Southern California Cop Intervenes In ICE Incident
Southern California Cop Intervenes As Plainclothes ICE Agent Pulls Gun On Civilian Driver
Here’s a question: How far below the bar for competence and basic humanity has the Trump administration lowered its standards for recruiting immigration agents?
Because these rabid government foot soldiers are out here ruining Halloween parades for children with tear gas, beating up on blind people and pepper-spraying babies. They’re shooting people and lying about why. They’re snatching up Latino families, then shrugging it off when it turns out their detainees were legal U.S. residents they had “mistaken” for brown people who aren’t.
And when they’re not doing these things while wearing masks to shield their identities, they’re in plainclothes, but, somehow, still paranoid about being targeted by civilians.
According to the Los Angeles Times, on Sunday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent pointed a gun toward a woman on a busy street in Santa Ana, when a Fullerton police officer intervened because all he saw was a man in plain clothes pointing a gun at an unarmed woman while she was in her vehicle.
The interaction was partially caught on video.
From the Times:
In a video posted on social media by local journalist Izzy Ramirez and apparently taken from the driver in Santa Ana, a bald man with sunglasses, a green T-shirt and black jeans where his badge was attached, walks toward the driver holding a gun out.
He points it down toward the ground as he walks up to the police officer who has pulled alongside the driver.
“What are you doing,” the woman’s recording says. “What the f— is your problem?”
“Are you for real right now,” she said, before panning to show a Fullerton police vehicle. “And now these cops are helping them.”
The agent can be seen speaking to an officer.
“I’m just driving,” she said.
“You’re following us, ma’am, we are doing an operation,” the agent says.
“You are following me,” she responds.
“I thought cops aren’t supposed to collaborate with ICE, what the f — are you doing.”
“You can’t be following us like that,” the ICE officer shouts.
“I live here,” the woman yelled back.
Someone along the street shouts out “la migra.”
“It’s OK to pull your gun on a woman, what the f—,” the woman says.
According to a statement from the Fullerton Police Department, the officer had just dropped off an inmate at the Orange County Jail and was returning to Fullerton when he noticed a man exit a vehicle at an intersection and draw his weapon on the driver behind him.
“The officer immediately stopped to assist, not knowing the identity of the armed male or the circumstances unfolding in front of him,” the statement read.
I mean, the officer might have been witnessing a carjacking for all he knew. It’s as if the aptitude requirements to be a human crash dummy are higher than those for ICE agents.
What’s even crazier is that instead of treating the armed man in street clothing like a potential criminal, the officer ends up explaining to the ICE agent that “he could not assist with someone following or recording him if no crime had occurred, and that local law enforcement was en route.” In other words, the cop was discussing whether or not he could protect the agent, not the innocent woman the agent threatened with a loaded gun.
“ICE is a federal law enforcement agency, and Fullerton Police Officers will assist them, and any other local, state, or federal law enforcement agency, in situations involving immediate officer safety,” Fullerton PD said in a statement, according to CBS News. “However, Senate Bill 54 prohibits local law enforcement from participating in immigration enforcement. The Fullerton Police Department has not and will not participate in immigration enforcement efforts.”
It’s like every official involved in this incident is programmed to miss what the real danger was here. You’d think the FBI hadn’t recently warned that criminals are in the streets impersonating ICE agents.
Crazier still is the way the federal government will take its immigration agents at face value, immediately move to vilify the Americans they terrorize, and is even willing to throw the local police under the bus if it means maintaining its pro-authoritarian, anti-resistance narrative.
“This is just another example of sanctuary policies undermining public safety by promoting lawlessness,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, claiming without citing evidence that the driver screamed at the agent and “attempted to cause a collision.”
“To defend himself, following the aggression of the driver and her refusal to follow law enforcement commands, our officer followed his training and drew his weapon,” McLaughlin claimed.
Funny how there’s never any evidence of these attacks on agents, but plenty of recorded footage of agents appearing to terrorize the communities they’re purported to be protecting.
Anyway, after everything was sorted out between the agent and Fullerton officer, the woman was allowed to drive away, as if she’d never done anything wrong in the first place, just as the officer indicated at the scene.
Go figure.
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