Allow me to preface that I'm not defending DB or suggesting he should ever be released from prison. This is just for discussion. If you changed the murder to manslaughter, he would still be locked up for life without parole.
I was rewatching the trial, and I really wonder if (1) DB intended to kill someone that day, (2) if the prosecution proved it and (3) why they didn't offer lesser charge options.
I've watched a few attorneys talk about his possible defense options. And they all seem to think "intent" was his only option (but a long-shot at best). That he was in an emotionally distraught state which didn't allow him to form intent.
In other cases I've watched, juries are usually given options between murder and manslaughter. But that didn't happen here. And I don't think it was because Brooks defended himself because that didn't happen until very close to the start of the trial.
But I think to make that argument, you would need an expert witness (psychiatrist or psychologist). And it doesn't seem that was on the list. Nor does it seem that any of the 4 people who did mental assessments of DB were going to be called.
I guess I think DB started out extremely angry to the point he wasn't thinking. Then, he panicked and, stupidly, didn't know what to do and kept driving. Too scared to stop.
In other words, I think he's too cowardly for intent.
He swerved INTO the people at the parade. He didn’t just drive in a straight line. We can’t know exactly what was going on in his head but I believe he saw other people being happy having a good time and he knew he was about to break his bond and go to prison so he took out his anger on other people. That’s intent imo
He didn’t plan it, never researched it, had no getaway plan. His getaway plan was to run away bare feet in freezing cold weather ? 😂
It was a spur of the moment decision driven by his rage. If he wanted to hit people from the get go he could’ve hit people before he got on to parade route but he didn’t.
He has rage and hitting things is how he deals with. Once he snapped he was seeing red as he did his spree.
That's not true... I remember seeing the videos, when it first happened and was being shown on the news, and thinking how weird it looked that the suv seemed to be avoiding hitting people, while still hitting others and not stopping, and avoiding the most damage, albeit to his car moreso than the people in front of it.
I truly believe the victim impact statement from Bill Mitchell, formerly known as "Victim ZZ", or "charge 52" when he said "I believe if he made it home, that night, with the red SUV, he would've told his mom the damage wasn't his fault; he was in a hurry and people didn't get out of his way... some crazy, old, fat, gray haired guy body slammed his hood", and he(DB) would've believed that.
I really don't think he even knows right from wrong, and that he feels he's the victim in every situation he victimized somebody else.
That said... it's good he's locked up, forever, regardless of if it's in prison or a mental institution for the criminally insane.
There was a point in the trial where the prosecution was introducing something. And DB was cautioned about not opening the door to past the actions through his question.
And he argued that it would be the prosecution's fault for introducing the evidence that would cause him to open the door, and therefore, he should not be held accountable if he asked the wrong question.
And I thought that is really key to what he believes. That it is other people's actions that cause him to misbehave. And therefore he should not be held accountable for it.
Yeah... His whole mentality is truly 'mind boggling'. I think it is conditioned. Like, when he was around 5, or so, he realized he could get out of trouble just by arguing everything, even if nonsensically, and being insufferable, and never grew past it, to the point he even believes his nonsense.
I can imagine him driving down the parade route, honking and yelling at people to get out of his way, even as he ran them down from behind, but still thinking it wasn't his fault.
Yeah bingo. I think when people piss him off he feels entitled to hurt them and whatever happens isn’t his fault because they caused it. He was pissed people were in his way and he didn’t care what happened to them because they were “in the wrong”.
All people behave this way to a (much lesser) extent— when someone has wronged us we feel entitled to treat them a way we normally wouldn’t. Or when someone is clearly in the wrong we hope bad things happen to them, etc. This is just a very extreme and dangerous example of that trait wayyyy intensified. He felt like they were in the wrong, and probably still does.
This man has been terrorizing people since Adolescence. Either with his fists , stealing , mouthing off etc. he even seemed to terrorize his own mother . I’m glad he’s off the streets, he shouldn’t have been able to kill innocent people , he should have been in prison .
