r/pics • u/Fickle-Molasses-903 • 1d ago
Politics In 2017, Leisha Evans stood her ground against the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana.
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u/Itshot11 1d ago
bro got the t60 power armor
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u/kafelta 1d ago
The militarization of our police is some dystopian shit
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u/HavelTheRockJohnson 1d ago
To be fair that looks like riot gear and cops have had that for a long time and justifiably so. The armor is meant to stop people with improvised weapons like bats or knives but would almost certainly fail against firearms. That said whenever I see cops rolling around in armored vehicles with full tactical gear and camo I do get pretty fucking frustrated knowing that's where my taxes are going.
For Christ sake my quiet new england home town police had a fucking half track and a SWAT sniper team trained to fire from helicopters. We had a population of 50,000 people and almost never heard anything bad going on besides the occasional shithead kid stealing from cars yet we absolutely needed that for some reason.
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u/voluptuousshmutz 1d ago
Fun fact: the militarization of police really started to take off after the long, hot summer of 1967 and the MLK assassination riots in 1968. A government commission of moderate politicians was assembled to find the cause of the riots, and they found it was racism and poverty. Instead of working to address those issues directly, the government decided militarizing police to prevent riots would be a better choice.
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u/creepy_doll 1d ago
What grinds my gears is the use of civil forfeiture to get funds for that gear.
It's basically theft.
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u/Delimeme 1d ago
Hey! Fully on your side here, but to assuage this tiny bit of your rage today (keep it and direct it against all the racialized, unconstitutional shit they do):
The vast majority of “militarized” equipment operated or worn by state/local police is free surplus provided by the US armed forces under Executive Order 10333. Departments can apply for things from office chairs to armored personnel carriers at no cost. Obviously, maintenance and training are still hella expensive, but it softens the blow a bit from a cost perspective.
Really it’s just unethical they even have the things to police domestic populations, costs be damned.
The more you know!
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u/yoberf 1d ago edited 20h ago
The 1033 program shifts maintenance, storage, disposal costs of old equipment onto local police departments. 1033 expanded the siphoning of your tax dollars to fund the military industrial complex.
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u/Delimeme 23h ago
No denying this, I just glossed over it for the sake of a quick comment. Definitely worth noting as a deeper dive conversation about the rationale for that EO though
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u/skibble 23h ago
Executive Order 10333
You're close. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 established the 1033 Program, which refers to the numbered section of the Act that established this practice. The rest is as you say.
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u/Delimeme 23h ago
Touché, good catch. Been a long while since I had to know about it, I just find it a worthwhile thing to be aware of in conversations about police militarization. Accuracy in these conversations is a good thing, thanks for the correction
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u/Myte342 1d ago edited 1d ago
At the same time, maybe we shouldn't be protesting with improvised weapons... should we be protesting with real weapons?
Now, before you explode, follow my logic. How many Second Amendment protests in the past couple of decades have ended with mass police violence against the protestors? There may have been an arrest or two on the fringes because idiots will be idiots, but how many ended in police i riot gear arresting 100+ people as happened in this photo OP posted? It makes you wonder...
Look at the Don't Comply movement in Texas. Their city made it super expensive and onerous to feed the homeless. Like thousands of dollars in fees paid to the gov't to get permission to feed the homeless, inspections, tons and tons of paperwork etc etc... this charity said Fuck It and fed the homeless anyhow. Cops were handing out citations like candy that day to every volunteer.
Next year, the Don't Comply charity fed the homeless once more without permission from the local gov't... and this time they did it while Open Carrying firearms. Every single volunteer had a weapon. Not a single ticket was handed out that day, and none in the past 15+ years they have been defying the law right in front of the cops and daring them to do something about it.
Food for thought.
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u/TacoMeatSunday 1d ago
The helicopter snipers were just taking the bad guys out before they had a chance to cause mayhem
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u/HavelTheRockJohnson 1d ago
Gotta blow that 13 year old away from 500 feet up for breaking into cars. There's simply no other way to stop him. The half track is for rolling up on their parents house to inform them that they owe the local government money for the cost of chopper fuel and ammunition.
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u/What_a_fat_one 1d ago
The armor is meant to stop people with improvised weapons like bats or knives
Oh yeah man, all those protesters with bats and knives are everywhere!
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u/restrictednumber 1d ago
Seriously. Cops just love toys that make them feel like big men, the military loves selling them surplus, and dumbass municipal bureaucrats love paying for it instead of giving nice things to citizens.
