The volunteer, tasked with security for the march and later identified as Matt Alder, saw Gamboa assembling a legally owned, legally carried AR-15-style rifle near the march in downtown Salt Lake City on June 14. Alarmed, Alder called for another volunteer security guard before drawing a concealed handgun. As Gamboa tried to rejoin the march, Alder opened fire, hitting Gamboa and killing Ah Loo.
Immediately after the shooting, police arrested Gamboa on a murder charge. The arresting officer claimed that Gamboa’s actions had created the situation that caused Alder to fear for his life and the lives of others, prompting Alder to open fire.
As a result Gamboa was blamed for Ah Loo’s death for having “acted under circumstances that showed a depraved indifference to human life, knowingly engag[ing] in conduct that created a grave risk of death and ultimately caused the death of an innocent community member,” according to a police statement.
Gamboa was held without bail for five days under suspicion of committing a violent felony. Police briefly detained Alder but did not take him into custody.
This is a great discussion with a lot different perspectives. However, I’ve done more comment removals and bans on this post than in all my communities since I started them.
Please disagree respectfully. Strong opinions are welcome, rudeness and insults are not.
Thanks for engaging, it’s nice to see this place gaining popularity.
TFW you remember all the commenters quick to agree with the police who were treating Gamboa as almost certainly a would-be mass-shooter and treating the actual shooter who killed a dad of two young kids as a hero who had an unlucky shot which killed a bystander as just an unfortunate cost of safety.
People who were like “wtf you guys have this ass-backwards” were downvoted and chastised.
Nice!
This is an insane mentality to try and wrap your head around when you don’t live in the US.
Good to see Gamboa is free, and the “security volunteer” is being tried. Liberals - listen up: Just because someone has a fancy title, doesn’t absolve them of wrong doing.
Liberals listen up: you should get used to guns; peaceful protests probably aren’t going to fix a fucking thing. Real leftist violence, or at least the threat of it, is what is going to possibly correct this ship.
And if the anti-Trump crowd could stop broadcasting “Peace at all costs” and start growling a bit, Republicans wouldn’t be brazenly pushing through 50% of Project 2025 in the first year of Trump’s term. We probably didn’t even need to fire a shot… except now, where Republicans Know we aren’t going to do shit. Now with the surveillance networks like Flock, I doubt this administration will show any hesitation ever again.
Instead we get people chuckling “Oh I hope it won’t be that long” and going on their day… It doesn’t have to be, but it will be if you let it.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a great speaker; but it was the Black Panthers and the rioters that got the Civil Rights Act passed. Non-violence has a place, but it can’t be the whole picture. Especially when people are being tortured in Alligator Auschwitz.
You believe the security person is guilty of wrongdoing?
If you see someone setting up an AR-15 at a large gathering shouldn’t you be suspicious of that person. I don’t know the specifics but I’d maybe want to take that dude out before they start killing innocent people.
Maybe nobody is at fault here, well America’s love of weapons is at fault.
Yeah, you should be suspicious. That’s why you go investigate what’s going on and don’t just shoot a dude, or rather shoot at a person, miss them then proceed to murder an innocent man because your aim is shit.
Sure you do. But then what happens that time where security is on the way to investigate and in the meantime the shooter starts shooting.
Ultimately I think you should stop allowing people to walk around with AR-15’s. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s sensible to do it.
That said America is messed up and they seemingly love guns and will put that love against any common sense for greater good so I don’t really care anymore. Kill each other or don’t, just wish they would stop exporting their crappy individualism on everybody else.
I’m not saying people should walk around with ar 15s but unless the dude had it shouldered and started aiming it you just go talk to them and discern their intentions. At the very least get close enough to hit your target when you shoot.
It is what it is, being armed at a protest should not be an automatic death sentence especially when it’s legal (for better or worse).
I own firearms and I think they’re too easy to get and need to be better regulated but I am not in Congress writing laws nor sitting on the Supreme Court making shitty decisions on how to read the 2nd amendment. Regardless of my opinion though I think shooting at someone and missing and hitting another person is pretty fucking egregiously bad.