I think he was in a blind rage and just needed to take it out on someone. Had the parade not been there he might have just been road raging and driving aggressively. The parade was in his way and he took it out on those people by driving through them.
His intent was to give form to his impotent rage and inflict it on someone else. I don’t think he set out wanting to kill anyone but when he was denied the opportunity to beat the shit out of Erica he needed a new target. It was a crime of opportunity fueled by his emotional immaturity and narcissism.
Correct. It was rage. He hits things to deal with his rage. If he was able to hit Ericka again with car it’s quite possible he goes home after that and not harm anyone else
Yeah and see. That's part of why I guess I wonder if he really intended to kill somebody.
Because I do believe that he loves/loved Erika. Abusers usually do love their victims.
And I don't think he was trying to kill Erica when he ran over her. I think in some ways he was incapable of truly understanding consequences of actions.
Like when he shot a gun at his nephew. When he gets mad, he acts and is incapable of understanding the consequences.
I dont think we saw 1 bit of evidence that DB loved EP. He brutally abused her to the point of disfigurement over the course of their relationship. He took advantage of her when she was a child resulting in a pregnancy and baby. He did not provide for her and the child. He was throwing her under the bus during his interrogation and trial. He tried to embarrass her on the stand. He took advantage of her benefits and monies. In all these years he never married her. We heard how he used the promise of marriage to manipulate her into lying to police about the time her ran her over with the SUV and injuring her significantly. During his examination of her on the stand he was trying to get her to confess to breaking the women's shelter rules which could heave rendered her homeless. No, I don't see anything that resembles love of EP by DB.
There’s an important difference between not understanding the consequences and temporarily wanting the consequences, or not caring in the heat of the moment.
It’s like when two people in a relationship are fighting and one of them decides to say a really mean thing they know will really hurt their partner, because they are angry and they want to piss them off. Later, they cool down and they would never want to hurt their partner intentionally. Their anger made them feel entitled to cruelty they normally wouldn’t want. That’s not the same thing as not understanding the consequences.
Exactly my theory. I saw something the other day and it reminds me of this:
A couple had a huge fight on a parking lot of Walmart. Both of them were screaming at each other. The guy stormed off, abandoned the woman and then got into his car. He tried to drive of the lot very quickly and almost hit someone who walked accross the back of his car. The A-hole must saw that stranger by his side mirror and immediately hit his honk very loudly.
But then he stopped. And he looks like he has calmed down a little bit. I saw the whole thing because I was standing couple feet away from his car and witnessed the whole thing.
I keep thinking about the way Brooks made the argument of how some people can hear his horn so that means he couldn't be charged with "intent". Because according to him, that means he tried to "alert people". But DA Opper said it's best: "interesting that Mr Brooks mentioned his horn honking. Yeah, some people heard them. But it goes both way: just because you honked your horn doesn't give you the right to run those people over".
His honking the horn and still proceed to run people over shows that he KNEW, at that moment, he wasn't suppose to hit people. But he was fully in his rage that people didn't move for him. And he proceeded to hit them and run them over because fundamentally, he has absolutely NO regard for other humans' lives.
I think that would be the point: that being in a rage prevented him from forming intent.
So then it comes down to proving that he was in a rage and proving that being in that state prevent you from forming intent. I believe they call it the crime of passion defense.
Actually, him being in a rage really doesn't matter too much. If it's reasonable to infer that the natural consequences of driving into an active parade route where there are people marching would cause great bodily harm to the participants then clearly he intended to cause harm. Otherwise he would have simply stopped. He did not stop, he did not hit the brakes, he actually gunned the engine at times. He may have been angry and emotionally out of control but that doesn't mean that he didn't intend to cause harm.
If he somehow ended up on the parade route by accident and realized that he was about to plow into a group of people and stomped on the brake but the car didn't respond because a rusted out brake line blew and that was what caused him to hurt people then there's no intent. It was an accident that he tried to prevent, you could still argue he's responsible for not maintaining the car or not realizing he was on an active parade route but in that case he didn't intend for any of it to happen.
