Ultra-Violence and Bedlam in Demon California

Ultra-Violence and Bedlam in Demon California

I’ve already blogged about the decline in all forms of crime, including murder and other violent felonies, in California. Moreover, the national statistics, reported by the National Institute of Justice (September 12, 2024) surveying available data, noted: “The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.” Recent arrests by reason of immigration status muddy the waters of any current numbers, but the headline is simple: undocumented migrants are hardly the criminals that DHS and DOJ claim, with no real supporting numbers. But high crime rates for the undocumented is what Trump’s followers want to believe, what they really need to believe. As they like to say: “Fake news.”

American citizens, with even a hint of color in their skin tones, have taken to carrying their passports (if they have them) everywhere they go. Immigration Tsar Tom Homan, with DHS Secretary Noem’s support, has openly stated that skin tone is a relevant criterion for ICE agents to detain and incarcerate individuals, without due process, often subjecting them to quick deportation… even with zero record of criminal convictions. DHS has vowed to appeal any judicial ruling that challenges that criterion. Elected members of Congress, performing their elected services, have been arrested and charged with crimes relating to their demanding access (as permitted by law) to ICE facilities.

Woe to American citizens anywhere near an ICE raid, even if they are not protesting and have made their citizenship clear to arresting officials. Not that even undocumented detainees can be arrested (“detained”) without recourse to due process as required by the Constitution (that founding document applies to anyone within the US, not just citizens), but stories of Americans swept up and detained happen with increasing frequency. Who knows how many US citizens have been deported to foreign prisons – there’s really no way to know. How would you feel if you were arrested by a plain clothes, self-declared ICE agent with no warrant and no visible identification? It happens every day. One particular recent example grabbed my attention:

“[Army veteran] George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo [north of Los Angeles], said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out… Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter's birthday party Saturday [7/12]… He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody.” Associated Press, July 16th. How glorious it is to be an American citizen these days?!

I am sure none of us missed the Trump tirades against radical leftists and violent criminals who had “taken over” Los Angeles. In short, he maintained, he was rescuing this city from the lawless duly elected state and municipal officials’ purportedly condoning and encouraging violent resistance to ICE pursuits of those dangerous undocumented criminals running rampant in the streets. That most of those protests were provoked by the ICE agents themselves seems to fall between the cracks. One of my neighbors, a member of the local press corps, was injured (along with other clearly labeled journalists) when she was struck by a large “non-lethal” projectile… and required medical attention. The wound sure looked horrible to me.

The ”violence” was so pervasive, maintained the President, that he was forced to federalize 2,000 (and then another 2,000) California National Guards over the objections of the Governor, and order 700 active-duty Marines, to support ICE agents and guard federal buildings in violent Los Angeles. Many were forced to sleep on concrete floors. They were not trained to be police officers and most never figured that they would be deployed against their fellow citizens. Morale plunged as Trump continued to fabricate reports of rebellious violence that could only be quelled by military force. Forget the Posse Comitatus statute that banned such activity absent a showing of invasion or rebellion (never established).

So, what was/is life for those military troops ordered to settle an otherwise peaceful Los Angeles? Writing for the July 17th Los Angeles Times, Jenny Jarvie, Grace Toohey and Christopher Buchanan write: “They were deployed by the Trump administration to combat ‘violent, insurrectionist mobs’ in and around Los Angeles, but in recent days the only thing many U.S. Marines and California National Guard troops seemed to be fighting was tedium… ‘There’s not much to do,’ one Marine said as he stood guard outside the towering Wilshire Federal Building in Westwood this week.

“The blazing protests that first met federal immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles were nowhere to be seen along Wilshire Boulevard or Veteran Avenue, so many troops passed the time chatting and joking over energy drinks. The Marine, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said his duties consisted mostly of approving access for federal workers and visitors to the Veterans Affairs office.

“More than five weeks after Trump mobilized an extraordinary show of military force against the will of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, few National Guard troops and Marines have remained in public view, most retreating to local military bases in Orange County… As an indication of the military’s dwindling role in immigration enforcement operations, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday [7/16] ordered the release of 2,000 National Guard troops. Now, Bass, Newsom and others are demanding the complete removal of remaining troops — or about 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines… ‘Thousands of members are still federalized in Los Angeles for no reason and unable to carry out their critical duties across the state,’ Newsom said on X , accusing Trump of using California National Guard troops as ‘political pawns.’.. ‘End this theater and send everyone home,’ the governor said… Bass said the troops’ primary mission in L.A. was to guard federal buildings that ‘frankly didn’t need to be guarded.’”

They never had much to do, but I suspect that is to be expected when the underlying justification for their deployment was totally fabricated… in MY HOMETOWN. As I and my friends, many attorneys practice here, have realized: we now know what it is like living in a police state, where purported “police” with no identification no longer even require “probable cause” to arrest anyone they choose. This is NOT the American I was born and raised in.

Despite Trump’s plunging numbers and particularly the overreaching nature of ICE efforts, Trump and his power-hungry appointees have pledged to ramp up their sweep of all these “dangerous” undocumented aliens (70% of whom have no criminal records).