This is one journalist's account of an ICE raid on her street. she makes the point that we need to support the journalists who are recording the truth for people of the future.
--Kim
This is what we are up against
Today I became part of the story. Just after 8:00 this morning, while I was still in my pajamas and working on my computer, I heard a crashing sound and men screaming right outside my bedroom window. I struggled to understand exactly what they were saying, making out only that they were demanding that someone “come out immediately,” followed by threats about what would happen if they didn’t. Before I could even process what they were saying, my daughter came running into my room absolutely terrified, telling me there were men with guns surrounding our house.
Before I go any further, I want you all to know my family is fine. But in that moment, nothing felt even close to okay. There is a feeling that comes over you as a parent when your child says those words to you, as you hear the fear in their voice. It is almost impossible to describe because there isn’t really time to think. Your brain doesn’t calmly sort through possibilities or wait for more information. Your body reacts before your mind has even caught up. My stomach dropped, and my heart started pounding. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my robe while my daughter immediately went into action. She locked up the pets and got her sisters into a safe room, something we have practiced many times before but that I never actually thought my children would have to do. Once they were safe, they called my husband and told him to come home while I tried to figure out who was outside our home and what was happening.
There were masked men everywhere. Unmarked vehicles surrounded our house and spilled into the streets, and armed men carrying what appeared to be tactical rifles were moving around outside. There was even a massive armored vehicle that looked like something you would expect to see with a SWAT team during a violent conflict.
As I stepped outside, I realized they weren’t actually there for our house. They had simply used the area directly in front of our home as a staging ground, with their unmarked vehicles and armed men spreading from our house up through the street. That was when I saw at least one man wearing a vest that said, “POLICE.” But I knew something wasn’t right. We don’t have a city police department where I live. Our law enforcement is handled by very professional sheriffs. I’ve interacted with sheriff’s deputies here for years, and I knew immediately these were not our local law enforcement officers. One of my sisters even works for a police department, and nothing about what I was looking at reassured me that these men were in any way police officers. So I asked the closest masked man who they were and what department they were from because, in that moment, that question was the only thing that mattered to me.
Before I understood what was happening, my mind went to places I wish it didn’t have to go. My first thought was that one of the radical far-right extremists who sends me horrific threats had finally decided to come to my home and harm me or my family. Almost immediately after that came another thought that scared me just as much: that this was the federal government, and they were here because of what I write.
So I asked, “What department are you with?” I was ignored. I asked again, and again. I explained that I had a child inside my home who was terrified, that armed, masked men were right outside our house, and that I had a right to know who they were. Finally, one of them answered me almost casually, like he assumed the answer would reassure me. “HSI.”
Suddenly I understood exactly what was happening. All I remember saying was, “You’re ICE.” Maybe that should have made me feel relief, but it didn’t. Because while my children were still hiding in a room, terrified but safe, someone else’s child was living through a trauma that wasn’t about to end when these men drove away. For another family, this wasn’t a terrifying misunderstanding or a moment they would eventually come down from. This was just the beginning. Their loved one was being kidnapped. They could be taken from that street to a detention center, then shipped from one detention center to another, held in horrific conditions while the people who love them desperately try to figure out where they have been taken. They may never come home if they are one of those sent to prisons known for torture in a country they have never been to. Their family, waiting for them, slowly realizes that they have simply disappeared into a detention system where people have died.
That was all I could think about as I checked on my kids and told them what was happening. Then I threw on some clothes, grabbed my phone, and started recording while I tried not to be sick to my stomach.
What I saw next is something I don’t think I will ever forget. From what I could tell, at least two people were taken from our street. The one I witnessed was an older man with no shoes on, who did not appear to have a weapon and was not resisting. From everything I could see, he looked like someone who had simply gotten up that morning and gone to work on a neighbor’s property, never imagining that before the morning was over he would be surrounded by masked men with rifles and taken away. His vehicle is still sitting in that driveway tonight, exactly where he left it. They just grab them and disappear them into the system. And then I watched something that made my stomach turn. Agents removed what appeared to be a gold cross necklace from around the man’s neck. But instead of putting it into an evidence bag or securing it with his belongings, I watched one agent hand it to another agent, who then put it directly into his own pocket like a souvenir.
What happened as the agents were leaving told me more about who these people are than almost anything else I saw. They had already made sure they all knew I was videotaping, pointing me out to each other as they prepared to leave. Then, as they drove their unmarked vehicles slowly through our street, windows tinted dark, every single one of them slowed down as they passed me. One agent put two fingers to his eyes and then pointed them directly at me. “I’m watching you.” Another leaned forward and made a heart with his hands as he drove past. Another blew kisses at me. These were armed federal agents who had just descended on a residential neighborhood in masks and tactical gear, taken people away, terrified families, and now they were driving away laughing and trying to taunt a woman who had dared to stand on the sidewalk and record them.