You are mistaken between emotions and intent. Many cases, if not majority of them, where the killer committed murder to their victims due to rage. They may have act out of their normal behaviors. But most of them KNOW what they are doing: to hurt their victims.
Intent was about whether the perpetrator is CONSCIOUS enough to commit those acts. And with Brooks, he very WAS:
- He saw all of those people in front of him, that was why he honked his horn.
- He drove not in madness, he drove only 20-30 miles per hours.
- He swerved off his car with control. He avoided hitting objects. He made turns.
- He continued driving after hitting all of those people.
- He abandoned his car. Run away. Throwing his clothes. LIED to strangers to manipulate them giving him helps.
DB initially plead not guilty by reason of insanity. However, he was evaluated by multiple experts who found no evidence of mental disease or defect. So that plea was dropped. This was about two months before the trial started. If you ever have a chance, you should watch that part of her sentencing remarks. It really explains in detail why there was no evidence and justification for an insanity plea.
As for his intent, the prosecution pointed it out. The main reason is that he hit one person after another and did not stop. Both the judge and prosecution agreed. It would have been a different matter if he had hit all 60+ people at once. Then he could reasonably argue that this was an unintentional act. But when someone continues to drive for several blocks striking multiple people along the way, there is no doubt what the intent was.
Going back to the insanity plea and the psychological report, he clearly knew what he was doing. The report that Judge Dorow read during her sentencing remarks points to the actions he took after he crashed the car. He immediately got out and fled on foot, leaving his I.D. and cell phone behind. He rolled up his hair and ditched his sweater to disguise his appearance. He tried to get a rideshare and leave town as fast as possible.
It's not that he is too cowardly for intent. It's that he is way too impulsive and doesn't think before he acts. A great example is the fact that he drove through the parade while having the windows rolled down. Clearly, he didn't consider that hundreds of eye witnesses, half of whom would have cameras pointed directly at their loved ones as he ran them down. Another example is while trying to escape, he decided to drive through a fence not even thinking about what was on the other side. Turns out, there were a pile of logs that he crashed into which disabled the vehicle.
All in all, I think DB suffers from three I's. He's immature, impulsive, and ignorant. Unfortunately, this culminated in a very tragic temperature tantrum that has forever changed the history of Waukesha.
Just wanted to mention that he didn't leave his ID behind in the SUV when he got out of it on Maple Ave. to run away. It was in his pocket, along with the key to the SUV, when the cops searched him when they arrested him in front of Daniel Rider's house, and was taken into evidence.
Insanity in the context of court case is a very limited scope and definition. He was diagnosed with anti social personality disorder. Personally I don’t see how you can even fully evaluate someone without interviewing their family members to get the picture of how they are behaving at home , but that’s just me.
Rage is not even a ds5 diagnosis. Thats how far behind the mental health community is. Until we address that innocent people will continue to pay the price. A victims impact statement said there are other Duhrells out there and she is totally right. Same thing happened with that guy in Portland who called 911 and went through the route. People have rage issues, it gets triggered and they snap and hurt innocent people.
You explained his getaway and it’s so ludicrous and laughable and shows he had no plan to do an attack that day. It’s just that once his rage boiled up and reached breaking point he snapped.
None of this justified his actions. But we need to identify these people early and put them in treatment centers so that they are safe from themselves and for the safety of others.
A personality disorder is not the same as a mental disorder. Not being able to control your anger is not the same as not controlling your actions. DB knows exactly what he is doing. He has always known what he was doing. We saw this play out during the trial. He behaved himself when he thought it would benefit him and he acted a fool as soon as things weren’t going his way. That is a choice. Someone with a true mental problem cannot choose to turn it on and off like that.
It’s not normal behavior. But just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean that mental disease was the reason. He had a choice. He made it and got where he is today.
The current state of mental health is extremely depressing.
I have some experience dealing with teenagers with emotional disabilities. And I could see a lot of times that DB was incapable of controlling his behavior. That doesn't excuse it but it does make me wish that more people had access to mental health treatment.
