Crime Motorist shoots dead two environmental protesters blocking a road - Driver caught in traffic gets out of his car and guns down demonstrators when they refuse to move in Panama

• Shocking footage shows the man gunning down two environmental protesters in Chame, Panama
• The pair were killed and one person was arrested in connection with the incident, officials said
• ***WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES***

By CHRIS JEWERS
PUBLISHED: 09:46 EST, 8 November 2023 | UPDATED: 12:08 EST, 8 November 2023

This is the shocking moment a motorist shot dead two environmental demonstrators at near point blank range after becoming enraged over their road blockade in Panama.

Harrowing images captured the shooter, a frustrated elderly man, climbing out of his car to argue with the eco-protesters who had stopped traffic on the Pan-American Highway in the town of Chame.

He initially attempted to reason with the protesters, but moments later pulled a handgun from his pocket and began gesturing wildly as his frustration grew. Despite the imminent danger, the protesters stubbornly refused to curtail their demonstration and continued to argue back and forth with the disgruntled motorist, who became visibly more enraged with each passing moment.

For a time it looked as though the gunman was prepared to back down, but when one protester holding a flag stepped towards him, he snapped the pistol back up and fired at his target from mere feet away.

Terrified onlookers and other protesters helped move the victim to the side of the road and laid him down on the ground as the gunman calmly began dismantling a small barricade made of stones and tyres erected by the demonstrators.

Still undeterred, another protester wearing a black t-shirt and jeans tried to confront the gunman and was also shot. Footage shows how he recoiled from the shot, holding his upper chest in pain and with an expression of disbelief on his face.

He is shown hobbling away to the side of the road as other protesters run for cover, before slumping to the ground.

Horrified friends of the victims rushed to their aid, with bystanders seen applying pressure to the wounds in an attempt to stem the blood loss - but neither victim survived their injuries.

Police descended on the scene and promptly arrested the shooter, dragging him away in cuffs and bundling him into the back of a squad car.


This is the shocking moment an irate motorist shot dead an environmental protester in Panama. He went on to shoot another man in the incident before being detained

Motorist shoots dead two environmental protestors blocking the road

Police also published a photo of the detainee - an older man with greying hair and glasses - seated with one hand cuffed to a pipe, either in a police station or van. He was earlier seen walking down the road towards the protesters

The man was seen pulling a gun from his pocket and waving it in front of the protesters in the middle of the road

The man is seen gesturing with the handgun in his right hand, as he argues with the protesters blocking the road

One man, seen in a black t-shirt holding a flag, got into a heated argument with the man (lfet). The video cuts to the man holding the flag falling to the ground

This is the shocking moment one of two environmental protesters blocking a road in Panama was shot dead by an irate driver

The first man to be shot is seen being treated on the ground

A second man also confronted the gunmen. This photo was taken moments before he was also shot by the angry motorist in Chame, Panama

The tragic incident came amid the latest round of protests in a three-week long demonstration against a controversial government mining contract in the country, officials said.

Several avenues in the capital were blocked Tuesday by small groups of protesters, while the Pan-American Highway was obstructed in several spots, hindering transport of food, fuel and medicine.

The deaths followed local reports that a demonstrator was run over and killed on November 1 by a foreigner attempting to cross a roadblock during a protest in the west of the country.

The contract, given final approval October 20, allows the local subsidiary of Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals to continue operating an open-pit copper mine in a richly biodiverse jungle west of the capital.

The contract is for the next 20 years - with the possibility of extending for a further 20 years if the mine remains productive.

Since protests began, the government nearly passed legislation that would have revoked the contract, but it backtracked in a late-evening debate at the National Assembly on November 2.


The man is seen standing in the middle of the road after being seen to have shot two people in the middle of the protest

A man is seen holding a gun after walking up to a teachers' blockade on the Pan-American Highway in Chame

The man, still holding the handgun, is seen attempting to clear the blockade in the road

A man is arrested after shooting two protesters with a gun in the middle of a teachers' blockade on the Pan-American Highway in Chame, Panama

The angry motorist is seen being put into the back of a police van after the shooting incident on Tuesday

People react after witnessing a man shoot two protesters with a gun in the middle of a teachers' blockade on the Pan-American Highway

A woman participates in a vigil for two two men killed in the shooting incident during Tuesday's protest

In an effort to calm tempers, congress last week passed a law that imposes a moratorium on new metal mining contracts and left it up to the Supreme Court to decide on whether to allow the contract with First Quantum Minerals.

