The Worst of the Three Infamous Murders Committed in Minneapolis by “Law Enforcement” Just Happened

 

Curmie had hoped to change the subject a little: from the abominations of the Trump administration, or at least from those committed by ICE.  He’s got a short encomium to Joanna Lumley forming in his head; there’s a critique of a series of television commercials; perhaps a commentary on that church invasion by anti-ICE demonstrators (Curmie is not a fan) or of Trump giving the finger to that auto worker (Curmie kinda shrugs, but can’t help snickering at the idiotic Karoline Leavitt follow-up); perhaps Curmie could write about that case in Florida in which the cops showed up at the door of a woman who’d made a Facebook post critical of the mayor.  Even writing about the continued harassment of Mark Kelly for having the audacity to say an objectively true statement out loud would at least make the topic something other than ICE.* 

No such luck, I’m afraid, Gentle Reader.  As the title of this essay suggests, things changed Saturday.  OK.  Review of the bidding.  Curmie is not suggesting that there was anything justifiable in the killings of George Floyd or Renee Good.  In the former case, there is no evidence that Derek Chauvin is or was anything but a bullying asshole.  He used excessive and unjustifiable force that led to Floyd’s death.  But, as Curmie pointed out back in ’21, Floyd’s drug use and an underlying heart condition were also contributing factors.  In other words, under normal circumstances, what Chauvin did, abhorrent as it was, would not have been life-threatening.  And no one seems to argue that Floyd should not have been detained, only that the detention was overly physical.  Oh, one last thing: Chauvin, as a Minneapolis Police officer, actually had jurisdiction to detain Floyd.

Next in both chronology and increased “police” culpability was the shooting of Renee Good by a trigger-happy goon named Jonathan Ross.  Let me repeat: there is nothing remotely justifiable in Ross’s actions, but there is at least some evidence that Good was blocking the road, thereby interfering in an ICE action (whether that action itself was justifiable—probably, but not incontrovertibly, not—is not the issue here).  And she did attempt to leave when told to get out of the car.  (She was also told to “move,” which could be interpreted either to exit the vehicle or to get it out of the way.)  Ross undeniably, intentionally, stepped in front of the car: a violation of protocol.  And Ross had just been humiliated by Good’s wife.  Was it murder?  In the sense of anything but a lawyerly quibble, yes.  But a car can be a weapon, and to a chicken-shit asshole like Ross, mere details like the fact that Good was in fact trying to avoid him just confuse the issue.

But now we come to the shooting of Alex Pretti, for which there is even less legitimacy, even more and better documentation of what actually happened, even more outrageous slander from the Usual Suspects. 

Here’s what we know, from video evidence (one example here), including the frame-by-frame analysis by the New York Times, and the testimony of witnesses (such as the woman in the pink coat) who saw the event live as it happened:

An ICE agent pepper sprayed a woman in the face.  Curmie has seen no evidence either way as to whether this was justified, but of course he has his suspicions.  Pretti, a nurse, remember, moves towards her to see if she’s all right.  He’s holding his phone in one hand; the other is empty and raised above his head (perhaps to protect himself from being sprayed in the face?  We’ll never know.)  There is no apparent attempt by the swarming ICE agents simply to stop his progress towards the woman.  Instead, they gang-tackle him.  A half dozen or so of them jump on top of him.  (EDIT: A friend on BlueSky reminds me that they then pistol-whipped him.  Totally unnecessary; completely in character.)  

Pretti does have a licensed and legally carried handgun; they seize it from him while he’s still face down on the ground.  And then, they shoot him ten times.  The chronology is important: Pretti is tackled to the ground before agents know that he has a weapon (so that wasn’t why they jumped him), he never reaches for the gun, and he’s been disarmed before they shoot him (so he posed no risk to their safety).  He did, however, have a phone, and in some ways documenting their manifold misdeeds could indeed make them fearful.