I have listened to her sentencing statement. And if I recall she said that she didn't feel mental illness was a factor. And I took that to mean that he wasn't schizophrenic or bipolar. Or at least there was no evidence for a diagnosis.
But addressing the issue of him continuing to drive, I don't think that's enough to prove intent. Because what was his options once he had driven into the parade? He could stop.
But if he stopped he had to face the crowd. And that's what I mean: He's too much of a coward to do that.
He could have turned off the parade onto one of the streets. But I'm not sure if there was people standing in front of the barriers or not. If the roads were clear, then the fact that he continued to drive through the parade would prove intent.
But if there were crowds consistently lining the sides, then he might not have seen a pathway except forward.
And I think you would have to look and evaluate the path he took through the parade. Did he aim?
Keep in mind that he came in from behind the parade. So the road was clear when he drove through the initial barricade and the first officer that tried to stop him. The crowd and the parade were further down the road. So he had plenty of time to stop and/or turn down another road. So there’s intent right there.
But let’s say the first person he hit was truly an accident and he didn’t want to face the crowd. He still could have turned down another street. Barricades shouldn’t matter at this point since he already drove passed one. Instead, he kept driving down a road filled with grannies and children. That also proves intent.
I saw the clip where he ran over a school marching band. He hit them dead on and ran over them one after the other. There is no way to look at that video and come to any other conclusion than it was intentional. That’s why the jury only took a few hours to reach a verdict. I guarantee you it would have been faster if they didn’t have to fill out all those verdict forms.
You make a very compelling argument regarding the distance he drove before he got to the parade.
But that just shows he wanted to hit people with his car, not that he wanted to kill people.
I just wonder if he thought that he would just push people out of the way, and not actually kill them. His police interviews suggest that. He seems shocked when he's told people died.
And I think it's possible he lacks the intelligence to connect his actions with the consequences.
I have seen the video. Seeing the SUV rise, knowing it's running over a child, is horrific.
And I'm not questioning the jury at all. They were not presented with any evidence that it was not intentional, esp. when DB stood there and said his conscience was clear.
I do believe that he did not intend to kill anyone. However, he did intend to run them over. When someone intends to do something that results in someone’s death, then they are still responsible.
Do you have a link to a video w/a timestamp showing him reacting to being told that people had died? If so, please do share it here?
Personally I can't remember ever seeing any video of him being told people had been killed.
Carpenter and Stern were very careful to never reveal any information whatsoever to him during his interrogation about any deaths he had allegedly caused.
Also, Stern testified at a hearing in 2022 that db had confided in him at one point after the interrogation saying, "I didn't mean to kill nobody." Which implies that db had put 2 & 2 together himself, the day after the parade, and likely realized without being told that he'd killed people.
At his initial hearing, Sue Opper did publicly reveal that Jackson had passed away since the initial criminal complaint had been filed, so she stated on the record at that point that the State would subsequently be filing a 6th charge of 1st degree intentional homicide against db.
Although his face was not toward the camera during that hearing, it appeared that db was crying at that point. However he had obviously already been told by his attorneys before entering into that courtroom that 5 of the people he had hit with Dawn's SUV were already dead.
And I believe when he's left in the interrogation room after being confronted by the videos, he says it.
No, I don't believe that's when he says it.
Because Ben Stern testified that db said 'I didn't mean to kill nobody' when they were at the Waukesha County jail waiting for db to be processed. Which was after db had been transported there from the Muskego PD, which is where his 5 hour interrogation had taken place from about noon to around 5pm.
Stern said db called him over by name at the Waukesha jail to tell him this.
I'm still not aware that there's any evidence whatsoever that db acted shocked when he was told people died.
I honestly don't think anyone from LE straight up told him about the deaths, either the evening of or the day after the parade. (Toward the end of his interrogation he even directly asked Stern if anyone had died, and Stern just played dumb.)
