The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
These guys were career CBP, NOT new hires. That means ALL CBP is trained and held accountable to the same level as them, and has been for over a decade.
I do think it’s super important to point this out. This wasn’t a greenhorn or a training failure. This was done by people who have been in there for a long time. This speaks to the caliber and type of person ICE and CBP have been hiring for years.
I mean I figured it was the case but DHS seemed to be leaking to the press this was just a high whoopsie on account of the new guys being startled easily.
I still don’t buy this wasn’t intentional. Nobody puts 10 bullets (in 2 separate rounds of firing) in somebody who’s already been disarmed and incapacitated by accident. Even for Border Patrol that was excessive. Definitely not the first time they’ve encountered protestors, but the first time border czar happened to be waiting in the wings with the promise this could all be over so quickly if local police would just start rounding people up and handing them over to DHS.
I’ve seen enough bad cop videos of situations escalating out of control for this not to be a surprise. Our military is trained better at de-escalation tactics than our domestic forces.
It’s probably not a training issue, it really is a culture and accountability matter. Certainly the training isn’t going to give any real effort to trivialities like “Constitutional rights” and “Due Process,” but that’s not the root of the problem. They’re not blatantly violating constitutional rights because they don’t know any better. They’re doing it because they don’t care and they KNOW , rightly or wrongly, that the worst any of them will face for it is a slap on the wrist and a veil from the public eye. They know that in all probability their superiors will be mad about the OPTICS of murdering someone in the street, they’ll be mad that they got CAUGHT executing someone in cold blood, not that it happened in the first place.
This culture of iron fisted brutality is exactly the sort of thing anyone who could be described as “Career CBP,” especially given recent events, would embrace as a loosening of restraint rather than the abject amoral, unconstitutional abuse that it is.
When you WANT to kill a few people, and send a message and intimidate your enemy, you give the orders to veteran professionals, not some still damp noob, who might freeze up or shoot himself. You want it to be someone you can count on.
Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller thought that a little of the old untra-violence would scare citizens into their houses, but unfortunately for him, Americans don’t intimidate easily. He views everything from a Nazi perspective, but we aren’t 1930s Germans, still recovering from a WW1 shellacking. Americans are raised on fables of revolution and thrashing the most powerful military in human history.
You kill ours, we don’t back down, we get even. We’re coming for you, PeeWee Himmler.
These guys were career CBP, NOT new hires. That means ALL CBP is trained and held accountable to the same level as them, and has been for over a decade.
I do think it’s super important to point this out. This wasn’t a greenhorn or a training failure. This was done by people who have been in there for a long time. This speaks to the caliber and type of person ICE and CBP have been hiring for years.
I mean I figured it was the case but DHS seemed to be leaking to the press this was just a high whoopsie on account of the new guys being startled easily.
I still don’t buy this wasn’t intentional. Nobody puts 10 bullets (in 2 separate rounds of firing) in somebody who’s already been disarmed and incapacitated by accident. Even for Border Patrol that was excessive. Definitely not the first time they’ve encountered protestors, but the first time border czar happened to be waiting in the wings with the promise this could all be over so quickly if local police would just start rounding people up and handing them over to DHS.
I’ve seen enough bad cop videos of situations escalating out of control for this not to be a surprise. Our military is trained better at de-escalation tactics than our domestic forces.
Same goes for the one who shot Goode, he’d been ICE for 10 years.
It’s probably not a training issue, it really is a culture and accountability matter. Certainly the training isn’t going to give any real effort to trivialities like “Constitutional rights” and “Due Process,” but that’s not the root of the problem. They’re not blatantly violating constitutional rights because they don’t know any better. They’re doing it because they don’t care and they KNOW , rightly or wrongly, that the worst any of them will face for it is a slap on the wrist and a veil from the public eye. They know that in all probability their superiors will be mad about the OPTICS of murdering someone in the street, they’ll be mad that they got CAUGHT executing someone in cold blood, not that it happened in the first place.
This culture of iron fisted brutality is exactly the sort of thing anyone who could be described as “Career CBP,” especially given recent events, would embrace as a loosening of restraint rather than the abject amoral, unconstitutional abuse that it is.
This along with things like border patrol operations covering 100 miles inland from every border needed to be fixed years ago IMO.
Especially when airports are considered borders.
When you WANT to kill a few people, and send a message and intimidate your enemy, you give the orders to veteran professionals, not some still damp noob, who might freeze up or shoot himself. You want it to be someone you can count on.
Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller thought that a little of the old untra-violence would scare citizens into their houses, but unfortunately for him, Americans don’t intimidate easily. He views everything from a Nazi perspective, but we aren’t 1930s Germans, still recovering from a WW1 shellacking. Americans are raised on fables of revolution and thrashing the most powerful military in human history.
You kill ours, we don’t back down, we get even. We’re coming for you, PeeWee Himmler.