This story exploded over the weekend, with Texas Democrats claiming that supporters of Donald Trump ran into the car of a Biden volunteer. It was a kind of “come and see the violence inherent in the Trumpist system” moment, at least at first. And it still might be, but a more careful look at the video that sparked the argument actually looks quite a bit different if one looks carefully at it.

The police in Texas thinks it looks different, too:

Here is a video of the Texas MAGA trump supporter trucks harassing the Biden-Kamala bus and ramming a Biden volunteer.
This was a convoy of over 100 trump supporters doing this all day
WTF

SHARE PLEASE pic.twitter.com/mv3xb8tFF2

— Formerly Known as ALT-immigration 🛂 (@ALT_uscis) October 31, 2020

This runs on a continuous loop, so watch it verrrry closely at the five-second mark. The pickup truck is in its own lane at that point, and it’s the Biden volunteer that appears to have initiated the contact. Here’s the image that comes just before the videographer exclaims “S***, look at this!”

That’s what the police see too, although there’s not much context otherwise:

San Marcos police said the Biden-Harris bus requested a police escort, but due to excessive traffic officers were not able to catch the bus before it left the jurisdiction.

The police department also said it has researched the crash and watched online video. It said the “at-fault vehicle” may be the Biden-Harris staffer’s car, while the “victim” appears to be one of the Trump vehicles.

“The at-fault vehicle may be the white SUV and the victim appears to be the black truck,” a statement from SMPD reads.

“Calls to the driver of the white SUV have gone unanswered and SMPD has not been contacted by the driver of the black truck. Since SMPD has not spoken to either driver at this time, additional investigation would be required to fully ascertain who was at fault.”

There’s a reason why neither driver would want to go to the police. Even if the Biden staffer/volunteer sideswiped the truck first, the truck responded in kind. Both actions could be considered assault, even if the initial contact might have mitigated the follow-up. Neither driver’s insurance policy would cover this if police saw this video and chalked it up to mutual road rage. There’s a pretty good chance both of them might face charges.

There’s still a lot of context missing here, though, including whether this was actually the first contact between the two cars, and whether there were any other contacts made. It does seem that the Trump supporters went out on the road to make their presence known to the bus and its followers, including maybe getting in its way:

A Trump supporter posted a video of their pickup truck dangerously close and harassing Joe Biden’s campaign bus on a Texas Highway with the tag #OperationBlockTheBus pic.twitter.com/dghyc9PQix

— Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) November 1, 2020

Another video from the same “Resist Programming” account shows that the bus may have been part of the problem too. Watch this verrrry carefully again to see who’s driving out of their lane in this part of the confrontation:

🎥: Second Video

Randi Ceh posted a different video of her vehicle driving dangerously close to the Biden bus. You can see the window of the pickup truck roll down and someone later yells, “jackass.” pic.twitter.com/pslypgjZXS

— Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) November 1, 2020

The Biden-Harris bus crosses into the truck driver’s lane more than once in this sequence, not the other way around. The truck speeds up to get in front of the bus after the bus’ attempt at intimidation, which appears to be the only time in this sequence that the truck got out of its own lane.

However, we still don’t know what happened before and after this video, either. Did the Trump supporters start these fights? Did the Biden supporters start them? It’s impossible to tell without a full-scale investigation, but from the videos we do have, there’s evidence that everyone involved behaved poorly. It should have been enough for Trump supporters to trail behind the caravan without pulling stunts like this, and whoever drove the bus should be fired. Everyone put other lives at risk in this highway confrontation. When “owning the libs” crosses over into Blood On The Windscreen territory, it’s gone too far.

In the end, Patterico gets it right:

This is a story of two sides behaving badly, and two sides driving unreasonably, leading to a thankfully minor collision on a Texas highway. However, it is being falsely portrayed by Big Media as a situation where evil Trump fans deliberately tried to run some poor innocent Biden supporters off the road. That narrative is false, based on the evidence available to date.

I will first lay out the Big Media narrative, and then painstakingly explain what happened, with all of the available video evidence of which I am aware. I will say at the outset — just as I said when I first discussed this with people yesterday — that additional information can always change my conclusion. In fact, I have learned additional information since yesterday morning that solidifies a suspicion I had that the Trump fan acted unreasonably to a degree. However, I continue to believe that the Biden staffers likely bear primary responsibility for the collision, although it is impossible to know this with certainty. As we will see, the local police agree with me that the Biden vehicle was likely the at-fault vehicle.

Be sure to read it all. Whether you like Biden/Harris or Trump/Pence, both campaigns have the right to make their case to the voters. No one has the right to “run them out of Texas,” especially on busy highways where people just want to go about their business. Neither does a caravan have ownership rights to the highway simply by dint of their political intentions either. Safely coexisting in that public space as a demonstration/counter-demonstration would be no problem at all, but neither side here apparently put safety first.