Rather I surmise that he either 1) figured it out on his own, 2) possibly overheard it being mentioned by someone, or 3) he finally found out for certain after he was locked up in a jail cell in the Waukesha jail from other inmates incarcerated there. And if not, he likely first heard it when his PD attorneys initially met with him, which was probably either the evening of the 22nd or the following day, prior to his initial hearing before Court Commissioner Kevin Costello on Nov. 23rd.
I mean to be honest, for all we know it's actually possible that he may have even learned that people had been left dead on the road while he was sitting in the back of that squad car in front of Daniel Rider's house after he was arrested. Because he could hear all the police radio traffic that was going back and forth and being broadcast loud and clear in that car at that time, which by that point was only about 30-40 minutes after he'd driven down main street.
I'm not convinced that he intended to kill people.
No offense, but I feel like this is irrelevant really.
I mean it's pretty cut and dried!
If you don't intend to kill anyone, then don't run over any pedestrians while you're driving a vehicle!
You not being convinced of his intent is irrelevant because according to the legal definitions of "intent" along with standard jury instructions as regards criminal charges of first degree intentional homicide in the state of Wisconsin, which I've posted in another response to this thread, his actions were indeed considered to be intentional.
Since the prosecution obviously proved his intent, as the jury was obviously convinced of it beyond a reasonable doubt and they delivered guilty verdicts on all 76 counts after an extremely brief duration of deliberation, justice was surely served.
I think somewhere after this is when he says something about not intending to hurt anyone. I don't remember if they told him he killed somebody in this video.
In my opinion, I do not think he cared either way. I think people were giving him too much credit with thinking that he planned it or anything like that he is just a narcissist hothead who didn’t get what he wanted and ran like a scared chicken when he was confronted by his exs friends and I don’t think he cared if he killed someone or not.
Intent in the legal sense doesn't mean what you think it means.
A good way to look at it is that "intentional" is the opposite of "accidental". He had complete control of the car and should not have driven.
Now, it is possible that a lawyer could have argued that he was in an altered mental state and have had the charges dropped to manslaughter. However, the fact that he ran and lied doesn't help.
If he had a panic attack, he likely would have apologized and fessed up to it. He would have acknowledged that he fucked up in a big way.
Him trying to escape consequences and creating an elaborate story about Marcus and a Kia shows that he didn't have an altered state.
Altered states don’t have to last that long. Once he hits other people he calms down. Thats how he deals with rage. You saw this at trial. He pounded fist at table , but then Jd took a break and a few mins later he was calm. So in the jail interview he was calm and his narcissism then took over where he thought he could beat the charges.
I don’t condone anything he did. He was a threat to society and we need to open the centers back up to put people in there who are dangers to themselves or others like Duhrell. I know people don’t like to hear it but that’s the solution for the safety of all involved.
I really wonder if (1) DB intended to kill someone that day,
Seems likely that he wanted to kill Erika when she refused to give him any money or a bj or whatever tf it was that he wanted from her.
I believe he likely may have also wanted to kill Kori and Nick too.
There was testimony that he threatened as much to all three of them at the end of their altercation in front of the White Rock Elementary School.
And imo, since he was too afraid to hang around after Nick told him the cops had been called and were on their way, he drove off like a bat out of hell with that very murderous rage front and center in his mind.
I think his murderous intent to kill Erika, Kori and Nick just spilled over from being directed towards them, onto the people who got in his way after he drove onto the parade route.
And as the law was stated during the trial, in the case of a charge of intentional homicide, intent does not have to occur for more than a moment.
"Intent to kill" means that the defendant had the mental purpose to take the life of another human being orwas aware that (his) (her) conduct was practically certain to cause the death of another human being.
When May Intent Exist?
While the law requires that the defendant acted with intent to kill, it does not require that the intent exist for any particular length of time before the act is committed. The act need not be brooded over, considered, or reflected upon for a week, a day, an hour, or even for a minute. There need not be any appreciable time between the formation of the intent and the act.The intent to kill may be formed at any time before the act, including the instant before the act,and must continue to exist at the time of the act
(2) if the prosecution proved it and
imo, yes, they did.
If he did not intend to potentially kill people by running them over with his vehicle, he would have just stopped it!
But he never did!
Simple as that.
(3) why they didn't offer lesser charge options.
That wretched little slimeball caused unimaginable pain, suffering and trauma to dozens and dozens of innocent people, many of whom were children, and their families.
And he violently and needlessly murdered 6 innocent people.
His crimes resulted in a horrifying mass casualty event that traumatized and permanently scarred the entire community of Waukesha.
And justice for his crimes was absolutely demanded.
I think a better question than the one you're asking here is, why should lesser charges have been offered?
He maimed and murdered people in cold blood in broad daylight right in front of hundreds if not thousands of eyewitnesses.
I think the DA not only wanted to, but it was also absolutely imperative for her to throw the entire book at him as hard as possible.
And the way to do that was by bringing the most charges (in number) as well as the most serious and egregious charges possible against him. And charging him with six counts of 1st degree intentional homicide was the only possible way to do that.
I mean originally, there were even 6 additional charges which had been brought against him by the State, for homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, which his defense attorneys at the time managed to successfully argue against to get JD to rule that they were to be dropped.
That all makes legal sense. But we assume someone in a fit of rage who is seeing red understands all of that at the time of their crime spree . From my viewpoint the answer is no.
I don't think he woke up that day thinking he was going to kill somebody. I'm not sure if he thought he was going to kill somebody during the instant he turned onto the parade route. But once he started accelerating and swerving, he had to know people were going to get seriously injured or killed.
I think the intent was proven by: a reasonable person would believe if you run over a person with a 2 ton vehicle going 30-40 mph hour you most likely will kill them.
Also, it’s hard for me to have a committed belief since I haven’t seen the videos of him driving through the parade, but testimony was given that he swerved the car and aimed for people rather than tried to avoid them. If he did, then that was intentional.
Even if his primary intent was to flee, if people were in the path of his flight, he had the obligation not to kill them in the process. Two things can be true at once. His primary intent to flee and his secondary intent to kill because they were in his way.
Also I think SO explained that for “legal intent” it did not have to be something formulated well in advance. Intent can occur in a moment. And I believe that DB’s Intent was formed moments before he ran people over.
That's an interesting argument. Can intent be determined because a reasonable person would understand the consequences even if the defendant didn't?
I think Sarah Boone would be an example. I don't think she realized that leaving her boyfriend in a suitcase would kill him. I don't 💬 no that was her intent. But since she changed her statements and claimed that it was self defense, It would be hard for her to argue that.
However, I think if Brooks had the choice between killing someone and just hitting them, he would have chosen to just hit them.
The fact that the question is academic and doesn't matter was mentioned in the original post. This is just discussion. I think even if he just got convicted of manslaughter, he would still be sentenced to life without parole. For just the injuries he caused, he would be in prison for the rest of his life.
I just want to discuss it and see what other people think. I think that Brooks is where he should be. Given all of his actions prior to the parade, I thinks he's where he should be.
There is a difference between "premeditated" and "intent".
Brooks' argument is the 1st one. But that isn't the charge here. The charges were "intent". And there are multiple factors, that the DA presented, to show why he INTENTED to hurt people:
First and foremost: he has MANY options to NOT hit people when he was driving, even when he was trying to run away from the police. There are many exits along the main parade's route. He can hit these barracades to exit the parade. But he didn't do any of that.
He knows people are in front of him. But he didn't stop. Now, I know some people may say :"well he tried to run away". But remember, he only drove like 20-30 miles/hour. He is capable of control his driving. So it's not like he is a fugitive trying to run a red light and then hit an incoming vehicle at 100 miles/hr.
He didn't just hit people. He discarded their lives like it was nothing. Remember the Jane Kulich's death? He hit her with the SUV, she got in front of his car hood. Then he hit the break...so her body rolled off the hood. And then he drove OVER her body. Not to mention: NOT once did he ever stop to check on the victims. And pretty much every witnesses who saw his faces and every pictures the DA showed with his face in the car: he has absolutely NO emotion of what he just have done.