I asked one of the few unmasked agents standing nearby what he thought about his fellow agents making hearts and blowing kisses at me, behavior I would expect from a creepy teenage boy still learning social skills, not a grown man carrying a gun and calling himself a police officer. He just shrugged, as if this was normal, like he sees this behavior often from the men he works with.
In that moment, I couldn’t help but think about what real law enforcement officers must be feeling right now. About how much more dangerous their jobs become when untrained wannabes put “POLICE” across their chests and behave like this, pretending to be them when they clearly have neither the training nor the understanding of the enormous responsibility that comes with that job. Real police officers should be furious.
That’s what concerns me most. Underneath the intimidation was a complete absence of accountability. They knew I was recording them, and they behaved that way anyway. They didn’t care that someone might see the video. They acted like men who knew there would be no consequences.
But the thing about accountability is that it often doesn’t arrive as quickly as we hope. Videos, however, can last forever. They can survive administrations. They can survive a GOP-controlled Congress. They can survive every person in power who looks the other way and assumes that what happened today will eventually be forgotten. It won’t be.
There will come a day when the videos we are taking, the names we are recording, and the evidence we are preserving will be compiled into a record of what happened during this authoritarian takeover and who participated in it. There will be investigations and testimony. Where crimes were committed, there will be prosecutions and trials. The masks will eventually come off, but the record of what they did while wearing them will remain.
What they did will be their legacy, and it will be our life’s work to make sure history remembers exactly what happened here, who did it, who enabled it, and who stood by while it was happening. They may believe there will never be consequences. We will make sure they are wrong.
They tried to intimidate me, but I was not scared. I want to be very clear about that. I was disgusted. I was embarrassed for them. What I saw were people who do not belong in society at large and certainly not in any position of authority. The difference between me and those men is simple. Every night, I write under my full legal name. My face is right here. I stand behind every word. They hide behind masks and unmarked cars. They think they are strong and powerful, but they give themselves away every single time.
I’ve been thinking about those unmarked cars ever since they drove away. Because we have seen before what happens when governments normalize masked men and unmarked vehicles moving through neighborhoods, taking people away while everyone else is left wondering who they were, where they went, and whether those cars might come back tomorrow. And the men carrying it out this time are not fundamentally different from the men who have carried it out before. They enjoy the fear their power creates without understanding that the power was never really theirs. They are being used by rich and powerful men who will remain safely removed from the cruelty they have ordered others to carry out. History is filled with men like this. Men who mistook proximity to power for power itself, who believed the uniform or the weapon made them important, and who learned far too late that authoritarian regimes have always considered men like them expendable.
Minutes before I stood on that sidewalk, recording what they were doing, the President of the United States was posting his own message about people who document what he doesn’t want documented. At 10:56 this morning, Trump wrote:
“For the treasonous SCUM that refuses to accurately report on our Military Operation in Iran, we have virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition, far more than we could ever use for this, or for any other War (which is highly unlikely!), that could improbably take place. In addition, we are producing Munitions at levels never seen before. We are stockpiling and preparing for any contingency that could happen. We are taking them for ourselves, the U.S.A., rather than selling them to others, but the sales to Allies will soon again, begin. Also, please let it be known, that the Biden Administration gave far more Munitions away to Ukraine, at no cost to them, whatsoever, than we have used in Iran. Hundreds of Billions of Dollars was given to Ukraine and NATO, free of charge, that Europe would have paid for — If they were only asked, but we will be asking for that money, though somewhat belatedly! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
The President of the United States once again attacked the press, calling journalists who accurately report on his war “treasonous SCUM”, while also bragging about ammunition stockpiles. It is an attack on the one thing people on the wrong side of history have always feared most: a record of what they are actually doing. Because the truth is dangerous to people who depend on secrecy, intimidation, and lies to maintain their power. They don’t want the witnesses, or their words preserved, or their actions documented because someday, when the fear is gone, that record will still exist.
Every time Trump attacks the press, I do the same thing. I support more independent voices who are putting it all on the line to report what is happening in this country. Because until we can vote in the midterms, we can vote with our dollars. If you are able, and this does not create a hardship of any kind, please think about who your go-to people are, the ones who bring you the truth of what is happening to our country. Please think beyond just me. Think about your other favorite voices and see if they have a paid membership option. If they do, please support them. Let’s make sure they are well funded for the fight ahead. For those of you already supporting me in this way, thank you. Thank you for making sure I am able to keep doing this work. Our path to better days right now is to protect the people who tell the truth, because what showed up in San Diego this morning is coming for every single one of us, and the only way through this is to make sure we still have voices able to warn and inform.
Those men wanted us to be afraid. They want us to second-guess everything we say and do. They wanted me to wonder whether it is worth it. But we are not afraid. Because fear is their weapon. It has never been ours. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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