ICE agents dressed in plainclothes staked out a courthouse in Brooklyn and refused to identify thems

[babylonsister]

This sent chills down my spine.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/plainclothes_ice_agents_in_brooklyn_refused_to_identify_themselves.html

Sept. 15 2017 4:05 PM
Secret Police
ICE agents dressed in plainclothes staked out a courthouse in Brooklyn and refused to identify themselves.
By Leon Neyfakh

We can’t expect all law enforcement officers in all situations to identify themselves when asked to do so. But those circumstances should be the exception, not the rule.



Cameron Mease, a senior staff attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services, was walking in downtown Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday morning when he saw a group of six or seven men shove someone against a fence, put him in handcuffs, and drag him into an unmarked van. The men were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Given their behavior and attire, a passerby would’ve had good reason to think he’d just witnessed a kidnapping.

But Mease had seen such scenes unfold before, and he was pretty sure he knew what he’d just seen. He believed these were plainclothes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that they’d come to the Brooklyn courthouse to take someone into custody who they knew would be there for a court date. After witnessing the arrest, Mease asked one of the men to identify himself. He got no reply. “He kind of looked at me derisively, like he was annoyed, and sort of waved his hand at my face,” the lawyer told me later.

snip//

When I asked the men if they were ICE agents, they did not say yes; one of them, in fact, stated unequivocally that he was not. When I asked what they were doing at the courthouse, they declined to respond, and Ryan told me I should call the DA’s office if I wanted more information.

Lawyers in the hallway all seemed certain these guys were with ICE, but I could see no identifying markers: Not only were they in plainclothes, but they wore no badges or nametags, and carried no walkie-talkies or other law enforcement equipment. Aside from their conspicuously self-assured and imposing manner, they were indistinguishable from the people standing around them. Quite literally, these men were secret police.

snip//


We can’t expect all law enforcement officers in all situations to identify themselves when asked to do so: In some cases, it could put them in danger or blow their cover. But those circumstances should be the exception, not the rule. In a free society, a law enforcement officer should state clearly that he or she represents the state and wields its power in all but a few exceptional circumstances. What I witnessed on Thursday did not come anywhere close to clearing that bar.

[Doreen]

1. So we ARE Russia.