Folks were upset when Illinois State Police showed up at an ICE protest in Chicago. Some questioned why Pritzker would do so. Were the state police now siding with ICE?
The answer to why the ISP showed up can be found in federal judge’s ruling about the federalization of Oregon National Guard in Portland. In her decision, in page after page, Judge Karin Immergut detailed what exactly is happening on the streets of Portland, and how any protest that crossed the line, no matter how minor, was met and handled by the local police, without any needed assist from any other party.
Judge Immergut wasn’t just stopping the seeming military takeover of our cities, she was also providing a guide in how cities and states can ensure that military incursions can be avoided: by having local and state police present at any ICE protest. Not only can the local police ensure that no laws are broken, their presence should also, hopefully, prevent some of egregious violence that federal police and ICE have been inflicting on law-abiding protestors.
In addition, local and state police can act as witness, providing a true recounting of events rather than that slop being fed to the press from DHS.
It’s also important for protests to stay peaceful and nonviolent. Even traditional nonviolent forms of civil disobedience, such as sitting in streets, should be avoided because there is nothing Trump, Noem, and their bully boys want more than to bash in liberal heads, and cry ‘assault’ when some protester’s face meets their fists.
These aren’t normal times. We cannot expect the federal government to act lawfully, or with anything resembling reasonable control. We have to assume in each and every incidence of protester meeting feds that the feds will unleash violence: pushing, shoving, shooting tear gas and non-lethal projectiles into any group of assembled people.
We want local and state police there…as long as they remember that the feds are not their brothers in arms: they are an invasion of people seeking to harm the people the local police have sworn to protect.