Diplomatic car runs over crowd in Cairo. (Viewer discretion advised)

Rdp616

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cWOK0Lfh7w&skipcontrinter=1

I have no words for this. It's a very sad situation over there right now.

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The first thing that came to my mind was "diplomatic immunity from prosecution".

Very sad incident though...

Why after the diplomatic car? I wonder how the UN is going to react to this..Some people say its an American one too.

How sad. And some of those comments are just despicable, but that's Youtube for you...

nk4e

Why after the diplomatic car? I wonder how the UN is going to react to this..Some people say its an American one too.

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Oh my. I hope not. I don't think we should be going over there sticking our noses in. We should support there decision but i don't think we should go try to "police" the situation if you will.

I thought this was the one with the green car...I was in for a surprise.

If a diplomat commits a serious crime then immunity is invalid.

I wonder how far away this person had to go in order to finally find an area where the internet works so that they could upload this.

nk4e

Why after the diplomatic car? I wonder how the UN is going to react to this..Some people say its an American one too.

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Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Does it matter what country they are from? Does it make it less bad or less shocking if they were Arabian or European?

In defense of the people in the car, they were probably afraid for their lives. People don't do stuff like that just for kicks.

Not good, makes me scared, I also think I saw a blood squirt too.

Sam48

I wonder how far away this person had to go in order to finally find an area where the internet works so that they could upload this.

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The internet is back in Egypt FYI, it was only a 5 day outage.

The whole place should be made into a giant parking lot.

zieglchr

The whole place should be made into a giant parking lot.

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Comments like that will make you a lot of friends fast.. *jeez*

Wow. That was just sickening for me.

I doubt this was American, I don't think American diplomats travel in single vehicles, no other security detail. It was an American-made vehicle, but that doesn't make it an American detail.

But . . . In a situation where a security detail for a dignitary of some type finds itself in a hopeless tactical situation, escape by any means is the thing they're supposed to so.

Also, spending about 10 minutes trying to find anything else on this, I find nothing that says this is actually a diplomatic car other than the person posting the video stating so. Was it a diplomatic car on official business (even if that was just getting the hell out of Dodge,) was it a car stolen from an embassy by a frightened staffer, or was it not even really a diplomatic car at all?

That's a problenm with Internet "journalism:" people report what they assume they saw, and not necessarily what actually happened. I am enough of a skeptic to not be led by apparently baseless claims in a headline. Obviously some sort of vehicle did a monstrous thing in that crowd, but I saw that vehicle being threatened by that crowd before it did so, and I see nothing that tells me anything at all about the vehicle itself other than the poster's claim. I'm sure if someone finds something firmer they'll point it out.

As for the tactical situation of escape, it does appear that the vehicle actually swerved into a crowd. A better maneuver at the start for actual escape might have been grabbing reverse and doing a bat-turn, leaving in the other direction. That makes one wonder if this was done intentionally . . . . (Speaking of baseless claims.)

Sad stuff...but I think they swerved right not to him more but it looks like the crowd is heavier in the middle...still very sad stuff.

I can't come to any conclusion with this video. Why did the van ran over those people? It is entirely possible that the driver was forced into doing what he did to preserve the lives of people inside the vehicle. Crowd is fully capable of flipping over a vehicle, once it has lost the speed, or momentum. And if the crowd was crazy enough to flip the vehicle over, I'd assume that they are also capable of dragging out its passengers, beating them to death. Of course, it's also entirely possible that driver lost his mind and chose to run over and kill some people out of panic. Entirely possible.

I'm not trying to be insensitive, or racist, or anything like that. Even if that happened where I lived, if people were seriously hurting each other, roaming the roadways, tearing stuff down, IMO, you have nobody to blame but yourself for getting hit by random vehicle on the road.

Sad incident? Sure. Do I assume the driver is to blame? I can not do that from this video.