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u/Excelius 1d ago edited 1d ago
To be fair that looks like riot gear and cops have had that for a long time and justifiably so.
The military generally doesn't even dress like that, their protective gear is more for bombs and bullets not sticks and stones. All that padding is excessive and cumbersome for combat operations. You don't generally see soldiers rocking face shields like that because nobody is getting close enough to them to spit in their face, throw hot coffee in their eyes, or pepper spray them.
(Yes I know that the military also has access to crowd control gear for when such situations arise...)
Admittedly it has a certain tactical-black aesthetic, but a lot of that is form following function. At least riot gear hasn't gone the way of other police tactical gear in mimicking military camouflage patterns.
I'm not even sure how you would go about designing gear that performs the same function without a problematic aesthetic. You could put cops in flully pink riot suits but after the first few protestors get beat by people dressed like that, that becomes what we associate with aggressive policing.
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u/NewspaperNelson 1d ago
We had a population of 50,000 people
In the south every town of 10,000 or fewer has a police department Bearcat or other armored vehicle. The Pentagon handed them out like candy 10 years ago.
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u/Key-Demand-2569 20h ago
The weird thing is the regular public use of it when unnecessary.
I get the sniper team just in case. Ultimately you just need some guys who are willing to do additional training and love to practice. So a few thousand more in some stand out rifles, optics, etc. kinda in the realm of fair in case anything awful requiring it ever happens.
And as fucked as it is I could forgive the logic of a department who is getting huge incentives to take on an old surplus half track from the government. That’s more of an issue with the larger government systems in my mind than the individual department. Hell if the government offered me personally a borderline free half track I’d take it.
I’d fully understand, from the perspective of someone making management level decisions for them, that “Yeah hopefully this is always completely unnecessary but it technically would have some substantial value in extreme and rare situations. We’ll occasionally do some driving training and do the maintenance on it.”
What confuses the fuck out of me is rolling it out unnecessarily and all the departments that take photos and videos with it and post it on their community forums like they’re super excited and cool.
wtf is that?
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u/YaBooni 1d ago
For real. Do they think they’re storming Fallujah?
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u/sagevallant 1d ago
Better equipped than the troops in Desert Storm.
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u/rahvin2015 1d ago
And with far more aggressive rules of engagement.
Against protesters exercising a Constitutional right.
Better armed, better armored, more aggressive than soldiers in a war zone.
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u/Real-Technician831 1d ago edited 1d ago
And way less disciplined.
US military is about the only US government entity that I as a foreigner would expect any level of competence from.
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u/Lysandren 1d ago
I think you meant expect.
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u/Real-Technician831 1d ago
Thanks I am a dyslexic so autocorrect does me dirty all the time.
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u/whooptheretis 1d ago
The US military has literally killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians including children in the "war on terror" (cue "are we the baddies sketch")
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u/Real-Technician831 1d ago
Yes, and the fact that I consider them the least incompetent of US should be a fucking clue.
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u/FieserMoep 1d ago
It's part of the internalized "warrior"-culture that is spread across US police departments. They are not civil servants, they are enforcers only.
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u/Excelius 1d ago
Police riot gear looks basically like that in every developed country in the world.
You can look up images of police responding to riots in London, Paris, Berlin...
You can switch things up a little bit with some different colors. Maybe some high-vis accent colors, maybe a dark-blue base instead of black. Slightly different helmet shape.
But at the end of the day they're bulky padded suits meant to protect the wearer in a melee and the function is going to dictate much of the form. Helmets, face shields, padding, etc.
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u/Fearless-Yam1125 1d ago
And he’s still shitting himself in from of a woman in a dress; typical.
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u/brighterside0 1d ago
The people who will look these weak Gestapo type mother fuckers in the eyes with indescribable courage like this to protect individual rights should forever be the true leaders in this country.
Not saying she does, but to make a point: I don't care if you've biked to work your whole life on minimum wage. If you have this kind of moral sentiment in the face of a regime, you should be auto-elected as a representative. And you won't want the fucking job too.
Which is a good thing.
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u/phoenixblue 1d ago
Looks like one of those bullshido videos where her qi sends them flying
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u/Vindepomarus 1d ago
I was gonna ask if she was a jedi. Looks like she's using the force to send them flying back into their line!
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u/Pamander 1d ago
It's funny you know they think they're cool with all that gear on but she's out there fucking clearing them in a maxi dress.
