She’s unnamed, but described in twits as being a wife, mother and born and raised “near Bailey’s Crossroads in Northern Virginia.” That didn’t stop an unnamed and masked ICE agent from pointing his weapon at her. The official DHS explanation was routine.
Under most circumstances, there would be no way to challenge this official account, even though so many of the DHS claims about ICE interactions have been proven shockingly false. But this time, the driver had a dashcam.
View this post on Instagram
After her car was blocked by ICE agents, she was approached by an agent with gun drawn and pointed, who claimed she “almost ran them over.” The dashcam video proves that to be a lie.
Notably, you can see an agent taking a picture of her license plate, whether to obtain her identity or place her in a databank of ICE enemies. As the DHS spokesperson notes, there is a threat that she may still be prosecuted for not loving ICE enough.
One of the worst aspects of ICE agents’ actions is the dangerous, illegal and unjustified use, or threatened use, of force. By pointing a gun at the woman, even though there was no cause whatsoever to justify either the drawing or pointing of a weapon at a person who presented no threat of harm to anyone, the agent significantly increased the possibility that he would shoot, perhaps kill, the woman. You don’t point a gun unless you have justification to use it.
Much as the MAGA faithful are thrilled by the actions of ICE agents in rounding up random people who appear to be aliens, whether because of appearance, accent or name, and are more than willing to accept, if not applaud, the illegal use of force as necessary to catch and remove the illegals, even if it means sweeping up citizens in the process, or the needless and illegal beating or killing of a few because stercus accidit, this remains flagrantly unlawful conduct being routinely perpetrated by agents of the government.
And the kneejerk DHS response is to shamelessly lie about it to justify the agents’ conduct, facts and video be damned.
Had this woman not had a dashcam that would prove she neither tried to run the agents over, nor engaged in any other activity which “weaponized her vehicle against them,” the likelihood that she would have suffered either arrest or violence by the agents would have increased exponentially.
There is no requirement in the law that citizens drive around with dashcams in their cars, but had she not had the dashcam, not had the proof that the agent was lying, the outcome of this interaction might have been substantially worse for her than just a gun pointed at her head that could have gone off at any moment. And yet, DHS asks us to believe their routine lies to justify such action rather than believe our eyes because this time, fortunately, there was video.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Scott,
At the risk of looking like I’m defending ICE agents behavior, which I emphatically am not, he word “significantly” is doing some really heavy lifting in this sentence.
“By pointing a gun at the women, even though there was no cause whatsoever to justify either the drawing or pointing of a weapon at a person who presented no threat of harm to anyone, the agent significantly increased the possibility that he would shoot, perhaps kill, the woman.”
Practicing drawing, aiming, and NOT shooting is a component of most firearm training programs/ curriculum. Not sure what ICE training is like, they often act like ill trained clowns, but…
“You don’t point a gun unless you have justification to use it.” This is spot on.
I’d love to see ICE agents have to recite the four rules of firearm safety and be fired if they fail to do so.
I’d also love to see Trump take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment live.
And draw the winning the PowerBall ticket in tonight’s drawing.
Not much chance of any of this happening.
As a firearms trainer, I have to disagree. “Significantly” is entirely appropriate. You draw your weapon in response to an articulable threat to your life or the life of another person. If you don’t fire immediately, the implication is that you are about to fire.
Spot on.
While not a firearm trainer like tk is, I’ve been a gun nut since I first went shooting with grandpa.
It is impossible to shoot someone if you do not draw your firearm. Drawing it and actively pointing it at someone frankly does more than “significantly” increase the risk of someone being shot.
I was taught to 1) never draw a firearm unless I fully intended on using it and 2) never point a firearm at anything I wasn’t willing to destroy.
Exactly, that literally is the core first part of the foundational “4 Rules of Firearms Safety”. I think gosh darn near every single new gun owner in the US who does any sort of course, or even merely does a search for “getting started new gun owner” or asks on a forum or whatever else, will hear multiple instances of it repeatedly. And for normal law abiding citizens, pulling or even merely showing a gun with the intent to threaten vs self defense is itself a very serious crime called “brandishing”.
It’s inconceivable they don’t know all this. But safe behind their masks and assumed authoritarian protection, they feel they can commit crimes and evil with impunity.
I have some real faith that at least in the longer term we can prove them wrong. We’ve had truly dark periods in America’s past. But I think perhaps the mark of a decent nation and people isn’t that they never stumble, but that they can eventually pick themselves up and keep struggling forward again. And as our host says, at least even as they gain new powerful tools so do we. The recording revolution marches forward for the everyman as well, and that’s not nothing both in the instant and for the future.
1300% increase in assaults sounds like pure BS to me. Unless giving them side eye and a dirty look is an assault.
I mean, from 1 to 14 would be 1300%…
Are You sure you are a top notch defense lawyer and not just a legend in your own mind? Either way, the quality of the video is not great and my eyes not the best but all I saw was a few men idenified as police (not ICE) and only the word of the driver. This could have been staged.
When DHS has already admitted that it happened and the agents were ICE, your conspiracy theory takes makes you look kind of idiotic. It’s not a good look.