Protesting ICE's cold-blooded murder
Cascadia responded quickly to the news that an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old single mother, in Minneapolis yesterday. A noisy protest of several hundred people in Seattle gathered outside the federal building downtown last night and called for an end to ICE's racist, violent raids, demanded the arrest of the agent responsible for the killing, and insisted on abolishing ICE. Emergency protests were also called in Portland, Tacoma, and across the US.
"This is unacceptable and needs to stop," said Jonathan Toledo, an organizer with Seattle Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, speaking to the crowd at the Seattle vigil. Noting that ICE's goal isn't safety but intimidation and terrorizing communities, Toledo said, "I don't see people who are terrorized, I see people who are ready to fight."
Some legacy news outlets are still trying to both-sides the killing and amplify Homeland security director Kristi Noem's lies about the officer firing in self-defense, or about Good being a "domestic terrorist." It's clear from watching the abundant videos of the incident that the masked agent shot and killed Good point blank for disobedience, when no officers' lives were at risk.
It was obvious to anyone who saw the videos, including Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who told ICE during a press conference, "get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We don't want you here."
Frey pushed back on the administration's attempt to justify the killing, saying “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit,” Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
The one rule of fascism is power. Trump and his administration seek to wield power in any way they can: bombing small boats in Caribbean, using the justice system to harass political opponents, tearing down part of the White House, letting 32 people die in ICE custody. And across the US, allowing masked gunmen who refuse to identify themselves shoot any kill anyone who doesn't do exactly as they say.
Police have been doing this for decades, of course. And ICE, in its rush to fill its ranks and meet Stephen Miller's quota of 3,000 people detained every day, has an army of ill-trained, angry, and unprofessional goons on our streets with a license to do whatever they want. Today's protests said enough to all that.
We're feeling rage that ICE thinks it can simply gun down a single mom and a poet and get away with it. The officer should be charged – under state laws to prevent yet another presidential pardon – with murder.
In the short term, Washington should join California in banning officers from concealing their faces.
In the long term, Cascadia needs to prepare to go its own way and kick ICE out. I've written about how I'm skeptical the US can pull back from fascism by simply winning the midterms or another election. The election of Trump and the country's descent into authoritarianism won't easily be reversed. The US has put in power a tyrant, a man who encouraged a violent insurrection in 2021, who is quite happy to use the Justice Department attack his critics and to hide the truth about his involvement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It put in power someone who has been open about potentially shooting protesters who defy his rule.
We're tired of business as usual, of Democrats in power thinking a clever Tik Tok video or a shift to the right on policy will win over the country and fix everything. The wounds are much deeper.
Andrew Engelson
It's time to do the work for Cascadia to peacefully declare autonomy and potentially leave the failed United States behind. We need to build a nation and a bioregion that has effective guardrails against fascism, takes care of its people, and guarantees democracy and the rule of law.
A group I've help found, Cascadia Democratic Action, is doing that work. Visit their website for more information. We'll be holding an online meeting today at 4 pm to discuss efforts to monitor ICE activity in the Seattle area. Message me at cascadiademocratic@protonmail.com or on Signal at andyjourno.55 for more info.