In other words: at least two under- or indeed un-trained “agents” panicked.  Being cowards, not terribly bright, and testosterone-poisoned, and no doubt believing (not without cause, alas) that they could do whatever the hell they wanted, they did something brutal and, let’s face it, remarkably stupid.  That’s problematic, but what happens after the fact is even more inexcusable.  Curmie isn’t going to forgive those who shot Mr. Pretti, but does at least understand that people don’t always make the best decisions in the heat of the moment.  That’s happened to Curmie, and he’s willing to bet that it’s happened to you, too, Gentle Reader (not to this extreme, of course).

What should have happened in the immediate aftermath, of course, was issuing statement along these lines: “An incident involving ICE agents which resulted in the death of a civilian occurred in Minneapolis today.  The agents involved have been placed on leave pending an investigation by federal, state, and local authorities.”  No muss, no fuss.  No admission of guilt, but also no blaming the victim.

But the obviously false narratives spewed by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Greg Bovino, et al., are deliberate.  They’re not dependent on needing a response in a split second; they’re calculated.  But they’re not just lies and slander; they’re so outrageous that even members of the right-wing base are fleeing that sinking ship.  And no, it’s not just loose cannons like Rand Paul, although it’s him, too.  Curmie’s personal favorite is this clip from Ted Williams of Fox News… yes, that Fox News.  Williams is both a lawyer and a former homicide detective, by the way.

Here’s what he has to say (note: Williams refers to Pretti as “Peretti”; Curmie has corrected that, but made no other changes in what follows): 

Well, John, I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve watched that video tape for at least, let’s say, about a hundred times because I knew I was gonna be coming on with you and I wanted to speak as accurate as I can.  And I do believe that there needs to be a complete investigation.  I was taken back by the White House, who initially put out what I defined as misrepresentation of what took place there when you look at the video.  It was said that Mr. Pretti was brandishing a weapon.  Well, he was not brandishing a weapon; he did have a weapon.  It was said by the White House that Mr. Pretti attacked those agents.  No, he did not attack those agents.  And one of the White House individuals called Mr. Pretti “a domestic terrorist.”  I find… this man is dead.  He has family.  And to go out and call him a domestic terrorist without giving any more information is just unacceptable.  

And then, John, when I looked at the video, what you saw was an agent pushing a woman aside, Mr. Pretti getting sprayed, them jumping on top of Mr. Pretti.  And this is something that our audience should see with their own eyes.  You can see where one of the agents actually physically takes Mr. Pretti’s gun; and that is before he shot him.  And then, all of a sudden, he shot.  There’s a pause, and there are more bullets that are shot in his direction.  So, that investigation… what I’m asking is that there be a complete and thorough and transparent investigation, John, not only by the federal agencies, but also by the state and local investigators also, working together.

Needless to say, as in the Good/Ross case, the feds are refusing to cooperate.  Protecting one of their goons is clearly more important to them than anything remotely related to justice.

Perhaps the topper comes from none other than Dear Leader himself.  The “only criminals carry guns on our streets” tweet that you’ve probably seen, Gentle Reader, is almost certainly a fake.  (Yes, both sides are perfectly happy to lie to support their cause.)  But the follow-up—“You can’t have guns.  You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t.”—isn’t, and didn’t sit well with organizations like the NRA, which had already lambasted an Assistant US Attorney for a remarkably stupid tweet along the same lines.  If you’re a Republican and you’re losing Fox News and the NRA, you’re not in good political shape.  This doesn’t even take into account the hypocrisy involved.  After all, one of the first things 47 did in office was to issue a blanket pardon for all the January 6 pseudo-patriots, including (of course) those who… erm… walked in with guns.  And Curmie antiphrastically doesn’t mention right-wing hero Kyle Rittenhouse.

Two more links and then Curmie will shut up.  The first is the reportage of Ken Klippenstein, who interviewed experienced immigrations officers.  A few of their comments: “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting … ten versus one and somehow they couldn’t find a way to subdue the guy or use a less than lethal.  They all carry belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back?”  “We can’t always support what happens just because it’s one of us.”  “This is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall.  I think it’s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.”  And, concisely, about the killing of Pretti, “Fuck this.”