I’m not a crack shot by any stretch of the imagination but it is ludicrous to me this person shot into a crowd to try to subdue a person that wasn’t posing an immediate threat. Who was surrounded by people who were not freaking out which should tell you they’re not dangerous
Perhaps it’s different when you grow up around guns but I’m not going approaching someone with an AR-15 to check they’re not a mass shooter. If they’re then surely I’m first to get shot.
Sure, I agree that you shouldn’t be shot if you’re doing nothing wrong, which is why I think the laws over there are wild that it creates places where you genuinely don’t know if you’re going to be murdered or it’s just someone larping around or even worse someone trying to do it just because you can. Regardless if others feel threatened by it.
Ultimately comes down to Americans individualism over society and that’s also something I can’t comprehend. I don’t put my wants and needs above others as I think that’s selfish.
Yes absolutely Alder (the “security volunteer”) was wrong and wholly responsible for his actions.
He fired his weapon and killed a person. He is responsible for that action.
Anyone open carrying needs to understand that someone else might decide they need to stop a mass shooter before you open fire.
Alder took on a responsibility for security and executed that responsibility. Gamboa didn’t do anything illegal but he has blood on his hands.
Alder executed someone alright.
You believe the security person is guilty of wrongdoing?
yes.
In the USA in an area where open-carrying is legal, a person holding a gun is not a reason to shoot into a crowd them. Only the “security volunteer” shot their weapon; and someone was killed.
The jury will do what they want with this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they acquit because of the tension inherent to the march, and the fact the shooter was a volunteer. Gamboa was fully innocent. Still, there needs to be some trial, or else “I saw someone with a gun” will become a de-facto excuse to shoot anyone you want.
Important info:
…legally owned, legally carried AR-15-style rifle…
I don’t know the specifics but I’d maybe want to take that dude out before they start killing innocent people.
Ah so you’re just like the security guard who killed a innocent dad.
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I remember seeing the video where they caught “the shooter” trying to hide amongst the other participants. Of course later it turns out the person they “caught” was Gambia, who had not shot at anyone. Good reminder that first impressions from an incident like this can be misleading, and if you don’t check in later you may continue to hold that false impression.
Lesson is, make it count fellas. If you’re gonna carry to these events, at least get yours in.
I think the lesson here is that you should read the article before commenting.
I read the blurb here, im not leaving unnecessary digital trails around the internet by pinging random political articles.
Dude was held without bail for 5 days, longer than the guy who actually fired a weapon an shot someone.
Please enlighten me if you think Im missing critical information on how to live my life, friend.
This platform is a link aggregator. If you’re not going to click links, could you just like, not be here? Cool.
You know what, you’re right.
Here is some critical information you appear to be missing:
- The blurb can be misleading and often leaves out important details.
2).Your IP address visiting a news article is not a “digital trail” you need to concern yourself with.
You work for an intelligence agency and can confirm that? I assume my isp logs everything I do. Because if someone asks them to, they likely will.
And what if the ISP keeps the log that you visited some news website sometime in December? What are you afraid of?
If your opsec is so strict that you cannot visit a news website, then I think you are seriously breaking your own opsec by posting here.
I wouldn’t call what I do opsec. I am aware of my digital footprint. I work with computers, and am aware of some techniques for identifying desirable information in unstructured computer data. I do not know what every link on this platform may do wrt to those techniques, and therefore abstain for the most part from clicking things I dont recognize. Forgive me for simply being hegenic. The same thing on cnn is much less problematic.
Edit: I think I may have decided this isnt the community I should be spending tons of time in.
Honest question, because I try to be mindful of what I post, why is CNN better?
I don’t link to CNN, CBC, BBC, etc. to expand the media diet on Lemmy. I made this com and it’s trashy sister, !wildfeed@sh.itjust.works, in the interest of media pluralism, which means avoiding most news conglomerates. Still, I don’t post from any source I haven’t vetted by looking into their legitimacy, independence and fact-checking history. I’m not sure how to check for what makes you hesitant to click.
So I’m wondering how I can do that. If not, how could I better convey that these are legitimate sites? As far as I know the Lemmy TOS and most journalism copyrights prevent me from copy-pasting entire articles, so that isn’t an option.
