This wasn't crowd control it was a deliberate calculated menacing attack on peaceful Hispanic protestors.
Protesting is not a crime
and these people were doing nothing violent or destructive.
( No I am not saying everyone involved remained non violent or non destructive during the entire fiasco.)
I AM saying those I witnessed in these circumstances were not.
What I saw was exhibitionist intimidation.
It was a clear message from Trump.
Violent ego theater designed to terrify any person thinking of standing up.
It was precise,
humiliating,
,and meant to demoralize .
We watched it.
We recorded it.
Felt the sick weight of knowing the people doing it could claim letter of the law while committing the spirit of state terror.
A pretty youngish Hispanic lady is holding a sign near a barricade. She has it in both hands . It's raised up above her head The sign talks about her child one of the at least 1,583 still missing CHILDREN
from Donald J. Trump's
first term in office.
She’s turned away from them, sign raised .
Cameras catch her from the side and back
watching, the whole thing clear and slow like a youtube livestream nightmare
shot on bad film.
Behind her, the line of riot gear armored officers, is losing their fraying patience. . They don't issue anymore orders
They don’t shout,
they don’t negotiate.
They aim.
The first canister screams and misses.
She hasn't seen it or was distracted.
The second and 3rd follow in rapid succession and it becomes clear they are aiming them directly at her .
She flinches at the sound but hasn't looked back to see the wall coming at her. ,
keeps her sign up,
trying to get the cameras’ eyes,
trying to show the world what’s happening.
Then they fire again, and again,
each cylinder a blunt instrument launched with the intention to harm.
Finally as they close the distance one projectile slams directly into the square middle of her lower back
with a thunderous, metallic oofing impact.
She goes down hard
Her fingers slacken on the white cardboard. The air fills with her black hair
the crowd starts screaming
burning, with the chemical cloud of so much tear gas.
It's broad daylight ,. It was quiet and almost peaceful.
Before she can gather her hands to push herself up
they assault her
wrap her hair in gloved fist and yank.
They are on her now in force screaming
tearing at her simple clothing
like they are hauling away and enraged animal.
They strike and pummel and shake her .
She gets roughly zip tied finally .
They drag her face down
across the pavement
then the asphalt.
Eyes blackening and swollen, tears and snot streaming
lips busted and bleeding
skin scraping,
She’s choking and bleeding with the stench of the gas in her lungs..
No mercy. No pause.
Just deliberate, humiliating force.
Nearby, a young man who was filming with his phone also had his back to them.
They suddenly surged forward into him
He lazily keeps moving away, half trying to comply with their order,
He sadistically becomes their next object lesson.
He steps slowly begrudgingly where they want,
they shout. "DISPERSE"
His slow shuffle It is not enough.
Their cadence shifts.
A group of head to toe armored officers in black surges forward like a practiced wave.
They grab him by the backpack,
not a gentle steer but an iron twist, spin him like a ragdoll, and slam him
face and neck into the concrete.
He is not resisting.
He is not fighting.
He is trying to obey what they demanded.
Still, they press his face into the ground and
rain down baton blows,
methodical and vicious,
each strike an angry , frustrated punctuation mark
in a sentence of punishment.
Other officers join in
more hold his limbs,
pinning him as if he is a dangerous beast.
The crowd screams. His phone disappears.
The cameras record.
It changes nothing.
They had been standing there, singing or holding signs, an entirely peaceable assembly. Someone said disperse. Many did not move fast enough, by the brutality squads
arbitrary unknowable clock.
The line stopped, then, without further warning just surged with no new... or additional
anything
The beaten and brutalized
only offense was
not being able to disappear instantly
on command.
That was enough to justify all this brutality.
of course there was so much more,
but haven't I more than made the point ?
This was before Donald Trump defied Governor Newsom and sent the Marines in as well.
The Marines !
Never before in history has that ever been done !
The mostly Mexican Hispanics and other immigrants had been told that I.C.E. had come into schools and beat up innocent teachers at their jobs
for being brown,
beat them in front of the kids
the screaming confused students
and then dragged them out in zip ties.
They were also told that agents were going to Home Depot s and tackling employees in the parking lot and dragging them away too.
No one knew what to believe other than ICE was there and their neighbors and employees were being disappeared again .
Like back in 2017 , 2018, and 2019
when their children were separated from them, never to be seen or heard from ever again. Not even till this day in 2025
At least 1583 kids in cages with nothing but foil blankets for comfort
JUST ... GONE !
HHS OIG’s certified reunification list (2,737, Dec 2018) is an official count of those known and semi documented separations. The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) documented that, after the court-ordered accountings failed to produce records and solid numbers. Separated under Trump’s zero tolerance hate filled racist approach. Still unaccounted for. ORR became the dumping ground for kids separated from their parents. Border Patrol and ICE would rip families apart, and the children got labeled “unaccompanied” and shipped into ORR custody, even though they had parents .they deliberately ignored the existence of contactable parents, labeled kids as “unaccompanied,” and jammed them into cages like objects it’s beyond intentional premeditated cruelty. It’s not just a failure of policy, it’s pure, intentional moral violence. That’s why ORR’s rosters and audit reports became the grim paper trail for trying to track how many kids had actually been taken. Lazy underqualified careless guards and officers who more often than not did not file anything at all. How would you feel if that was your kids ? Your family?