But we’re left with the words of Heather Cox Richardson, whose commentary on virtually everything is worthy of notice: 

This is the moment at which it becomes too late for people to say, after this, ‘Oh, I didn’t know.  I didn’t know what was going to happen.’  It’s out there now….  It is no longer possible for people to say, ‘Oh, I believe in law and order, and so I support Donald Trump.’  This is the moment when people have to say, regardless of party, ‘either I believe in democracy, I believe in our Constitution, I believe in the rights that the framers wrote into that Constitution’ or they have to say, ‘No, I am siding with the likes of Stephen Miller in believing that my existence is under siege by immigrants, and anything it takes to stop that, regardless of the Constitution, regardless of American citizenship, regardless of rights, has to happen.’

Seems like an easy call to Curmie.  Perhaps to you, too, Gentle Reader?

* If any of these seem particularly interesting (or uninteresting), Gentle Reader, please comment—here on the blog, or on the links on Facebook or Bluesky.

It’s a Different World Out There Now, Dennis

Masked ICE agent sprays Pastor David Black directly in the face. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times

There were, no doubt, several adult visitors to my classroom when I was a boy, but there were only two I remember with any clarity.  One was a friend of my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Hamilton.  He was a very nice man who told funny stories and sang and played his banjo for us.  I remember the tale of defeating the mean giant Abiyoyo, the funny song about little boxes on a hillside, and that one beautiful tune that I didn’t understand because it was in Spanish (but he explained to us what it was about and even got us to join in on the chorus).

Mrs. Hamilton was my teacher again in 5th grade, and her friend visited us again.  It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I learned that the nice man was kind of famous, and a few more years after that, that the “Holy shit, that was Pete Seeger!” revelation dawned.

But it’s the other visitor I want to talk about today.  I think his name was Dennis something, but I might well be making that up.  Exactly why he showed up in our classroom, I don’t recall, if indeed I ever knew.  I don’t remember how old I was, although probably a tween.  Anyway, Dennis (we’ll call him that) was an FBI agent.  He was probably in his late 20s or early 30s, and he was dressed in the then-standard FBI get-up: a cheap and rather ill-fitting black suit, with highly polished black shoes, a white shirt, skinny black tie, and a crew-cut. 

Dennis was clearly very proud of being in the FBI, and went on for some time about that agency’s spotless record of integrity.  I’m pretty sure he believed his own testimony, as it wasn’t until a few years later that the atrocities of the J. Edgar Hoover era became known.  Indeed, Curmie, who even in junior high was a skeptical lad, later found it very difficult to process evidence of slander, intimidation, even assassination pointing to the agency as perpetrators rather than investigators.  The National Guard was, of course, a different story.

Dennis’s visit, that utter confidence in the rectitude, even the incorruptibility, of the FBI, still lingers in Curmie’s memory over a half century later, mostly because any such testimony now would be so risible that even kids wouldn’t buy that nonsense for a moment.  Not with every federal allegedly law enforcement agency—ATF, FBI, ICE, DHS, et al.—turned into a private army by a bullying POTUS incapable of any emotions other than rage and paranoia.  Rule of law?  What’s that?

Frighteningly enough, it may indeed be true that the FBI, even headed by a mendacious moron like Kash Patel, is still the most uncompromised of the federal agencies.  We need only look at the outrageous antics employed by ICE and their attendant lackeys in other departments (and SCOTUS) in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, to think that the FBI, though rendered incompetent, partisan, and corrupt, may not be quite so bad in comparison. 

It might also be worth noting that none of those three cities appears on the US News and World Report list of the 25 Most Dangerous Places to Live.  Indeed, the top four cities, and eight of the top ten, in murder rate per capita, are in red states.  You know who checks in at #10?  Shreveport, the biggest city in Mike Johnson’s district.  Yet there seems to be no indication that federal troops will invade the Ratchet City.  Go figure, huh?  You know who doesn’t appear in the top 20?  Los Angeles, Chicago, or Portland. 

