The Trump administration is paving the way for mass deportations by building new prison camps and invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Motivated by nativism and white nationalism, Steven Miller and other officials are attempting to ethnically cleanse the United States, while tech and prison companies profit on lucrative government contracts and corporations continue to exploit immigrant labor. Knowing that mass deportations will inflict devastating costs, Trump has chiefly been concentrating his efforts in cities like Chicago and Denver that are governed by his political adversaries.
Nonetheless, people are getting organized. Communities across the US are mobilizing rapid response networks that can respond to raids and support those targeted by state violence. Students across the US are staging walkouts; people are holding mass demonstrations and fighting back against deportations.
If we fail to stand in solidarity with those targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today, the same infrastructure of repression will eventually be turned against others, as well. An injury to one is an injury to all!
Do your part to melt the ICE.
Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE
Click on the image to download the PDF. Please print these out and distribute them in your community!
Know Your Rights—Educate Your Community
Learn your rights in interactions with ICE and law enforcement. Trump officials have complained that people knowing their rights makes it “very difficult” to carry out raids. Asserting our rights can disrupt their plans, delay their efforts, and shift the power dynamics in encounters with law enforcement. Distribute “Know Your Rights” cards and fliers in your community. Organize teams to get them into schools and workplaces. Host a training at your local community center, church, or union hall. Publicizing this information is an chance to get people together to strategize about how to accomplish the other tasks on this list.
Vet Information—Stop Rumors
Disinformation spreads quickly when people are afraid. Set up hotlines, Signal loops, and social media accounts that can vet information, verify reports of ICE activity, and circulate reliable updates. If your area already has a hotline, volunteer to help keep it running. Don’t amplify rumors; when you see them spreading, debunk them. Reports about ICE activity should include the exact time, date, and location of the sighting, the number of agents, and a visual description of their uniforms, vehicles, and badges—or better still, photographic evidence.
Organize a rapid response network to mobilize against ICE raids by recording their activity, providing support to the targeted, and organizing an immediate response. Documenting ICE activity has proven useful for understanding how they behave; it has also helped people in court. Wherever possible, block or slow their actions. In the past, crowds mobilized by rapid response networks have blockaded ICE deportation vans and protested outside ICE facilities.
You can read about some rapid response networks here and here.
Organize Mutual Aid—Support Bail Funds
ICE raids disrupt lives and break families apart. Many people are afraid to attend school or go to work for fear of being kidnapped by ICE. Organize mutual aid programs to provide support to those in hiding and to families whose breadwinners have been abducted. Start a free grocery program. Deliver meals. Connect with existing support networks and organizations to expand their efforts. Support bail funds to get arrestees out of the system as soon as possible.
Fight Criminalization—Shut out the Police
Ordinary interactions with police are one of the chief risks to those targeted by ICE. A single false criminal charge could ruin a person’s life, even if it would never hold up in court. Encourage neighbors and coworkers not to call the police. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. Debunk false narratives about rising crime rates—these are just excuses to increase the scope of repression and the profits of those who invest in it. Explain what everyone has to gain by standing in solidarity with those who are on the receiving end of criminalization. Publicly shame police officers and other mercenaries who sell their capacity to inflict harm to the highest bidder.
Stand In Solidarity with ICE Detainees—Fight to Abolish ICE
Stand in solidarity with those locked inside ICE facilities. Support their efforts to organize. Prisoners in many ICE facilities organize hunger strikes and labor stoppages demanding better food, better conditions, access to healthcare, and legal representation. Organize to prevent the construction of new ICE facilities. Mobilize against contractors that work with ICE or supply technology to ICE. Connect the struggle against ICE to other organizing within and against prisons.
Connect Communities
These tactics will be most effective if you pursue them in community with those who are immediately at risk. For example, if you maintain a platform sharing verified sightings of ICE in your community, this will do little good unless it reaches those who need that information most. Strengthen the ties between those who are targeted by ICE and the rest of your community.
Build a Culture of Resistance against ICE and State Repression
Build a culture of resistance in your neighborhood, school, or workplace. Make the walls of your community speak with stickers and posters. Encourage non-cooperation with ICE. Strategize with others in your community about how to support those facing repression and take the offensive against those who are scapegoating the undocumented.