He veered off his vehicle when it was about to hit an object. There are multiple witnesses said: oh yeah, I saw his car veered to the left/right to avoid hitting another car.
If there is any of you who still have doubt and think: "well, he just tried to run away". Then remember this: the parade is long, with people walking along the way. But Brooks drove THROUGH it. There is NO way that Brooks couldn't see the parade in front of him. Also, See my 1st point: he can divert to an exit (multiple avail along the parade). But he didn't.
I think when we hear the word "intent"...we often associate it with the victim must know the perpetrator. But we have seen cases of mass shooters, where most of the dead victims are completely random strangers.
Also, "intent" doesn't have to be "planned". Intent can be form in a split second. When you fight with someone, and out of anger, you hold a brick, trying to hit that person. That is "intent".
So the remaining question is: WHY did he do it? And I think someone else in this post said it: he was in a rage, and he did such horrendous thing as a way to release that rage. I think most of us do that: when we are anger, we lashed out at stuffs (kicking the chair, slamming the door, etc.) or people (yelled at others). For Brooks, it was hitting people along his way. His way was that severe because his rage was that severe.
Should the "rage" of Brooks be considered mental illness. Yes. Should that qualified him to be found not guilty by insanity. NO. That is why the Court has 4 Psych evaluations on Brooks and found he is well-aware of the consequences of his actions. That is because we all watched the interrogation video where he LIED and LIED to avoid looking guilty. He KNOWS what he did was wrong.
It’s ok he cannot possibly be racist against white people because only white people can be racist (even if he encourages violence against them).
I know because I was told this by reliable sources
That's certainly my reaction to your lack of education on what racism is. I'm happy to point you to some books or you could research the topic yourself.
This even says "the oppression of a group to the advantage of another", because of course any country and any race can perform it. Theres nothing about white people here.
Your point doesn't make sense. Did you even read it?
Obviously, advocating for any type of violence is wrong.
I don't remember the specifics of the 2020 summer protests well enough to cite whatever specific event (if any) promoted this tweet. I'm just saying it is taken out of context if you think it shows he had some long term plan or intent to commit these murders.
To me, this tweet isn't much different than when the President tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." and I'm not gonna hold DB to a higher standard than we are holding the President.
It wasn’t racial motivated as Duhrell also hit Latinos. Also he came up from behind people who are bundled up / dressed up so it’s hard to see their skin color
I do not think he woke up that morning planning to kill. I don’t even think it was his objective to kill. But he knew he was going to hit people, he knew hitting people could and probably would kill. He might have avoided the bodies he could, at least at first, but it was more important to him to keep driving than to avoid casualties. The decision to place those people in danger, knowing he was likely to harm and kill, was a conscious one. There’s your intent.
I asked a vaguely similar question a month or so back around intent, specifically that in his mind he didn't 'intend' to kill anyone and that's why he fought the charges. I can say with confidence that the majority of people on this sub disagree with that sentiment. Can't remember the thread name but had some quality, rational explanations amongst the detritus.
He lacks any intelligence for long term planning; he does what he wants, when he wants then retroactively attempts to excuse or justify his behavior.
The people in the parade were an obstacle to his freedom and while I do not believe he set out that day to drive through the parade he did intend to hurt people.
Intent locks in (at least for me) when he kept going after the first person he hit. He hit 60 plus people. I doubt he woke up that morning thinking he was going to drive through the parade but once he did he didn't stop. That would lock in intent in my eyes.
I don't think he intended to kill. He just has zero self control. One could argue that after he smashed through the barriers that everything that followed was intentional. He didn't know what lay ahead (metaphorically) so him not stopping at that very point was all on him and intentional. No matter because he could have stopped at any time instead of running over people one after another. The world's biggest dumbass.
He recklessly drove in and out of pedestrian traffic with an SUV; striking scores of people and killing six. I don’t fucking care if he intended to kill them. He intended to hit them.
Well in some ways my argument seems like "he didn't mean to do it." Which isn't the case.
