As the Trump regime continues its illegal assault on working-class families and communities around this country, dangerous encounters with heavily armed and zealous ICE agents are becoming commonplace in the news and on social media.
The nation really took notice after the two public executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but it hasn’t stopped. Unfortunately, as more of these dangerous encounters continue to happen, the more the body count continues to rise.
ICE has now claimed yet another soul. This one in Biddeford, Maine, as Joan Sebastian Guerroro from Colombia was killed in an interaction with ICE personnel at 7:20 a.m. Monday morning, about 15 miles south of Portland, sparking a response from the FBI and Maine’s state law enforcement.
A week ago, they took a life in Houston. During a targeted traffic stop, Salgado Araujo, 52, was shot and killed by federal agents, who later admitted that they got the wrong guy. Araujo was on his way to a construction site with other individuals when they were pulled over by ICE. Agents opened fire, claiming Araujo “was trying to weaponize his vehicle.” He was killed by officers who failed to produce body and dashcam footage.
All of this comes after another incident in a quiet and diverse community of Harrisburg, the multicultural capital of Pennsylvania. On July 1, armed ICE agents were once again conducting a traffic stop, which they are procedurally not allowed to do. They are untrained in how to perform them.
ICE was executing a warrant on Clemente Lara-Hernandez, who was behind the wheel of his white SUV while at the intersection of 17th and Berryhill Streets. While he was parked, a silver SUV pulled up behind Hernandez. Four heavily-armed ICE agents in civilian attire and full tactical loadout clearly labeled “ICE” hopped out. The officers initiated the encounter at 6:15 a.m., ordering Hernandez to turn off his ignition.
That was followed by an immediate threat of “I will shatter this (expletive) window. Out!” It was at this moment that Hernandez hit the gas of his SUV, striking the black sedan in front of him before getting away while being shot at by one of the officers, all within a minute of the interaction beginning. The driver, who is wanted on several different charges, remains at large. The public, meanwhile, was put in danger during the encounter.
This is clearly not a series of isolated events. It raises questions of whether there has been an unwritten policy shift within ICE, as so many of these cases have key details in common: No body or dash cam footage, an instant threat of violence, shooting at
people fleeing or from behind.
ICE is an existential threat to the American public. Agents are arriving on scene or initiating an encounter, making initial contact, and then discharging their firearms, all in a matter of seconds.
Fleeing an officer is not an offense meriting automatic execution, and the fact that officers are free to impose life-or-death situations on innocent people, without so much as verifying who they are, shows that these are turning into random attacks from the federal government on people
There’s zero or near-zero accountability, and the whole situation thus further erodes the trust between the working class and our so-called representative government.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed here are those of the author.
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