How was that user misled exactly? What details are they leaving out?
Most of them. They’re in the article. The one I linked on this community that links to articles, on a link aggregator platform.
Edit: It’s weird that you’re downvoting everyone telling people to read articles in a discussion about an article.
Well if there’s so many that’ll be pretty easy to give me an exact example like I asked for. How were they misled exactly?
Also I will freely continue to downvote comments that waste my time because they don’t actually address anything.
I linked it above, conveniently at the top of this thread so I don’t have to type it all out.
edit: If you don’t want to read the news, hate the suggestion of reading the news, and believe people are wasting your time by telling you to read the news, this may not be the right community for you.
I intentionally take excerpts from the middle of articles so it doesn’t look like the whole story. I read we’re not supposed to copy/paste whole articles for legal reasons. Regardless, Unicorn Riot is a pretty damn good, ethical journalism hub to visit.
You missed a lot. You can find out what by clicking the link to the article.
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Is that the lesson? What do you mean “at least get yours in”?
I was being sarcastic. A guy open carrying, following the law, gets shot at, and he’s characterized as a murderer. A guy shoots at someone following the law, kills someone else, and he’s sleeping peacefully at home tonight.
It makes it appear that protesting is less acceptable than violence. Similar story with Kyle Rittenhouse. Shooting your firearm is considered proof that you feared for your life, and are therefore justified.
I think the “lesson” here is, if you’re going to participate in a “peaceful protest”…leave your fucking guns at home.
All you’re doing is putting everyone around you in danger…from law enforcement on the one side, that’s itching for an excuse to escalate violence against protesters…to private security in the other, that’s itching to shoot at counter protesters looking to start trouble.
No, either Americans have the right to wield guns, in which case y’all need to just accept that and realize that assembling a gun during a protest is legal and therefore not suspicious Or, y’all need to realize that your gun laws and culture are incompatible with modern society, and do something to change them.
There’s a massive difference between a "protest’, and an armed confrontation with police. One is a display of solidarity in the face of violence…and the other is simply asking for it.
Thats right. May as well bring you own zip ties and cuff yourself and sit on the curb too. /s
Protesting is not a safe activity.
You’ve obviously never been involved in organizing. The safety of the protesters is always your number one concern. Cops are already dialed up to maximum, looking for any excuse to use crowd control tactics against us. You bringing a gun into that scenario makes you a convenient excuse for them to use violence against the rest of us. And if that’s the case…don’t come. All you’re doing is endangering everyone else, who’s actually there to protest.
I dont own a firearm. And I wouldn’t spend time organizing a protest, but to each their own.
My point was that the police seem to be sending mixed signals about what’s acceptable behavior, making it more likely someone would no longer choose to accept their authority, and could result in violence. Like what you’re saying my lonely words on a mostly quiet social platform would do.
My words here have 0 effect compared to reported violence in the news, just chill dude.
Shouldn’t the lesson here be not to hire trigger happy security guards who murder people because of a hunch? That really seems like the better lesson. Shocked that’s not what you took away from it.
Jesus, yes…that too. Why anyone would have thought having armed security there was a good idea, is beyond me. At the end of the day, they charged the right person.
My point is, the whole situation should have never happened in the first place. Conditions like that…adding a gun to the equation only means more potential for problems. And in this case, it resulted in someone else getting killed.
Oh! I sort of thought that was what you meant but wasn’t sure if you were being sarcastic lol - thanks for clarifying 😅
But the shooter will face charges, as per the headline, and the man legally open carrying will not.
The lesson here is that gun laws are completely fucked. I can understand that when a security guard sees a guy assembling a weapon and then joins a protest, that the security guard may very well suspect that the guy assembling the weapon is a threat.
The “correct” response from security would be to go to the weapon assembler and detain them (preferably) before the weapon is assembled - not wait until the “threat” is in a crowd of people and then open fire.
The “security volunteer”, a title which means nothing, had a gun. Why should he be allowed to detain an individual who also has a gun for the sole reason of them having a gun?
Missing the forest for the trees…
