I will be describing incidents of police violence in this newsletter, but not embedding graphic images or videos. I am however including external links to videos.

Bruce Springsteen has published a PROFOUND song regarding the deaths in Minneapolis this month. As it’s the topic today, if you’re reading this somewhere you can listen, turn it on.

In October of 2020, the National Fraternal Order of Police posted the below image about local police finding a child wandering barefoot during a violent “riot.” They point out how much the police cared about helping the child.

Nearly every word of that post is a lie. The photo is real. What actually happened is that the child was safely in the car of his mother, Rickia Young, outside of an area where a protest against the murder of George Floyd was taking place. Young was not part of the protest. Police stopped her anyways, bashed in the windows of her car (with her small child in it), dragged her out, and beat her and a nephew in the street in front of her child. The police did not find this child wandering the streets, abandoned. The police attacked the child’s mother for absolutely no reason and then lied their assess off about it. Young would go on to receive a $2 million settlement from the city for the attack.

Police in the United States lie constantly, especially when it comes to police violence. Donald Trump and his administration have been lying about nearly every single action they have taken regarding immigration over the past year. Traditional media outlets still often act as megaphones, offering trust in police that has never been earned. In nearly every case discussed here, police and/or DHS have lied about what happened.

Arnoldo Bazan is a US citizen and high school student. As his father was being arrested, immigration officers placed 16 year old Bazan in a chokehold. As he had been filming the encounter, the officers took his phone. They dropped him off eventually at a relative’s home, covered in bruises and with ripped clothing. A hospital confirmed he had been in a chokehold. The agents who stole Bazan’s phone sold it at a nearby vending machine. The ProPublica piece covering this tallied 40 instances of immigration officers using illegal chokeholds.

ICE arrested a two year old girl and her father, both legal asylum seekers. A court order was nearly immediately issued for their release. ICE ignored the order and flew her to Texas before eventually complying.

ICE violently arrested Nasra Ahmed, a US citizen, and gave her a concussion. They used a racial slur towards her. Her alleged crime is throwing an egg.

ChongLy Thao was arrested by ICE agents at his home. They removed him from the house in frigid temperatures without allowing him to change into something warmer than underwear. DHS said he “fit the description” of two sex offenders they were looking for. By that they mean he is Asian. DHS lied and said he was covering for the men who lived at the address. They do not live there and he does not know them.

ICE shoved and then arrested William Vermie, a purple heart combat veteran, for watching an arrest. He was released after 8 hours in custody during which he was not allowed to call his lawyer.

ICE has frequently been seen shoving people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. In this video, the first man shoved is the president of the Minneapolis City Council. As you can see, the ICE agents are simply walking down a sidewalk randomly shoving anyone they come across. An altercation just like this is what led to the death of Alex Pretti.

DHS is racial profiling on a widespread basis. When asked about a specific incident of agents asking someone where they were born, DHS spokesman Tricia McLaughlin replied that maybe she had attacked them before. McLaughlin lies constantly, having said Kilmar Abrego was arrested with rolls of cash when in actuality he was arrested wearing a shirt with pictures of rolls of cash.

ICE agents killed Geraldo Lunas Campos in a detention camp. DHS lied about his death.

The New York Times analyzed multiple videos of Renee Good’s death. The agent was clearly not in the path of her car and was not hit by it. Kristi Noem called her a domestic terrorist - an egregious lie.

After the death of Alex Pretti, Trump advisor Stephen Miller said Pretti was an “assassin” who was there to kill as many DHS agents as possible. Kristi Noem and CBP officer Greg Bovino both echoed the idea that Pretti was there to kill DHS agents. In reality, the agents on the scene walked up to a woman who was peacefully observing and shoved her to the ground. Pretti’s only transgression was walking over to help her up. The agents there swarmed him for this. They pepper sprayed him before throwing him to the ground and beating him. It was only AFTER one of them disarmed him (he never reached for his gun) that they opened fire. While not conclusive, it looks very much like Pretti’s own gun discharged after confiscation and the agents responded by opening fire - shooting Pretti in the back multiple times.

One of the agents who had attacked Pretti clapped after he was killed.

The men who killed Pretti were counting the bullet holes in his body - as trophies.

5 year old Liam Ramos was taken by ICE and used as bait to try and arrest more members of his family. Ramos is an asylum seeker here legally. DHS over the past year has been all but entirely ignoring that asylum seekers who have gone through proper channels, as Ramos and his father did, are not here illegally. DHS lied about his arrest and about using him to try and get other family members to leave his home.

Liam was the fourth child at his school taken by federal officers this year.

This is a very small and by no means exhaustive list of recent DHS actions. They are hitting people with cars and then claiming the opposite happened. They are abducting children. They are interrogating people based on the color of their skin. They are assaulting random people on the street. They even boxed in a police officer and demanded to see her immigration papers, despite being a US citizen. They are killing people for watching them. They are killing people for helping the people they assault.

After the January 6th attack on the capitol, a Republican I know said there was no way to see this coming. I had receipts - articles I’d previously written detailing the numerous times Donald Trump called for violence against his critics.

The level of violence and death we are currently seeing from DHS was also not unforeseen. This is exactly what so many of us spent years warning about. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is that all of this is happening because of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.

Terrorizing communities and inflicting violence on those who dare resist them is what they feel they were elected to do.

We may already be seeing glimmers of resistance to this on the right, but ultimately what stops that is when Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are no longer in power.

While I still hope to read a headline this year mentioning natural causes, in the meantime, Minneapolis and other cities have shown us the importance of community efforts in resisting this fascist regime. It’s more important than ever to see what groups and resources are available in your area because if this war has not come to your city, it may be next. Indivisible just hosted a mass training covering how to legally observe ICE and the police. Most cities have local groups set up to do the same.

No one is coming to save us. That's up to us.