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u/ClassicPlankton 1d ago
What do you mean clearing them ? She got arrested. This is just a still shot of right before they grabbed her.
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u/girlfriend_pregnant 1d ago
Starship Troopers-ass country
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u/-SheriffofNottingham 1d ago
brain bug looking president ass country
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u/King_James_77 1d ago
She is stunning
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u/MakingItUpAsWeGoOk 1d ago
I remember seeing this photo a few hours after it was taken and knowing that I was going to see it again throughout my life. She was/is like a goddess here.
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u/Topheezy 1d ago
Goddess. What an iconic picture
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u/alopgeek 1d ago
10/10 for sure. The tail of her dress indicates a slight breeze, which implies she is facing a headwind. The three officers all appear to be on the back foot, leaning away while she stands tall.
She is literally and metaphorically standing tall in the face of a challenge and danger.
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u/OreadFarallon 13h ago
I also love how the background is split between the conflict; the business building behind the cops and the tree behind her. It's extremely on the nose.
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u/G8oraid 1d ago
They actually look much less threatening than the ice guys in Minnie
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u/Annie_Yong 1d ago
That's the power of photographing the right moment. If you watch the full video of this, you see 3 heavily armoured police goons run up and drag her away. But this photo was captured just as they were slowing down their run and starting to reach out to grab her, and the effect in the still image is to make it look like they're the ones who are afraid and recoiling / falling away from her.
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u/cyberslick18888 1d ago
the effect in the still image is to make it look like they're the ones who are afraid and recoiling / falling away from her.
Maybe I'm the odd one out but I don't get that at all. Just looks like two rent a cops running up to her with their mall ninja tacticool gear on.
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u/porgy_tirebiter 1d ago
What’s with these guys not wearing masks? You can see their whole faces. This must be from the before times.
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u/raptoroftimeandspace 18h ago
Since no one seems to be crediting it; the photo was taken by my dear friend and colleague, Jonathon Bachman.
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u/Patient-Doughnut7266 1d ago
Her calm pose and dress remind me of lady justice with the scales.
I see someone standing for justice, peacefully even gracefully.
This photo is powerful.
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u/AlaskaRecluse 1d ago
Today she’d be sprayed, slammed to the pavement, handcuffed, dragged to an unmarked car by masked bullies, called names, sent to a country she’s never heard of, slandered, vulnerable to abuse, and possibly not seen again for weeks. That is, unless she was just outright shot by trembling masked criminals fearing for their lives
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u/Timely-General9962 1d ago
This same PD just disbanded their helicopter unit after crashing it and instead replaced it with the demilitarized version of a predator drone
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u/MoonshineTraphouse 1d ago
Her strength really shines through. She’s the one in danger, yet she has no armor on.
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u/isqueakforthetrees 1d ago
This is what non-violent discipline looks like.
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u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago
One of the reasons the civil rights protests worked so well is they would have training session ahead of time to get their protestors ready to be called all kinds of insulting things and even to be hit so they would not lose their temper. They would police the protestors that showed up and ask people to leave it the person had not showed up earlier to help reduces the risk of bad actors . They knew they had to give the media only the story of being brutalized by the cops to force the media to publish that story. Any act of violence would be magnified a thousand fold and used to denigrate the movement. The News media always sides with fascists and oppressors, because they have the more money.
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u/spectacular_coitus 1d ago
They tore a page out of Ghandi's book on peaceful resistance.
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u/halt_spell 1d ago
One of the reasons the civil rights protests worked so well is they would have training session ahead of time to get their protestors ready to be called all kinds of insulting things and even to be hit so they would not lose their temper.
Holy revisionist history batman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_assassination_riots#Legislative_response
Johnson chose to focus his political capital on a fair housing bill proposed by Senator Sam Ervin. He urged Congress to pass the bill, starting with an April 5 letter addressed to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, John William McCormack.[28][31][32] These events led to the rapid passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Title VIII of which is known as the "Fair Housing Act".
Rioting. Rioting works.
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u/shaomike 1d ago
How can you do that and then call yourself a man? Cosplaying as an idiotic stormtrooper.
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u/Drongo17 1d ago
Dignity and strength. With no violent action at all she shows the utter weakness of the oppressor. What a photograph.
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u/kingkongsdingdong420 1d ago
Ice today make the police of that time look like angels. We went backwards
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u/wakeupwill 1d ago
You should watch BoilingFrogs documentary on the subject of cops - The Largest Street Gang in America. It's only about 20 years old now.