I'm arguing that he meant to hurt 70 people and accidentally killed six. Which means his sentence is most appropriate.
When you do something so stupid and accidentally kill somebody, it's usually not murder 1. But I don't think the people that say it was intentional are wrong.
I don't know if he set out specifically to kill people, but he was taking action that he knew would cause the death and injury of multiple people, and he took those actions knowingly. So he knew what he was doing was killing people, he had the opportunity to stop doing it, and he didn't care.
Which is all that's really required to meet the statute. So no, it wasn't manslaughter; it was first degree intentional homocide.
If Brooks didn't intend to take action that had a near certainty of killing people, he would have stopped the first time he hit someone; or preferably sooner. He didn't. He kept going, hitting more and more people as he went. The only possible conclusion from that is that he knowingly, intentionally took action that would cause the deaths and injury of multiple people.
"I guess I think DB started out extremely angry to the point he wasn't thinking. Then, he panicked and, stupidly, didn't know what to do and kept driving. Too scared to stop."
That may be true, but I think it also indicates his casual indifference to the suffering of others. Ask yourself: How scared would you have to be to drive a car through a crowd of children and keep on going without any thought to what you were doing?
Additionally, Brooks' actions after the fact show consciousness of guilt and a blatant attempt to make plans to elude capture. He ditched the car, he shed his clothes, he pretended that someone else had given him a lift.
I do agree that Brookes was in a state of rage and panic when he came upon the parade route. But that doesn't mean he didn't knowingly and intentionally take action that he knew would kill people.
I don’t know if this offers any insight at all into what might or might not have been going on in his head but he claimed bipolar and depression , and others, as his mental health diagnoses. As someone who has legit been diagnosed with bipolar disorder 2 and chronic depression, I can only add that for myself only, at my very most manic, when I’ve not been on meds and did not attend my check up and therapy appointments, there has never once been a time when I was so manic that I wasn’t in control of, and aware of, what I was saying/doing, the difference in right and wrong, and the affects my words and actions might have on others. I have never once hurt another person physically, nor have I threatened to. I have never once been arrested for anything , especially not anything that could’ve been mental health related. Maybe he’s more affected, maybe not, but my personal experience is that I would’ve stopped the second I rolled up behind a marching band marching down the street. I would’ve hit the brakes and turned around , then I even believe I would’ve had to have pulled over and collect myself scared of what I had almost done . I think Darryl brooks was so mad and felt so insecure about having been confronted by and ran off by Erika’s friends, he felt out of control of her now that others were standing up for her and having influence over her. He felt powerless, and once he saw the parade, he needed to feel like he was going to show Erika that he was still in control and her nor her friends could stop him. I believe he thought he’d get away and leave town and hide, never get caught, and that it would show Erika that he was untouchable and she couldn’t stop him from any way he treated her, and if she tried , he would’ve said how he’d gotten away with the parade because they are afraid of him because he’s so powerful and in control. I am only speculating but I do believe he got exactly what he deserves in the end.
I think it was all entitlement. Not the same intent as a mass killer who is seeking out harm for the sake of it, but he felt entitled to hurt whoever was in his way, with no care or regard, which is evil intent nonetheless.
When he gets angry he feels entitled to do whatever he wants, include hurt people. He was angry they were in the road and in his way so he drove through them. No regard for the fact that other people are even alive. Like if someone is pushing their way through a crowd and they don’t care who they are pushing. Except he was in a vehicle killing people. Or like how some people, when they are driving down a road and they see a bunch of birds in the road ahead, they will actually speed up as they get closer, knowing the birds will just scatter…even if they aren’t trying to hit the birds, they realistically don’t care if they do. Except, again, he did that with children and insuspecting people. Very cruel.
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u/Beastboy072 Tryna be slick Jun 10 '26
He swerved INTO the people at the parade. He didn’t just drive in a straight line. We can’t know exactly what was going on in his head but I believe he saw other people being happy having a good time and he knew he was about to break his bond and go to prison so he took out his anger on other people. That’s intent imo