State-sponsored violence in the US

Even from the point of view of a Third World country that is used to police and military violence, like the Philippines, the killing of Alex Pretti in the United States last week was so brazenly criminal on several fronts.

Pretti was an intensive care unit nurse in a US veterans hospital who was gunned down by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while he was video recording the agents’ conduct in a public place, and at the same time, while he was trying to protect two women who were being roughly pushed to the ground by ICE agents.

The wrongness begins with the fact that ICE agents are being allowed by their superiors—even probably ordered by their conspiratorial bosses—to wear masks to completely conceal their identities. It is largely, if not entirely, because of the license given to the agents to secure and ensure their anonymity that these ICE operatives have felt empowered to commit crimes even if pedestrian witnesses are documenting their wrongdoings with video recordings. It is the natural conduct of any normal person to be allergic to the commission of any crime in the presence of strangers with video-capable gadgets. If the ICE agents are ordered to remove their masks, there is little doubt that they will not be as barefaced in committing the kind of criminal conduct that they have been perpetrating with increasing frequency.

Notice that regular police officers in all US states do not wear masks when they engage in operations to arrest criminal suspects. So why are ICE agents, who are pseudo police officers and who do not have the same security mandate as real police officers, being allowed by the Trump administration to put on facial concealments similar to those worn by hoodlums and hooligans? And why are ICE agents, whose jurisdiction and mandate are limited to undocumented aliens, being allowed to accost anyone on the street and demand proof of citizenship; otherwise, they are presumed to be illegal aliens, arrested, and thrown into immigration prisons?

Imagine the same practice happening in the Philippines. Our own Bureau of Immigration agents are accosting Chinese-looking, Indian-looking, and mestizo-looking pedestrians in our streets, demanding that they instantly produce their Philippine passports, and anyone who fails to comply is immediately sent to immigration prison. Appallingly barbaric.

The criminal mistreatment of Pretti was also evident from the fact that ICE agents were the ones who physically assaulted him before he was gunned down. He was roughed up by being pushed to the ground and even pepper-sprayed in the face. He suffered the same kind of horrible maltreatment that ICE agents are increasingly using against mere kibitzers, protesters, and people who contest being arrested by ICE. These ICE agents are employing physical abuses that are associated with totalitarian or fascist governments. These are happening in broad daylight in a country that, not so long ago, was the bastion of civil and political rights. In the land famous for bleeding-heart judges known for awarding millions of dollars for negligently spilled hot coffee, these ICE agents and their superiors should be hauled to court to answer for tens of millions of damages. If not now, when a different administration comes to power.

Finally, there’s the brazen cover-up made by the Trump administration to whitewash the blatant murder of Pretti. This is shown by barefaced statements by top US government officials, such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who have summarily condemned Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” or “would-be assassin,” even before an investigation could be conducted, and notwithstanding multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no danger to the ICE agents when he was gunned down multiple times. The same conspiratorial behavior was exhibited by Trump officials in the death of Renee Good, who was likewise labeled as a “domestic terrorist,” even before an investigation could be completed and notwithstanding multiple video recordings showing that she was not attempting to assault any ICE agent, but was only leaving the scene with her car.

What has been happening in the US is disturbingly similar to all that transpired in the Philippines under the Duterte administration. Police officers turned into criminal thugs and masked assassins, carrying out arrests without probable cause, imprisonment without court warrants, cover-ups by top officials, and the “nanlaban” defense by murderous security officers.

Americans must continue documenting every crime and every cover-up of every state-sponsored violence. A day of reckoning will come in the same way that it has finally arrived in the Philippines.