Well, I’m just Posty McPoster today. Lots to say after my insomnia last night. It seems there is a bit of push-pull between DHS and the FBI. Trump’s cabinet just might be (finally) showing some cracks. We can be glad. The FBI actually did the right thing. They investigated an ICE shooting and flat-out say ICE lied. What a lovely turn of events! It’s going to be hard for ICE to shred this person’s background as they did with Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti. It’s about damn time something went fractionally right. Thank you, Raw Story:
Reaction poured into social media Friday after an FBI affidavit appeared to smack down the Department of Homeland Security’s account of a shooting involving an ICE agent. The inconsistency was flagged by Cato Institute immigration expert David J. Bier, who told his followers on X that the affidavit shows an ICE agent shot a man while he was fleeing – not acting in self-defense – as DHS initially claimed. “An FBI affidavit admits that an ICE agent shot a man while he was fleeing from 10 feet away, not–as DHS claimed–while the agent was being beaten with a shovel,” Bier wrote.
And again, about damn time something went fractionally right. DHS now has egg on its face at being caught in a lie. Maybe, just maybe, this might start a turnaround. People will record ICE anywhere and at any time. That takes a whole lot of guts, especially for the incidents in Minneapolis. That’s how we found out. For most of ICE/CBP, it won’t make a difference, but maybe it might for others. We already know it didn’t make a difference to Bozo-ino. On the other hand, he’s been demoted and pulled out of Minneapolis, so we should probably be grateful for that small favor. It’s just beautiful that he got thrown out of a bar in *Vegas*. We hope that people will film him when he goes back to California. Eyes in the sky would be something.
“This is part of a pattern where DHS’s initial account of any controversy includes many inaccuracies,” he added in a follow-up post. //// The revelation quickly sparked sharp criticism online. //// “Does DHS ever not lie?” conservative analyst Bill Kristol wrote on social media Friday. //// “One of the worst things about this is it’s no longer surprising that ICE lies about violating people’s fundamental rights to life & liberty,” former federal prosecutor Joyce Alene Vance posted to her followers on X. //// Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project reacted bluntly: “Another murder,” while former Rep. Barbara Comstock (D-VA) asked, “When will ICE agents start getting indicted for their crimes?”
When, indeed. Regrettably, we know ICE lies often and with fervor. They’re *always* trying to make themselves look superior at the cost of good people’s lives. But that “no longer surprising” line hurts the most. We’re getting used to ICE’s horsepucky. We don’t want to, but now it’s practically every day that one of them does something stupid or shoots someone. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like that’s what ICE was intended for back when it was created. Now, they’re a bunch of rude, uncaring, moronic, ill-mannered, abusive, disrespectful, discourteous, insolent, vulgar, filthy, crude, offensive, tasteless, inconsiderate, thoughtless dicks. Ran out of words, there.
According to the affidavit, attorney Robin Wolpert, who represents the man involved in the ICE shooting, said the officer fired from roughly 10 feet away as the man fled, “which showed the officer ‘was not in immediate danger’.” Wolpert said her client would plead not guilty if indicted. //// “DHS did not address the FBI affidavit with the different account of the incident when asked for comment,” the document cited by Bier stated. //// “They lie every single time,” X user @cringelemon wrote. //// “Journalists should operate from the assumption that everything ICE says is false,” Jonathan Cohn, the policy director for the nonprofit Progressive Mass, concluded.
Yes, the CYA is strong in this group. If they didn’t do stupid things, they wouldn’t have to CYA. If they weren’t thugs, they wouldn’t have to CYA. But the way ICE does things is vainglorious, thinking they are protected for whatever the hell they do as they please. We are tired of this. At least we can record them and show the truth of what they lie about. The recordings are out there. We the People are brave. We can watch them. We can report on them. Eventually, our work will get someone charged with assault, murder, or anything. We’ll show reality, not the lies.
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From the first block-quote: “An FBI affidavit admits that an ICE agent shot a man while he was fleeing from 10 feet away, not–as DHS claimed–while the agent was being beaten with a shovel,” Bier wrote.
Okay. Let’s say I’m armed with a pistol (presumably as this ICE “agent” would’ve been) and someone is BEATING me with a SHOVEL. How the bloody hell do I have the ability to fend off those strikes WITH A SHOVEL while grabbing my pistol and firing it? Maybe if I have three arms (two to cover my head or attempt to block the SHOVEL and a third that can reach down to my side and grab the gun) but I would still think that anyone beating me WITH A SHOVEL can also use that SHOVEL to knock the gun away from me (or, at the very least, attempt to break the hand holding that gun) and then return to beating me WITH THAT SHOVEL.
Now, obviously, if I’m gifted with some sort of superhuman powers, I’m sure I could easily manage to avoid any serious damage from the SHOVEL to defend myself (at the same time, I probably would NOT need to be wielding a gun of any sort*). Possibly even just some impressive martial arts abilities would likely help me avoid damage from a SHOVEL but, again, it would be a bit difficult to avoid the SHOVEL while trying to do something else.
*Just for the record, there are plenty of characters in the comics who do use guns or gun- or rifle-shaped objects that don’t fire actual bullets. Flash adversary, Captain Cold, for instance or Batman adversary, Mr Freeze, both use “cold guns”–they’re essentially rifles that fire blasts of super-cold air/ice/liquid nitrogen which, depending on their strength, can just freeze a single body part (like a hand holding a gun aimed at them) or a whole body or an entire neighborhood. In the comics, Black Widow originally had a small hand-held gun that fired a small projectile designed to incapacitate, not kill, an opponent (she was a spy, not a cold-blooded killer, after all; the “widow’s bite,” as it was called, COULD be lethal but that was not the intent) and, later, the gun was replaced by a pair of “bracelets” that emitted an energy-based version (sort of like an early taser without the cables). Of course, there is the Punisher but his guns are almost exclusively reserved for actual bad guys. If someone wielding a shovel came at him, he also carries a variety of other objects that he can use as non-lethal defense weapons and he’d only resort to a gun as a last resort (someone wielding a shovel would probably be acting in a defensive manner such as a homeowner against an intruder or even low-level guard protecting a meth lab–even Frank Castle wouldn’t necessarily see the latter guy as “shoot-to-kill”). And the WW2-era Sandman wielded a gun that contained a sleeping gas. And, of course, the Green Hornet carried his gun with a “hornet’s sting” (essentially similar to what the original comic-book Black Widow used).
The only person that would have believed he was defending against the shovel was the agent who said so. Your point was the same one I was making. No, you cannot go for your gun if you were being hit by a shovel. And I’m sure the hospital records would have shown the gentleman fleeing the agents was shot *in the back*. The only shovel that could have been used would be a child’s play shovel for the beach, and it would break after maybe 2 hits. The autopsy for Mr. Pretti should have shown he was shot *in the back*. What in the hell do we have to do to bring the agents up on charges? It’s really damn frustrating to see them get away with all this. They shouldn’t because no one else can.
I have been out of comics for decades, but I do remember what you are speaking about. Heroes don’t always have superpowers. Black Widow and Deadpool don’t, along with the others you listed. Preacher was creepy.