Over-zealous, violent, and often racist policing is, to be sure, not a new problem.  Yes, it has been aggravated by the recklessness (at best) of the First Felon, but police over-reach at all levels has been around for a long time.  This situation is not, of course, exclusively the result of the efforts of the authoritarian right, but it sure does seem like there’s a correlation.  More to the point, whereas the problems haven’t changed, the degree has.  Curmie has now reached the point at which he no longer implicitly trusts any member of law enforcement at any level even to refrain from brutality and to tell the truth, let alone to be competent at the job.  That’s not a good place to be.

It is difficult to determine the rationale for impassioned and utterly mendacious proclamations coming from ICE and DHS.  They can’t really believe that dozens of heavily armed, masked, and armor-protected agents are truly at risk in the presence of unarmed protesters who are <checks notes> chanting at them.  Can they?  It is certainly true that bullies, and anyone who would work for ICE either is one or wants to be, are, by definition, cowards.  And that particular variety of pusillanimity almost always manifests in bluster and, more often than not, in outright lies.

The other alternative is more chilling.  A number of left-leaning pundits suggest that all this activity is intended for the sole purpose of raising tensions.  If the authorities can plausibly claim they were threatened, then a show of even more authoritarian power can at least appear to be legitimized.  So far, it’s clear that the aggressors are nearly always the ones recently described by a federal judge (a Reagan appointee, by the way) as “cowardly desperados.”  Unfortunately, that may not last, which, goes the theory, is precisely what Trump and his minions wants: an excuse to pretend the 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments don’t exist. 

Oh, and they’re not really big fans of the 2nd amendment, either, unless the gun-toter is a white male who answers to “Bubba.”  Witness the desperate attempt by DHS to claim that Marimar Martinez was armed; she had a gun that never left her purse, and a valid concealed-carry license.  Martinez’s lawyer says there’s bodycam evidence that the federal agent, not Ms. Martinez, initiated the collision between their vehicles.  OK, Gentle Reader, he’s not the most objective source, but the easy way to prove him wrong is for the government to release the tape… guess what hasn’t happened.

The pressure still needs to be applied, and Ghandi-like non-violence is difficult, but it’s the only way.  Rising to the bait is the worst thing to do.  In the words of today’s birthday boy, John Lennon, “When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”

Musings on the Shootings in Dallas... with a personal connection

Curmie really wants to write about something other than the immorality and incompetence of the Trump administration and their minions in more than a few statehouses.  He’s even got something about another topic essentially written and ready to post. 

But.

It doesn’t happen often, thankfully, but this time a personal friend was witness to an event that made national headlines, and his story demands to be told.  By now, Gentle Reader, you’ll have read about the shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas early yesterday morning. 

You may well have first learned of the incident when the Usual Suspects started blathering without evidence about the shooter’s motives, just as they did in the wake of events in Utah a couple weeks ago.  Here’s Kristi Noem: 

This vile attack was motivated by hatred for ICE.  For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed. This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. Comparing ICE Day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences.

And JD Vance: “The obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop. I'm praying for everyone hurt in this attack and for their families.”  Curmie notes that all the victims were detainees, and the day Vance gives a shit about any of them is the day after the Devil tells him why he’s in hell. 

And Kash Patel: “These despicable, politically motivated attacks against law enforcement are not a one-off. We are only miles from Prarieland, Texas where just two months ago an individual ambushed a separate ICE facility, targeting their officers.”

And Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons: “It wasn’t directed at the detainees; it wasn’t directed at civilians in the street.  It was a definite attack on law enforcement.”

And here’s a selection from the rant by the Tangerine Palpatine himself: 

The Brave Men and Women of ICE are just trying to do their jobs, and remove the “WORST of the WORST” Criminals out of our Country, but they are facing an unprecedented increase in threats, violence, and attacks by Deranged Radical Leftists. This violence is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to “Nazis.” The continuing violence from Radical Left Terrorists, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, must be stopped. ICE Officers, and other Brave Members of Law Enforcement, are under grave threat.

OK, let’s unpack that a little.  ICE is not the least bit interested in removing the “worst of the worst.”  Indeed, they’re under orders to avoid high crime areas, especially those with significant levels of gang activity.  Whether this is because of commands that they fill numerical quotas (it’s a lot easier to arrest a grandmother than a gang leader) or simply garden-variety cowardice is unclear.  Probably a bit of both. 