Every time ICE wants to attack your community, they should know that their activity will be recorded and reported, that people will converge on them wherever they show up, that there will be consequences for their actions. Every operation should cost them more resources than the last. If all of us do what we can, the accumulation of our efforts will save lives and preserve communities.
DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR if an immigration agent is knocking on the door.
DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you. You have the right to remain silent.
DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without speaking to a lawyer first. You have the right to speak with a lawyer.
If you are outside of your home, ask the agent if you are free to leave. If they say yes, leave.
GIVE THIS TEXT TO THE AGENT. If you are inside of your home, show the text through the window or slide a card with this text under the door:
I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights. I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.
ICE agents often carry administrative rather than judicial warrants. They would like you to think that these are the same, but they are not. If the agent does not have a judicial warrant with all the correct information for the specific person they are looking to detain, they do not have authority to enter private areas without consent, including private areas at a workplace. Talk with your coworkers so that everyone understands which areas are public and private; put up signs and keep doors closed. Create a policy on how to respond if ICE comes to your place of work. You can learn more about how to deal with workplace raids here.
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
View all posts by Scotties Playtime
9 thoughts on “Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE”
I worry that maybe people jump off about half-cocked on some of these memes with their own information. The business of unilaterally not calling police bothers me; people are going to take that literally, and other people are going to be harmed because of that. From what we’ve seen, local police are not supporting federal enforcement, and while they’re not, while on duty, necessarily joining rallies and demos, they’re protecting people on public property behaving lawfully. We don’t want to throw out babies with bathwater. I wish that when people put together quick info like this, they’d vet it with ACLU or some other organization that knows before quick-dissemination.
These things, while being done by the federal government in all of our names and with our money, are happening in local areas. People everywhere need to be in early contact with their local governments and law enforcement, and get their policies and plans for when this happens. I know we’ve read that here before. But children and other vulnerable parties will be harmed if people stop calling police when they hear something happening. Also, run the legal advice by a local attorney before relying on it. I’m not saying it’s wrong here, only that we should make sure; some of this piece is in the nature of practicing law, and should be vetted for individual use; the US Constitution is valid over all states, but state laws do vary within those constitutional guidelines. I am not a lawyer, but I know legal advice when I see it. Check it out first, please. Or, at least, visit the ACLU website, and download their lists. They’ve had lists up for these situations since at least the first Trump administration. They’ll also have information for accessing local legal help as economically as possible, or even free.
Some of these memes are going to get people in trouble, I worry. I’m not saying they’re wrong, only that they’re quick, they’re very broad, and they should not be relied upon without checking them out in your own area.
Hi Ali. I think you missed the valuable part of that. First I disagree that the police are not helping ICE. Did you not hear the police dispatcher in the videos I posted about the door dash delivery woman who ran into the home? The homeowner told the police dispatcher they had no warrant and was told she had to give the woman to ICE anyway. She refused and the woman was saved from ICE. In other places ICE has joined with ICE to pull over brown / black people on a pretence and then turning the stopped people over to ICE for integration. The police have to do the stop because ICE has no legal authority to do so. Also during the BLM protests how many times did I post videos of police being called for a domestic dispute or a health check needed and end up shooting the black person for no seeming reason to do so. There are times when you don’t call the police if you think the police would make the situation worse. In the case of a nonwhite person you have to ask is your police department racist? If you are here illegally you have to ask are your local police working with ICE. If so then use other means of getting help. I have posted on both these situations happening, dead black people and immigrants even those here legally sent to jail and then ICE detention.
Plus remember these memes are for country wide and not every police department is in a blue city or Minneapolis. Some are in red states like Tennessee, Texas, or Florida, and other red states that require the police departments at all levels to cooperate and work with ICE. My local one is as are all in Florida. You do say the US Constitution is over all states but Ali we are seeing ICE violate the constitution, violate court orders to stop doing what they were doing, and then the 5th circuit overturned a ruling saying not to gas, pepper ball shoot, and arrest peaceful protestors who are protesting legally. So as Bill Jack said in that movie “When policemen break the law there is no law”. Your point about the ACLU is a great point. I love what they do. I wish I had thought to post it.