Environmentalists have welcomed this decision by lawmakers, saying indeed it is the court that should rule on whether the contract violates the constitution.

But a powerful construction union called Suntracs, teachers unions and other organizations want the contract to be annulled through a law passed by Congress.

As a result, they are continuing their protests.

Source (Archive)

 

[God of Nothing]

I think a lot of people out there lack a proper respect for how dangerous firearms can be to their health because they've never been shot. I've never been shot but I've fired rounds that penetrated through quarter inch steel plates. I've shot dead deer with a miniscule amount of force applied by my index finger to the trigger. Shit like this makes me realize that there's an awful lot of imbeciles out there with not even a sliver of that kind of experience that impresses upon them that guns are fucking dangerous and should be treated with respect.

However, because they are retard babies, they have almost to a (wo)man cut themselves on something sharp and has ingrained in them a deeply seated life lesson that sharp things hurt. Takeaway lesson here is that when you are dealing with violent retards, show them a big fuckoff knife first. Retard babies remember that those hurt.

Anyone with some basic knowledge of anatomy can figure out something really small bursting a hole straight through you is probably going to kill you. Even if it doesn't hit any of your major blood vessels or vital organs, it's going to bleed like a motherfucker: there is a literal hole in you. That happening is a miracle in of itself because people typically aim at the center mass, which is where most your vital shit is located.

You think people who advocate for guns to be taken would be more cautious around them. Then again, the people who want that aren't around them to begin with. Funny thing is everything I described about guns can also be said about knives just without the range.

 

[not william stenchever]

Anyone with some basic knowledge of anatomy can figure out something really small bursting a hole straight through you is probably going to kill you. Even if it doesn't hit any of your major blood vessels or vital organs, it's going to bleed like a motherfucker: there is a literal hole in you. That happening is a miracle in of itself because people typically aim at the center mass, which is where most your vital shit is located.

You mistake retard babies for people who are capable of thinking in abstract terms about something they have not personally experienced. They don't understand, on an emotional level, (the only level they can think on) that the man holding the tube of doom can fucking end them. They only get to learn that lesson once and then that lesson is wasted because they are fucking dead. Because they are retard babies, though, they have cut themselves on sharp objects and cried about it. Sharp thing hurty, this they do understand on an emotional level.

 

[Marvin]

I'm familiar with them. I've narrowly avoided pileups with dozens of cars about three times, and watched some pretty spectacular and fatal wrecks involving other people. And that was completely out of the blue under normal conditions. If you're saying suddenly stopping high speed traffic and creating a roadblock lasting miles long as a result for hours doesn't vastly amplify the already existing hazards that's deranged.

On 78 alone I've seen at least a half-dozen major wrecks. The entirety of 95 is a congested shithole and that's when it's not under construction for years. I suppose you could probably block it without it seeming out of the ordinary though.

Acting like shutting down traffic traveling at high speeds, though, is somehow completely harmless is derange-o.

Can motorists not handle road work without getting into wrecks?

Again, this shouldn't be OK without a permit. They should've been hauled off to jail.

I just don't like the hysterical arguments about people dying in ambulances. If it happens, like the situations in Peru or the Burning Man thing, then absolutely, they're probably causing deaths. Until then, it reminds me of sjw hysterics.

Blocking the highway is shitty behavior for more mundane reasons, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be thrown in a paddy wagon and hauled away.

Now, here's an idea for you all: we have stand your ground laws in some places, where if you have the right to be somewhere, you have NO obligation to move from it, even using lethal force to defend yourself if need be. It's basically the most extreme interpretation of self-defense you can have. Now apply that to a roadway where people are obeying normal traffic laws and there is a reasonable expectation that traffic can and will flow. How do you interpret, then, the situation of people standing in the way of traffic with a car barreling down on them?

I'm sure no normal judge would rule in favor of the car, but this is something I want to see play out. A precedent that if you are willfully blocking the road, blocking it with malicious intent, unlawfully obstruct traffic, then that car has the right to "stand its ground" on the road over your fucking head.

Edit: Even if it's spurious and gets appealed, couldn't a local judge/district attorney, in places that would have a friendly one, do something like charge protesters with kidnapping for every single person in the jam? One of the most vile aspects of this type of nonviolent terrorism is that the nature of a traffic jam leaves a person locked into it, you can't back out, you can't just drive off the road, you technically can abandon your vehicle but we all know you can't really. So you are effectively held hostage.