It is indeed true that at least one of the bullet casings found at the scene did have “anti-ICE” written on it.  That may be relevant; indeed it likely is.  But, of course, as some memester pointed out, a real lefty would more likely write “Fuck ICE” or “Abolish ICE”; “anti-ICE” is what “a right-winger thinks a leftist says.”

Still, A hand-written note found at the home of the shooter, Joshua Jahn, seems to support the idea that Jahn was indeed attacking ICE.  It remains curious, however, that there were three casualties, including at least one death (not counting Jahn himself), but none of the victims were the supposedly intended targets.  There’s a difference between a likelihood and a certainty, after all, but you’d certainly never know that if you listened to the squawking from the Trumpian minions.  And some of the evidence that Jahn was indeed anti-ICE wasn’t discovered until well after the accusations were belched forth.  Government officials hurling accusations without evidence is a problem, even if, as now seems probable, they turn out to be right.

In fact, all this hyperventilating about “Radical Left Terrorists,” especially given the inconclusiveness of the evidence, does little but fan the flames and incite further violence.  Curmie isn’t quite ready to say that such is the intent of the administration—providing an excuse for further infringements on First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights, for example—but it does loom as a possibility.  Of course, simple stupidity is the explanation for a lot of what this administration does…

Let’s be honest here.  We may suspect, even strongly suspect, what may have been Jahn's motives, but we don’t know with anything like certainty.  The local Fox affiliate reports that “A sign on a car that reportedly belonged to the shooter reads, “Radioactive fallout from nuclear formations that've passed over these areas more than 2x since 1951.”  So we’re dealing with someone quite likely to be a pancake short of a Grand Slam Breakfast, whatever his politics.  Plus, of course, if he was truly aiming for ICE agents, he’s an even worse shot than Thomas Michael Crooks.

All of this brings us to Curmie’s introduction to this piece.  A good friend and former student of Curmie’s posted on social media that he was on site when the shooting occurred.  His post was public, but Curmie doesn’t want him to get any backlash, so he’ll be listed here only as SR, and Curmie isn’t supplying a link; you’ll have to trust me on this, Gentle Reader.  Curmie also declined to ask for further details: this had to have been an especially harrowing incident, and there’s no need to make him re-live that experience just to assuage Curmie’s curiosity.

Curmie should also mention that SR is a man of exemplary honesty and forthrightness.  He has no political agenda, and is far more forgiving than Curmie of other people’s ethical failures.  If SR says, “this is what happened,” then, Gentle Reader, you can take it to the bank that that’s what happened.  His account may not be complete (how could it be?), but it is honest.  Curmie would bet everything he owns that SR is telling the absolute truth to the extent that he can determine it.

So… SR drove a member of his church, who apparently had an appointment, to the ICE facility.  Apparently there’s a rule that you can’t enter the facility without an appointment, so SR and several other people were directed to an outdoor waiting area.  (Curmie bets this will go over particularly well in February.)  OK, so it’s a stupid rule, but ICE doesn’t have a monopoly on them…

The half dozen or so people outside, including SR and a mother and her infant, still weren’t allowed inside when the shooting started.  SR says he “can’t really blame the employees” for that decision; this is because SR is far more forgiving than the average person.  SR “had nowhere to go, nothing to hide behind. The best option given the situation was to shelter in place and wait and hope.”  Eventually, “Dallas PD arrived at the scene and ordered us to shelter inside, and the ICE agents finally allowed us into the building.”

SR concludes, aptly: 

Frankly, I don't care about the motive because it will just be propagandized to death. Ultimately, this event is another indicator of failed policies and inflammatory messaging.

Perhaps the most frustrating part is knowing that this will not lead to any meaningful change. It will be another fading headline, another statistic, another signpost on the road toward our own self-destruction.

There’s a reason SR is one of the former students in whom Curmie takes the most pride. 