I do agree to following the advice of a meme without thinking about it or the consequences. These are not TikTok challenges to be followed by kids with no thought. But Ali do you really think that people are that dumb to just see a meme and do what ever it says without checking it out or thinking on it. You have a lower opinion of the people who see these than I do. Hugs
No, I’ve heard more, I guess, about the police not backing up the federal enforcers, and even coming in between groups to smooth things out. I did not hear about a dispatcher practicing law by advising a caller to give up a person inside their house. But, we never know if these things are real, or not. My point, which you’ve skipped, is that, yes, someone will see this, believe it, and get into deeper trouble than they need to be. At a time of potential detention by federal enforcement, there isn’t going to be the capacity for measured thinking; people are going to grasp what may save them. This is not about you, but about the materials. They are advising people. Words mean things. People take a lot of things as truth and fact. I just wish people would pay more attention to what their work actually says before they put it into the public without checking it first. We all get angry, concerned, upset, what-have-you, and say things. But those things oughtn’t be considered advice for others, I don’t think. That’s what I’m saying. It is not a low opinion. It’s about hours and hours and hours of outraging videos, and feeling a call to action, and then getting into bad trouble because of it.
In regard to the police, here is what I read above that I take exception to:
Ordinary interactions with police are one of the chief risks to those targeted by ICE. A single false criminal charge could ruin a person’s life, even if it would never hold up in court. Encourage neighbors and coworkers not to call the police. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. Debunk false narratives about rising crime rates—these are just excuses to increase the scope of repression and the profits of those who invest in it. Explain what everyone has to gain by standing in solidarity with those who are on the receiving end of criminalization. Publicly shame police officers and other mercenaries who sell their capacity to inflict harm to the highest bidder.
This is not about calling the local police on immigration enforcement. This is about calling the local police for reasons one would normally call. My primary concern is domestic abuse. The advice above is based upon Kristi Noem finding previous records of “crime” on detainees; mostly being traffic infractions or maybe something for which they served jail but not prison time, and completed their sentences with exemplary behavior since. But the federal government calls that “criminal”. Very broadly, it is. So I understand perfectly why this group who wrote this post would say that, but that’s awful, because if someone in a home is hurting someone else, of course they could call the police! But the instruction is unilateral to not involve police at all. It’s not about a dispatcher saying something about which she knew little to nothing, it’s about creating a police or court record so that the federal enforcement can use it to deport someone.
I do read these things, and I understand the English language very, very well. It’s why the judges wanted me to work for them, because my work was careful and I read everything.
Hi Ali. I did not hear about a dispatcher practicing law by advising a caller to give up a person inside their house. But, we never know if these things are real, or not.
I posted the entire event. It was big news. But I guess you missed it. It was real. But you often disregard posts that have clips from people you think are just giving their opinion. In this case there was a video of the entire event.
My point, which you’ve skipped, is that, yes, someone will see this, believe it, and get into deeper trouble than they need to be. At a time of potential detention by federal enforcement, there isn’t going to be the capacity for measured thinking; people are going to grasp what may save them. This is not about you, but about the materials. They are advising people. Words mean things. People take a lot of things as truth and fact.
The point you seem to be missing which I keep posting is that ICE and Bovino are disregarding all laws and things that they don’t like to ethnicity cleanse the US. I just learned a lot of new stuff on Bovino I will be posting tomorrow, but he is a true racist Nazi.
Yes I agree that people need to look into their rights with their local advocacy groups, but you seem unwilling to admit these memes give them hope and the reason to do so. I have posted video after video of people hiding in their homes, their children either being sent out or they are afraid to let their kids go out to at all. I don’t get your point on this, either you don’t watch the videos I post or you’re caught up on what is legally true. But Ali, when ICE are filled with racist gang thugs who are not taught the laws … there are no laws. We have just seen that when they shot a man in the back and executed him. ICE can not enter your home without a judicial warrant. Yet ICE thugs are being taught they can, until the SCOTUS smacks them down.