I've never liked stand your ground laws. I'm absolutely behind castle doctrine (and hell, it should apply to your place of work and similar places), but I don't like the idea of empowering random joggers or rednecks to get into shooting matches in walmart parking lots. That's never sat right with me.

For example, from a self defense perspective, this jogger kid rightfully should've gotten off. A large man with a baseball bat can absolutely beat you the fuck to death, without difficulty. There's no self defense rule mandating that you give your attacker a "fair" fight. That's fucking stupid. But Maryland requires you to retreat outside of the home. And I also am not really comfortable with people getting into shootouts on highway medians in the center of the city.

Of course, I also don't like the idea of a jury nitpicking your self defense case trying to suss out what you were experiencing and how "reasonable" your self defense action was from the comfort of the jury room.

I don't really have a good solution to this problem. Either extreme makes me uncomfortable.

But yeah, to bring this back to cars: generally you don't get to stand your ground or engage in self defense with a car until a crowd of angry dipshits breaks your window. At that point it's a lot easier to argue self defense that you're afraid of being dragged out and beaten half to death like Reginald Denny.

Highways are also how supplies go from one city to the other.

My country is unfortunately too centralist and this city doesn't produce anything. Blocking traffic is the same as blocking the entry of food.

And before anyone said "but that didn't happen"... that's the point. They didn't know it would or wouldn't happen.

Certainly. Blocking roads without a permit should be illegal.

I just don't like people grandstanding about hypothetical emergencies that didn't happen. That's all I'm saying.

It's very simple. The police should've nutted up and dragged them off the street in cuffs.

This is obtuse. It's not only a question of whether a "legitimate emergency facility" (??) will be interfered with; it's preventing people from traveling to that facility. When someone has a heart attack, it doesn't matter that you didn't block the door to the emergency room if they can't get there from where they are because the ambulance gets stuck. And where they are may very well be is in a massive traffic jam or anywhere between there and a hospital. That's why you shouldn't be blocking highways unless you are intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that your attempt to fuck up travel in an area may get someone killed (as has verifiably happened multiple times). And your cause had better be worth that chance.

That's what I was arguing. As far as I'm aware, there are emergency facilities on either side that are easier to get to. This didn't prevent anyone from traveling to an emergency facility.

 

[TowinKarz]

That's what I was arguing. As far as I'm aware, there are emergency facilities on either side that are easier to get to. This didn't prevent anyone from traveling to an emergency facility.

Only by luck, not design, that's why it can't be allowed

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

@Marvin I like that post, I can appreciate your argument.

 

[AnOminous]

It just so happens that, this time, the improbable death was on the side of the ones who decided to cause the situation. I wonder if they calculated that possibility?

If there is a deterrent effect from vigilantism like this, and it prevents people from doing this selfish, terrorist shit, then that's good, at least in this case. Sadly, the reason we can't really just pin a medal on someone who does something like this is that outside of self-defense and a few very narrowly defined exceptions, people aren't allowed the power of life and death over others. So this dude may need to be punished for his actions even though I would not condemn them, if only because the consequences of not doing so would make others whose actions might just be outright harmful feel justified in taking the lives of others.

But frankly terrorism like this literally is rolling the dice with other people's lives, just like driving drunk or any other action with an unacceptable risk of harm to others. I think anyone who does this shit deserves a lengthy prison sentence, something like 20 years. If someone does die, give anyone involved life without parole as if they'd directly murdered them.

This kind of shit is unacceptable in anything like a civilized society. If you allow selfish narcissistic idiots to wreck a country's infrastructure because they're big mad, you end up with Somalia eventually.

I've never liked stand your ground laws.

I like the principle, but I don't like the inflammatory name that seems to justify shooting anyone who makes you mad. Laws shouldn't have inflammatory names like "make my day law." I like the principle though that if you are where you have every right to be, exercising your lawful rights, you should not be obligated to submit tamely to the whims of criminals.

Someone who plans on violating the rights of law abiding citizens should be prepared to pay for it, or at least aware that it's entirely possible they will pay the ultimate price. They might give the matter a little more thought.

It is a good thing if they're afraid.

That's what I was arguing. As far as I'm aware, there are emergency facilities on either side that are easier to get to. This didn't prevent anyone from traveling to an emergency facility.

"Easier to get to" doesn't mean it's the one with the necessary specialty.

