shooting. Still, we wonder if this lawyer and professor knew something about Panamanian law that we don’t that might still exonerate him. Who knows? Sometimes lawyers act because they know they legally can and sometimes lawyers simply break the law like anyone else.
As far as whether there is a moral justification for the shooting, as a starting point, we don’t think it is morally right to kill these people just because you are facing an ordinary inconvenience. But it is not impossible for there to be facts we don't know that might justify what he did. The additional difficulty is that we are not likely to get the full story at the moment, if only because of the language barriers involved. Further the video only shows so much and doesn’t show very much of the crucial moment before he started shooting—the lack of sound being harmful to our analysis in that one video. Did someone make a movement that he might have reasonably interpreted as a threat? We honestly can’t say. And for that matter, did he face an emergency situation like attempting to bring a person to the hospital? We don’t know.
Still, there is no justification for blocking roads in any of these protests. It is intolerable for a handful of activists to decide whether to hold thousands of people effectively hostage. We can only think of one time when it was morally justified to block traffic:
That would be when a lone, brave Chinese man stood in front of a column of tanks that were on their way to presumably slaughter protesters in Tiananmen Square protesting in 1989. We are honestly surprised how quickly he could move, since apparently he had testicles the size of watermelons.
And outside of standing in the way of a tyrannical army on its way to murder innocent people, we would be hard pressed to imagine any situation where blocking the road is morally justified. That doesn’t make it automatically right to shoot them, but it does mean that the police should be removing them from the roads as quickly as possible.
Left wing protesters have been harassing, accosting, and interfering with people's lives with reckless abandon for years. It was only a matter of time before this happened. And I expect it will not be the last time. https://t.co/R7rO91tXDm
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 9, 2023
I'd let HIM immigrate here, but then we're shutting it down. https://t.co/Zu8mHxd5QG
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 9, 2023
She apparently didn’t realize he was an American citizen.
This man should never buy his own drinks ever again. 👑 https://t.co/1r1urJhe5q
— M2 (@Amer1can_Barbie) November 9, 2023
On the bright side, thankfully those two activists won't be producing anymore carbon emissions. https://t.co/mwv9Fj4wKI
— Leftism (@LeftismForU) November 9, 2023
There’s like 90% of a movie in just these 2 pics. https://t.co/zfvINBQrLP
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) November 9, 2023
New meme format just dropped. https://t.co/6VRIU9DQx0 pic.twitter.com/tAFCvJho0i
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 9, 2023
TIME Magazine's person of the year? https://t.co/MlkvpJOoAV pic.twitter.com/CrVGDg611f
— A Louisville Account about Guns (@louisvillegun2) November 9, 2023
https://t.co/w4MvU5prEF pic.twitter.com/rCIiA3w0nq
— Prison Mitch (@MidnightMitch) November 9, 2023
Pretty "Falling Down"-esque https://t.co/JWLjaHdclG
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) November 9, 2023
You can only push a man so far before he falls down. https://t.co/YmNkhHIQDJ
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 9, 2023
That would be referring to the movie ‘Falling Down’ about a man who gets tired of the stresses of living in Los Angeles in the 1990’s and snaps, one day, turning into a vigilante, getting violent with every person who wrongs him. Here’s a trailer that sums it up well:
We haven’t watched the movie for a while, but we remember it being a little over-the-top, but also pretty good.
Crazy the support this murderer is getting from the right wing in the comment section. For context, Kenneth Darlington, killed 2 people in broad daylight for protesting against the government giving contract for mining to an international private company that exploits Panama's... https://t.co/uuUu0cOSrB
— Nikkuh (@Nikkuh8) November 9, 2023
We don’t care what their excuse was. They could have protested on the side of the road. The shooter might or might not have been right, but the protesters were definitely wrong.
This is why getting your ass whooped can be a positive. It teaches you a valuable lesson:
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 9, 2023
You f**k around long enough and eventually you’re gonna f**k around with the wrong one. https://t.co/FRjnJvGnZy
Actually kinda surprised it took this long. https://t.co/X9f2wdflEv
— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) November 9, 2023
Right or wrong, this was the predictable result of these protesters being allowed to act with impunity. We hope the police in every country start to understand that they need to get more aggressive with these street-blocking protests—if only for the safety of the protesters.
***
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Twitchy’s conservative reporting taking on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth. Join Twitchy VIP and use the promo code SAVEAMERICA to get 40% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member