I just wish people would pay more attention to what their work actually says before they put it into the public without checking it first. I think I just addressed this above. You may live in a pretty safe area as do I, I read and watch the abuses of ICE all day long. People put stuff online thinking they are helping as do I. We try to vet it. Instead of a blanket disavow give me a specific where what I have posted is wrong and I will deal with it.
But I think you are dealing with a place of privilege I don’t feel. I grew up with the same attacks on me as a gay kid as brown / black people are going through now. I suffered that at every job I had. So if I understand the fight a bit better than you OK. But this is the same fight to remove gay people from society, to remove trans people from society, and now to remove non-white from society. It is a fight for who we are as a people, so no I won’t apologize for memes saying something that may be wrong in one area but not another.
This is not about calling the local police on immigration enforcement. This is about calling the local police for reasons one would normally call. My primary concern is domestic abuse.So I understand perfectly why this group who wrote this post would say that, but that’s awful, because if someone in a home is hurting someone else, of course they could call the police!
Now I understand your objection and I understand it fully. But you missed the other part of that which was to call the other organizations that can help in those situations. No one is saying if your life is in danger don’t call the police, they are saying very clearly depending on the situation look at the options. I have been on a call where a husband was having plates thrown at him and he grabbed his wife’s hands. Her child called it in, everything was calm when we got there but it was a set up, we had to take the man into custody as he assaulted his wife.
Not your situation I know. But there are shades of gray. I now totally understand your objection and I am not sure how to address it. I would only say that for many not white people calling the police can be a death sentence for one of them.
I am so sorry this caused you such distress. I wish I had understood that before I read the last part. I feel shitty now and wonder if I should delete the post to help you. I really care about you. If this posts upsets you that much I will delete it. Hugs and loves.
There is no need to address anything, Scottie. I simply wanted to mention that among resources for this situation, maybe this website would not be one for actual advice, but maybe only for cathartic reading.
Skipping the parts in the middle which are not where I was or was coming from…
Generally, you and I share opinions about many of these things above. However, what we’re looking at now and need to stay focused on now, is helping where the situation is, while readying for when the situation is where we live. I’ve been posting/saying since POTUS invaded LA that we have to get ready. I do a lot of reading about that. Some of the, I guess commentary that people shouldn’t take seriously?, will get people in trouble. So maybe a clarifier about the post that they need to check with their local experts? Probably what I would have done, like when I write that something has news but is also humorous. But I am not the boss of blogs!
Now. I am sorry, but when there is domestic violence, robbery, etc., the police should be called! If a perpetrator is an undocumented person, maybe they should think about whether they want to do what they’re about to do, as it will exacerbate their situation when immigration enforcement picks them up. I will never agree that a person or entity should take crime being committed against them for being afraid to give the perpetrator a record that will certainly deport and imprison him. Tough shit on that.
I think, with all these comments, that nobody will need clarification or deleting the post, Scottie, but again, I am not the boss of blogs. 🙂 This all started because I made a simple cautionary comment. The rest is just us ironing out the wrinkles between our viewpoints.
Hi Ali. Your opinion and experience are important. And I do agree that if you are in a situation where you are being harmed you need to get help even if that means calling the police. Again if the local police were like the ones I served with they are good people but even in Vermont we had die hard racist on the force, people I could hardly stand but had to work with. My only question was this part. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. If you are an endangered person such as black in a racist area or an immigrant in a place where ICE is raiding / working with the police shouldn’t other solutions to calling the police be used? I am not saying a person should be abused, but far too often I have posted of black people in racist areas calling the police thinking they would help them only to have someone murdered. Maybe community groups, centers for different populations can step in. Churches and church communities can be used.
Each situation is different and the person involved needs to weight the risks of the situation to the risks of calling the police. I agree with you that we don’t want people staying in an abusive situation due to fear of the police, but why are the police so militarized and jacked up these days. If it helps I can include a disclaimer on future posts that mention the police to the effect that each person should do what is best for themselves. Hugs
Scottie, you do you. I’m hyper aware of the meaning of words, and hyper-concerned that bloggers don’t get in trouble for flip comments. It’s not you, it’s me.