Also you're acting like medical emergencies are the only possible reason anyone could object to criminals blocking highways. There are already risks from even a single vehicle crashing and blocking a highway. It sometimes results in multi-car pileups with multiple casualties. Highways involve traffic with dangerous chemicals, explosive or fire hazards, and environmentally hazardous waste.

And that's even disregarding the sheer arrogance of assuming you have the right to override the rights of all the literally thousands of other people who use that highway. Who the fuck gave these assholes that right?

 

[30+GameOvers]

If there is a protest that is unlawfully blocking a highway or a road, you should be able to simply ride over them at full speed. This thread is overcomplicating the solution.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Fuck around long and hard enough with people and eventually you find out. I was just saying a few weeks ago in a topic about this kind of thing.. how someone's going to fuck around with the wrong person in one of these in-your-face types of "protests" and it's going to end badly.

This was clearly self defense though! They were wasting his remaining life with their petty ideological bullshit! You saw how old he looks! Maybe what ecoism resistance looks like?

Plus it's not even clear what the context of the shooting is. We've all seen the media ignore aggressive threat and even violence in these types of cases, in order to poison the well and create a narrative. Leftists/progs could literally almost get away with murder at these types of things.. Especially over something as holy as ecoism and green orthodoxy.

 

[LiPoPhil2]

I wish these soy terrorists had the balls to glue themselves to train tracks, then we wouldn't have to send a hero to jail for cleaning up.

 

[BikeLock]

These nigger-brain subhumans have never stood for anything and never plan to stand for anything, they will deep-throat corporate interests until the day they die

Protesting is nigger tier behavior, bring guns like a chad.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

View attachment 5487931

Couldn't be more wrong. His actions meet none of the qualifying definitions for first degree murder.

 

[TowinKarz]

Couldn't be more wrong. His actions meet none of the qualifying definitions for first degree murder.

What?

First degree murder is you wanted person A dead, you took deliberate actions to kill them, and as a result of your actions, they died.

That's all on video.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

What?

First degree murder is you wanted person A dead, you took deliberate actions to kill them, and as a result of your actions, they died.

That's all on video.

No, that is the definition of second degree murder.

 

[Professor G. Raff]

 

[TowinKarz]

No, that is the definition of second degree murder.

Uh. That's not correct either

Second degree murder is first degree with diminished capacity from acting in the heat of the moment, the ol caught-your-wife-cheating example

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

Uh. That's not correct either

Second degree murder is first degree with diminished capacity from acting in the heat of the moment, the ol caught-your-wife-cheating example

That is an incomplete definition of 2nd degree murder.

@AnOminous, can you please provide your legal two cents on the definition of 1st and second degree murder?

 

[The handsome tard]

If someone pulls out a gun at your sitting fat ass and tells you to move, whatever happens after you say no is peak "darwinism".

 

[DagothUr]

Hope he comes to the UK

 

[AnOminous]

This was clearly self defense though! They were wasting his remaining life with their petty ideological bullshit! You saw how old he looks!

That's the thing about fucking with a giant bunch of people. You just made thousands of people hate your guts with white-hot intensity. One of them might be just insane and has been looking for an excuse to shoot someone. One might be actually on the way to dialysis or something. And another might just be some 77 year old boomer completely out of fucks to give with very little to lose and a lifetime of grievances to take out.

Is that good? Well, it hardly passes legal muster. But that crazy old coot is going to blow you away and a lot of people will say "good."

Anyone with some basic knowledge of anatomy can figure out something really small bursting a hole straight through you is probably going to kill you.

Especially if an ambulance can't get to you because being an absolute fucking idiot, you blocked traffic for miles around.

@AnOminous, can you please provide your legal two cents on the definition of 1st and second degree murder?

The fundamental difference between the two is premeditation. This doesn't necessarily mean lying in wait and ambushing someone, although that would invariably qualify (and be an aggravating circumstance in favor of the death penalty where it exists). The intent to kill can form nearly immediately, although a jury is likely to be skeptical of a first degree case where that occurs, like in a bar fight where someone unjustifiably escalates to gunfire, or the husband who flies into a rage after catching his wife in flagrante delicto with his best friend and shoots them both (that used to be an actual outright defense in some jurisdictions).

That's an oversimplification because there are ways an unintentional killing can result in a first degree charge, such as when you (or your co-perpetrators) commit a listed crime and any of the co-perpetrators end up killing someone during committing the felony.

 

[kidatari]

not sure posted, but mark me "late" if so
from /pol