Ice Updates

I'm seeing reports of 700,000 people being out of power, but fortunately for me I am not one of them. Nevertheless last night I stayed up late preparing for the possibility of the intense cold that's coming getting here without us having any power (as still may occur: more freezing rain is on the way this afternoon). I created a little 'yurt' structure out of tarps tacked up to contain the warmth from the wood-burning furnace, lined the floor with blankets, and dug out extra warm clothing for everyone. Hopefully we will be fine. 

As the 'other' ICE story continues to develop, the Washington Post today is running a video analysis that shows that the victim had in fact been disarmed by police before they shot him ten times. 

I want to take a moment here to praise the officer in the grey jacket who handled the disarmament: he was the only one in the videos who gave the sense of acting with professional collectedness and good judgment. He kept focus on the only thing that mattered and took immediate steps to resolve that problem and reduce the threat of lethal force being necessary. If everyone had behaved as well as he did, this would not have happened. 

The New York Times has a similar analysis: 

Video of the encounter shows Mr. Pretti, a U.S. citizen who had a permit to carry a firearm, stepping between a woman and an agent who was pepper spraying her. Mr. Pretti is then hit with pepper spray before a group of agents pin him down, restraining and disarming him. Agents then fired shots into his back and motionless body.

Trump officials immediately labeled Mr. Pretti a domestic terrorist, claiming without offering evidence that he had been out to “massacre” federal agents. They have underscored that he had been armed with a handgun, but video of the encounter verified by The New York Times shows that Mr. Pretti never drew his weapon.

I wonder how much of this is going to turn out to be a function of inadequate training. In a chaotic situation, you do tend to devolve to your level of training. The Trump administration, in its rush to field a much larger ICE force, has cut the training of ICE agents from 21 weeks (five of which was Spanish language, all of which has been cut) to 6 or 8 weeks (sources differ). 

For contrast, Marine Corps bootcamp is 13 weeks, and that's just basic training: only after that do you really begin training for your job. 0311 Riflemen then go on to another 14 weeks at the School of Infantry, while those with specialized roles in the infantry do that and then also another month -- just to be basically trained as what is commonly called a "grunt" who follows the direction of experienced NCOs in action. 

Watching the video, I am struck by how badly trained the agents seem to be. Their use of tools like pepper spray is ineffective; their beatings are also not properly targeted to effectively stop their target, so that even at 8 to 1 they were never quite able to subdue him. Aside from the one agent in grey, whose mind seemed to be working, they gave the impression of being scared and unable to perform effectively. I suspect a lot of the bad decisions made here were the result of them simply not having the training or experience necessary to perform well under stress.

I have expressed concerns about having a masked force that can't be effectively held to account; here we see that from the President on down there is a movement to refuse to hold them to account. But the accounting shouldn't stop with the agents. The conditions that allowed this kind of thing to happen began with some bad decisions from on high to cut training requirements, which haven't been rethought in spite of multiple tragedies or the clear evidence of intense political opposition by many American citizens. 

Who has the standing to bring such accountability? In Minnesota the attorney general is Keith Ellison, whose corruption and partisanship are watchwords. The governor likewise, in addition to which he is the same Tim Walz who lied about his military service for years. The Federal administration is lining up to avoid it (not for the first time: remember when the government just bulldozed the site after the Waco massacre?). There is no one at the state or the Federal level I would trust to treat this matter fairly, which is of possibly even greater concern than the continued existence of a barely-trained, masked, armed force being sent out into charged conflicts on a daily basis. 

In such a situation, like the agent in grey did, the thing to do is to calm down and act rationally to reduce the threat. Many people at all levels have an opportunity to do this, both in and out of government. It would be good to think about what each of us can do in that regard.