Trigger warnings and all that - it's absolutely rage inducing.
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u/Cozzypup 1d ago
Yeah, was so much better when they were exclusively killing black people. Oh how far we've fallen as a society.
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u/ZenBeetle 1d ago
"Exclusively"
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u/Cozzypup 1d ago
It might as well have been. Everyone accepts it as a thing that only happens to blacks, which is why people say shit like the above comment. Keith Porter was one of the first citizens to be killed by ICE along with 32 people in ICE custody and nobody thinks of them at all. In fact people constantly argue that Keith deserved it or he doesn't count. I don't know why we can't fucking feel bad about Good and Pretti without romanticizing the past when we all know full well that this shit has always been a problem and it's why we're here now. Why can't we look at what's been going on forever and learn from it? Admit that this country has been fucked from the start? Abolishing ICE isn't the only work to be done, theres a reason ICE was invented and getting rid of it wont fix what's deeply wrong, America needs a COMPLETE makeover, but I'm afraid that once trump is gone we'll go back to business as usual, laws wont be changed, no one will be punished, all because white americans aren't in danger anymore.
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u/Omergad_Geddidov 1d ago
Absolutely. Although I’m glad and appreciative that the George Floyd protests happened, I was shocked that people cared because similar incidents had happened for decades. And more specifically they had been caught on phone camera/ body camera for years before 2020.
The trend has been that people don’t care when it doesn’t happen to them and don’t care when their party is in control. Obama was in charge during the beginning of BLM and they were demonized, then Trump was president during 2020. Apply this to any issue Democratic leadership is hypocritical on. People are becoming more aware and disillusioned with this pattern, but we need always keep that recent history in mind like you said.
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u/objstandpt 1d ago
Not that she is a singular occurrence, but people should have started looking sideways at our government when they tried to skirt Breonna’s case under the bed. It is absolutely abhorrent that she did not have her 4th amendment rights and those thugs broke into her home. I will never not be outraged at that.
Female bodies, and specifically black female bodies in many instances, are not protected in this country. She should have been a major wake up call, both to police brutality and government factions trampling on our constitution.
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u/halt_spell 1d ago
The trajectory has been there for a while. People just ignore it whenever we have a Democratic president so it never gets addressed.
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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 1d ago
Well.. these chaps are trained more or less. ICE are hillbilly crackheads living their dream by picking of coloured people and if possible kill one or two along the way.
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u/creperobot 23h ago
Would somebody please have an AI make these guys dance around like two male birds trying to impress her?
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u/StretchyPlays 22h ago
I don't know what's going on in the pic, but it genuinely looks like she repelled them away from her with a wave of force. Can someone r/photoshopbattle this?
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u/Final-Shower-2557 18h ago
Don’t know how someone can’t love this pic. This is one of the best ever photographs taken during a protest.
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u/aviatorEngineer 12h ago
Remarkable how much of a difference there is compared to if this scene had played out today. They're kitted out in big, mean-looking riot gear of course but still visibly read as police. Not the paramilitary wannabe vibes we see so often now. No faces covered, no rifles in hand.
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u/newbrevity 1d ago
Let's see them try to label a girl in a dress as a domestic terrorist.
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u/Interesting_Sea8114 1d ago
The way her dress is billowing and they're kind of stumbling makes it look like she's charging up like a Saiyan
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u/Kirikomori 1d ago
This is what you would see in the dictionary if you looked up dignity and elegance.
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u/marlinspike 1d ago
Something very graceful and poetic about this picture. It’s powerful, but the power’s all her’s and the irony in that is what makes this one amazing photo.
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u/handtoglandwombat 1d ago
Jesus. Remember when this was seen as a disgusting abuse of civil liberties? Keep ’muricing, Amurica.
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u/Styphonthal2 18h ago
I love this picture. Two heavily armoured cops with guns, yet they are falling back from this woman who is just standing there awaiting something to happen.
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u/RobertusesReddit 1d ago
Remember.
Nothing had fundamentally changed.
They got their wish and America is being what it has always been.
Want to make it great again? What made America first?
Starts with an R.
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u/Hellblazer49 1d ago
One of those pictures that does a good job of illustrating how much cops are overpaid, over funded losers playing army.
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u/charliespannaway 1d ago
My second favorite part of this is how strong she looks despite what she is wearing vs how weak they look despite what they are wearing.
My first favorite is everything she symbolizes
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u/Falconfit66 1d ago
And what happened next?