I'm not condoning it, but if you see at the very beggining of the video the crowd did throw a molotov cocktail (though not at the car) and they were approaching the car in a very intimidating manner... Like somebody said, the people in it must've been really scared for their lives, it was an impulsive decision. If given the chance, this crowd would've definitely damaged the van and maybe even injured the people in it, if not something worse.

This is really sad. I don't understand the vandalizing of the fence after the incident. A few people can make a whole mass of people look like an angry mob.

I don't understand the vandalizing of the fence either. You could alsmot see this situation over there getting worse as day's went on. Me and a guy at work were saying how it's gonna get out of control, and here it is.

Well a car barreling through a crowd of people is certainly enough to make things get crazy.

I'd say so. I was expecting maybe one person to get hit, not 15. The sound alone is enough to make you cringe.

Omnis

Well a car barreling through a crowd of people is certainly enough to make things get crazy.

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Conversely, 3-4 people dragged out of a car and beaten to death would do the same. If someone got out of the car or if it was tipped over, it would have been a feeding frenzy.

Google "Reginald Denny" to see what a much smaller mob is capable of doing when a car is stopped.

I would have done the same thing as the driver of that car/limo. Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

BrutherSuperior

Conversely, 3-4 people dragged out of a car and beaten to death would do the same. If someone got out of the car or if it was tipped over, it would have been a feeding frenzy.

Google "Reginald Denny" to see what a much smaller mob is capable of doing when a car is stopped.

I would have done the same thing as the driver of that car/limo. Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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It looked to me like it turned and aimed for a group of people to me.

Could have just driven at a constant 20mph...

Im not defending anybody but from what I can see it some pleople seem to be screaming and shouting and throwing rocks at the car (its really far away and I think the person that shoot that cant tell what happen either). Maybe he could have gotten away without hurting anyone but I think people are very quick to pass judgement when they werent even there.

I just saw the video again. Are those gun shots? And it does look like the crowd was starting to form around the van, just before it took off.

On comments regarding driving at 20mph, or van intentionally swerving into the crowd, I think the unique circumstance must be considered. I don't know how many of you have experience driving full-size vans, but personally, I consider them the worst handling vehicles I've ever driven. Under attack, damn near completely surrounded by hundreds, I can see myself making the same exact mistake(assuming it was a misjudgment) while trying to avoid hitting people, but trying to get the hell out of there at the same time. Especially if I believed that my life was in serious danger. Driving slower, maybe even honking to get people out of the way sounds nice, but I don't know if I could have done that, should I be put in that type of situation. Especially if those indeed were gun shots heard in the background.

Holy crap! Looked like something off of GTA. I mean, you can't get any blatant than that. "Ah a nice wide open lane between these civilians...I second thought, I want to commit manslaughter."

I think a trained driver if they kept a cool head could have kept a slow speed, ff that was the best thing to do under the rules of driver training.
Without a cool head then anything goes.
The occupants of the vehicle could have been the aggressors, they might have been shooting from the vehicle. We don't know that.
But I think I would guess whoever the driver was, was not in control of their emotions.

SuperShouden

Holy crap! Looked like something off of GTA. I mean, you can't get any blatant than that. "Ah a nice wide open lane between these civilians...I second thought, I want to commit manslaughter."

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Such an event as this would be excellent in a game, but I dont think this is anything like GTA. This is a volatile mass of people, there is no authority around , you the driver are likely extremely anxious, anything could happen. I think it would make a popular PS3 title. More dramatic than GTA, but I would say less premeditated darkness, in GTA you can slowly date a girl, then one random day take her for a joyride then shoot her once in the ankle, and follow her.

On the "blatant" comment, I completely disagree. I think the video does very little to give us the whole picture.

On blaaah's comment, in the perfect, ideal, controlled environment, with perfectly capable driver, completely calm under control, sure. But I also think that is an impossible order, under circumstance. Regarding who instigated what, as I stated in my first post, I could not tell that from this video. I'm not taking sides.