Let’s consider above all his objective statements rather than his analysis.  Those “brave men and women on the ground” that Lyons was praising may indeed have been trying to rescue detainees from vehicles that were under fire.  But we also know that ICE employees—perhaps the same ones, perhaps not—refused to allow innocent civilians to seek shelter inside their facility: an act both craven and cruel.  How do we know?  Because SR said so (without the adjectives).  If the average person on the street said something contrary to a Trump minion’s statement, Curmie would tend to believe that person.  When it’s SR, he’s certain of it.

This, alas, is the true face of ICE: paranoid, cowardly, and mendacious.  They’re not the Gestapo, though.  Those guys weren’t afraid to show their faces.

Two Stories Set at Dodger Stadium

 

Curmie isn’t as big a baseball fan as he once was, and he’s never been a Dodgers fan, but it’s still not unusual for him to read about the goings-on at Dodger Stadium.  It’s usually about what happened on the field, though: Shohei Ohtani did this, Mookie Betts did that, and so on. 

Yeah, there was that moment a couple of years ago when stadium security couldn’t catch the idiot fan who had run on the field so the ball girl tackled him.  (Curmie thinks the best part wasn’t the takedown per se, but the casual stroll away afterwards.)  And there have been a couple of squabbles over the “ownership” of a couple of home run balls, especially Ohtani’s first homer as a Dodger and his “50/50” ball. 

But Curmie never had an urge to write about any of that.  Now, however, there are not one but two stories from the last month or so that caught Curmie’s attention.  Neither is really related to what happened on the field at all.  Neither made big headlines; indeed, the earlier one escaped Curmie’s notice altogether for about a fortnight.  Let’s start there.

Over the off-season, the Dodgers completed a $100 million renovation of the stadium.  Most of the improvements were to the field per se and to the clubhouses, but there were also some projects dedicated to ensuring a “top-notch game-day experience” for fans.

Yeah, well, maybe not quite so “top-notch.”  On May 30, a chunk of concrete about the size of a softball dislodged from an upper deck and hit a fan, Luis Ricardo Aquino, in the back, breaking a rib.  Aquino, a resident of Mexico City, had traveled to LA for the game. 

OK, there are elements to this story that Curmie is going to skim over really quickly here, but are worth mentioning: 1). $100 million in renovations and you can’t have a stadium that isn’t a death trap?  If Aquino had happened to be leaning back for some reason and that chunk of concrete had hit him in the head, it could have killed him.  2). How slimy do the Dodgers’ reps have to be to get Aquino not to file a complaint in exchange for a jersey, couple of trinkets and a bobble-head?  That’s a 7-figure lawsuit, easy.  3). Aquino declined a trip to the hospital, saying “this is not my country, so I did not feel comfortable.”  One reasonable translation would be “I’ll live with a broken rib until I get home, where I can actually afford medical care, and the Dodgers aren’t likely to pay.”

But the big story is that when help appeared on the scene, the first question wasn’t about where he was hit or the severity of the injury, but whether he was in the US legally.  Subsequent reporting by Michael Elizondo suggests that the questioning may not have been merely insensitive, tacky, and racist, but literally unlawful if performed by other than an immigration agent.  Notice also the blithe assumption that Aquino isn’t a citizen.

“Papers, please” has long since achieved cliché status in movies.  The line is usually given to some officious official representing an evil regime.  You know, Gentle Reader, like all those WWII movies with Nazis who always spoke in English but with German accents.  But we’re heading towards that level of intrusion in the US right now. 

Curmie has been lucky enough to be able the travel outside the US on numerous occasions.  He’s lived in two foreign countries and spent over three months total over several visits in another; he’s spent the night in eight others, and passed through (on a train, for example) or made a brief excursion into four more.  There are two more he specifically wants to add to the list, and many others he’d be happy to visit.  All this probably puts him above the mean for Americans, but he knows several people whose international experience far exceeds his own.

In all those voyages, Curmie has needed his passport (his “papers”) for precisely three kinds of events: crossing a national border, checking into a hotel, and (before ATMs became ubiqitous and linked) changing currency (or, in the old days, travelers checks) at a bank… and not literally every time for any of them.  He was told directly by trip organizers, experienced travelers, and even local law enforcement not to carry his passport except when necessary: better to leave it where you’re staying.  This was true, too, for when he had the UK equivalent of a green card when he was studying for his MA.

