Manly CBP agents run amok
To be clear, I am not an attorney. Just pissed.
We’ve covered this before and need to cover it again. On Nov. 1, I reposted two videos from Chicago in which agitated Customs agents threaten people (both women) with arrest for following and recording them. In the second, they warn the woman that blowing her horn or a whistle to alert neighbors to their presence could be grounds for arrest. “Impeding” a federal agent in the performance of their duties, in their estimation. In neither case did they actually arrest the women. That’s telling.
David Bier of the Cato Institute tweeted on October 30, “At some point recently, there must have been an order issued to threaten witnesses with arrest for recording DHS activities. There are a number of nearly identical instances of this exact threat that I’ve seen, delivered in the same way, in just the last month.”
The agents cite 18 USC 111, in my non-lawyerly estimation, as an intimidation tactic to get protesters to stand down from exercising their First Amendment rights.
CBP is still doing it in North Carolina. In one case, however, with violent arrests (Daily Beast):
Border Patrol agents smashed a car window with a rifle before hauling out two female U.S. citizens accused of honking their horn to warn others that federal immigration officers were in the area, according to relatives and a witness.
A shocking video recorded in a Charlotte, North Carolina, neighborhood showed one goon pointing his gun into the window while shouting commands. He was then seen breaking the window and pulling a woman from the driver’s seat..
A second woman, also a U.S. citizen, was arrested moments earlier, according to a report from WCNC Charlotte.
According to the women’s family members, who spoke to WCNC, the pair were accused of honking their car horn to alert neighbors that Border Patrol was conducting operations nearby.
The women, still unidentified, were released with “a citation.” Citation for what is unclear. It also remains unclear under what circumstances the CBP gave chase and two Charlotte women had an automatic rifle aimed at their heads for blowing their car horn.
In another Charlotte incident, the agents warn a videographer that blowing a car horn is a violation (again, 18 USC 111), but they don’t arrest her. Apparently she didn’t honk. (They’re all women, notice?)
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Let’s be explicitly clear (bold italics mine):
18 U.S. Code § 111 – Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees
(a) In General.—Whoever—
(1) forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person designated in section 1114 of this title while engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties; or
(2) forcibly assaults or intimidates any person who formerly served as a person designated in section 1114 on account of the performance of official duties during such person’s term of service,
shall, where the acts in violation of this section constitute only simple assault, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, and where such acts involve physical contact with the victim of that assault or the intent to commit another felony, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.
“Forcibly” is the first word in both subparagraphs. The DOJ Resource Manual on this section addresses that in more detail (emphasis and brackets mine):
Section 111 of Title 18 punishes anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates or interferes with any person designated in 18 U.S.C. § 1114 or who formerly served as a person designated in § 1114, while engaged in or on account of the performance of his/her official duties.” Force is an essential element of the crime. Long v. United States, 199 F.2d 717 (4th Cir. 1952). Whether the element of force, as required by the statute, is present in a particular case is a question of fact to be determined from all of the circumstances. The Long case indicates that a threat of force will satisfy the statute [… if it] reasonably causes a Federal officer to anticipate bodily harm while in the performance of his/her duties constitutes a “forcible assault” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 111. See also United States v. Walker, 835 F.2d 983, 987 (2d Cir. 1987); Gornick v. United States, 320 F.2d 325 (10th Cir. 1963). Thus, a threat uttered with the apparent present ability to execute it, or with menacing gestures, or in hostile company or threatening surroundings, may, in the proper case, be considered sufficient force for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111. These judicial decisions suggest a similar construction of the statutory words “resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates or interferes with.”
I’d like to see any of these agents explain to a federal judge how blowing a whistle or honking a car horn was a forcible assault or threat of it that “reasonably” causes “a Federal officer to anticipate bodily harm.” And then explain why the arrest they made was not a justiciable civil rights violation. Except in the case of the women yanked from their car, the agents are making empty threats to quell protest. They are being instructed to.
My guess is that these poorly trained unprofessionals don’t even know the parameters of the code section with which they’ve been told to intimidate people. Or if they do, most are not dumb enough to actually charge allegedly “threatening” women under it.
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Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense
