You were warned
“We don’t want this on our property,” Al Lopez, pastor of Downey Memorial Church, told the masked and armed men. The alleged ICE agents appeared in the church parking lot southeast of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday (Spectrum News, note the boldface, mine):
The pastor of Downey Memorial Church Al Lopez said at least five men dressed in plain clothes with faces covered and bullet-proof vests swarmed a man in the parking lot. The pastor said he came out of his office and tried to find out what was happening when one agent drew a weapon and refused to identify themselves.
It is unclear if the agents had a warrant signed by a judge.
“We said we don’t want this on our property. This gentleman just shouted, ‘the whole country is our property,’” Lopez said. “When someone tells that to you, with a weapon in their hands, that was a very clear message. As a man of faith, that is not allowed, and that is not correct and that goes against everything that our country stands for.”
That message is this: You live in a police state.
Overall, the White House announced it had arrested 330 undocumented immigrants since the ICE enforcement began last Friday. According to the Trump administration, 115 of those detained had a criminal history, but an overwhelming majority of them did not.
Connor Simon’s quote at the top remains the most trenchant observation I’ve heard about the upside-down nature of the expanding Trump-Miller-Noem police state.
The FBI arrested a California man early Thursday morning for allegedly handing out police-style face masks to a crowd of Los Angeles protesters earlier in the week.
Alejandro Theodoro Orellana is accused of conspiracy to commit civil disorder, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced on X.
“We are moving quickly to identify and arrest those involved in organizing and/or supporting civil disorder in Los Angeles.” Essayli wrote.
Orellana, who is 29, according to public records, has not yet appeared in federal court or jail records, and it is unclear if he has legal representation or how he plans to plead to the allegations.
A neighbor told KTLA that agents arrived in the early morning and arrested Orellana at his home, after deploying flash bang grenades and telling residents to stay indoors. They said they hadn’t heard anything negative about the 29-year-old before the arrest.
“No, nothing of the sort. Nothing at all. No one in this block have I heard any, you know, bad news from or any gossip,” the resident said.
You read that right: flashbang grenades deployed for a simple arrest. But these aren’t simple arrests, as pastor Lopez learned firsthand. They are messages to civilians that Trump-Miller-Noem’s shock troops are on the march and on your street. Comply or else.
And by the way (November 2, 2023):
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has rescinded the exemptions for certain consumer-style grenades (e.g., flashbang grenades, smoke grenades) as they have been determined by ATF to pose a risk to public safety.
So Trump’s shock troops have Joe Biden to thank for their not facing civilians armed with such devices.
Jon Stewart pointedly reminded Americans before the November election that the Trump pogrom won’t stop with Latinos and undocumented immigrants. He didn’t have to quote “First they came…”
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