But whereas ICE goons needn’t have any identification at all to detain someone for… you know… looking and sounding like they might not be an American citizen (Curmie is certain the tourism industry has some choice words for these assholes), Mr. Aquino had to have his paperwork on his person to attend a freaking baseball game.  Imagine if he hadn’t! 

It is more than a little terrifying that any non-citizen in this country is subject to this level of scrutiny.  True, it’s not as bad as requiring applicants for student visas to supply details of their social media presence for the last five years and to set all their accounts to public, much less to the horrific idea that all “non-detained migrants” (that would include students) must wear GPS tracking devices.  But it’s still creepy as hell, and a far cry from anything resembling “the land of the free.”  Emma Lazarus famously wrote about the “golden door.”  In Trumpistan, having enough gold will get you a free pass through that door.  Everybody else gets treated like a criminal. 

OK, moving on to the other story…  On June 19th, the Dodgers tweeted that “ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization.”  There’s not much of a story there, right, Gentle Reader?  Stories of people facing down the goons are damned near ubiquitous.  Ah, but <insert late-night infomercial voice here> that’s not all! 

You see, ICE proclaimed they “were never there.”  They’re almost certainly lying, of course.  Anti-ICE activists, as the kids say, brought the receipts in the form of photographs.  It’s possible, of course, that they never asked permission (they’re not the type to be professional, of course), but they were certainly there.

So, why would they lie?  Well, it’s what they do, for one thing.  The number of times they’ve lied about the reason for an “asylum meeting” or blamed an American citizen they tackled for attacking them when there’s clear video evidence to the contrary has now reached into the “frequently” range.  We know that, like all bullies, they’re cowards: hence the masks, the refusal to show appropriate identification, the unwillingness to go after actual gang members when they can make their quota by rounding up hotel maids and dishwashers who sorta look Latino.  And they sure as hell don’t want to reveal the fragility of their faux machismo preening.  The fact that they tried and failed to throw their weight around simply cannot be allowed to become public knowledge.

But, Gentle Reader, you know what’s even worse than a gaggle of federal agents longer on testosterone than on empathy or truth-telling?  What if this time they were actually telling the truth?  That would mean that since ICE and their partners in crime (this is not merely an expression, of course) refuse to identify themselves, a bunch of other white male assholes can now try cosplaying as federal agents.  At least some of the detentions made by immigration officials are legitimate.  But the fake guys: actual, no-doubt-about-it kidnappings, with the potential for extortion, theft, assault, rape, even murder. 

All the while real police stand around and watch… and may even help.  We’re already seeing the inevitable: reports of fake ICE agents committing crimes are popping up with grim regularity.  Commenting on a case in Houston this week, ICE released a statement: 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are sworn to uphold the law, protect the American people and support U.S. national security interests. ICE strongly condemns the impersonation of its officers or agents. This action is not only dangerous, but illegal. Imposters can be charged with various criminal offenses both at the state/local level, as well as federally (under 18 USC 912).

Yeah, right.  Actual cops need a badge, an ID, and a warrant.  And they’re not hiding behind masks.  Judge, lawyers, journalists… they’re not anonymous, and they do things that could get the bad guys mad at them.  But ICE?  They won’t identify themselves, which of course would make impersonating them considerably easier, but they’ll charge you with assault of law enforcement if you fight back.  They’re scum.  Literally every one of them, starting at the top.  As Curmie wrote during the 45 regime, “why else would anyone want to join a notoriously brutal, racist, self-important organization if not to be, well, brutal, racist, and self-important?”  Hat tip to the Dodgers for throwing them out.

Oh, there’s another non-baseball story about the Dodgers: they’re pledging $1 million to families affected by ICE raids.  Sure, it’s virtue-signaling and showboating.  And yes, they can afford it.  But underscoring the sadism, mendacity, and criminality of ICE… that’s not a bad thing.