Scottie's Playtime 
I worry that maybe people jump off about half-cocked on some of these memes with their own information. The business of unilaterally not calling police bothers me; people are going to take that literally, and other people are going to be harmed because of that. From what we’ve seen, local police are not supporting federal enforcement, and while they’re not, while on duty, necessarily joining rallies and demos, they’re protecting people on public property behaving lawfully. We don’t want to throw out babies with bathwater. I wish that when people put together quick info like this, they’d vet it with ACLU or some other organization that knows before quick-dissemination.
These things, while being done by the federal government in all of our names and with our money, are happening in local areas. People everywhere need to be in early contact with their local governments and law enforcement, and get their policies and plans for when this happens. I know we’ve read that here before. But children and other vulnerable parties will be harmed if people stop calling police when they hear something happening. Also, run the legal advice by a local attorney before relying on it. I’m not saying it’s wrong here, only that we should make sure; some of this piece is in the nature of practicing law, and should be vetted for individual use; the US Constitution is valid over all states, but state laws do vary within those constitutional guidelines. I am not a lawyer, but I know legal advice when I see it. Check it out first, please. Or, at least, visit the ACLU website, and download their lists. They’ve had lists up for these situations since at least the first Trump administration. They’ll also have information for accessing local legal help as economically as possible, or even free.
Some of these memes are going to get people in trouble, I worry. I’m not saying they’re wrong, only that they’re quick, they’re very broad, and they should not be relied upon without checking them out in your own area.
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Hi Ali. I think you missed the valuable part of that. First I disagree that the police are not helping ICE. Did you not hear the police dispatcher in the videos I posted about the door dash delivery woman who ran into the home? The homeowner told the police dispatcher they had no warrant and was told she had to give the woman to ICE anyway. She refused and the woman was saved from ICE. In other places ICE has joined with ICE to pull over brown / black people on a pretence and then turning the stopped people over to ICE for integration. The police have to do the stop because ICE has no legal authority to do so. Also during the BLM protests how many times did I post videos of police being called for a domestic dispute or a health check needed and end up shooting the black person for no seeming reason to do so. There are times when you don’t call the police if you think the police would make the situation worse. In the case of a nonwhite person you have to ask is your police department racist? If you are here illegally you have to ask are your local police working with ICE. If so then use other means of getting help. I have posted on both these situations happening, dead black people and immigrants even those here legally sent to jail and then ICE detention.
Plus remember these memes are for country wide and not every police department is in a blue city or Minneapolis. Some are in red states like Tennessee, Texas, or Florida, and other red states that require the police departments at all levels to cooperate and work with ICE. My local one is as are all in Florida. You do say the US Constitution is over all states but Ali we are seeing ICE violate the constitution, violate court orders to stop doing what they were doing, and then the 5th circuit overturned a ruling saying not to gas, pepper ball shoot, and arrest peaceful protestors who are protesting legally. So as Bill Jack said in that movie “When policemen break the law there is no law”. Your point about the ACLU is a great point. I love what they do. I wish I had thought to post it.
I do agree to following the advice of a meme without thinking about it or the consequences. These are not TikTok challenges to be followed by kids with no thought. But Ali do you really think that people are that dumb to just see a meme and do what ever it says without checking it out or thinking on it. You have a lower opinion of the people who see these than I do. Hugs
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No, I’ve heard more, I guess, about the police not backing up the federal enforcers, and even coming in between groups to smooth things out. I did not hear about a dispatcher practicing law by advising a caller to give up a person inside their house. But, we never know if these things are real, or not. My point, which you’ve skipped, is that, yes, someone will see this, believe it, and get into deeper trouble than they need to be. At a time of potential detention by federal enforcement, there isn’t going to be the capacity for measured thinking; people are going to grasp what may save them. This is not about you, but about the materials. They are advising people. Words mean things. People take a lot of things as truth and fact. I just wish people would pay more attention to what their work actually says before they put it into the public without checking it first. We all get angry, concerned, upset, what-have-you, and say things. But those things oughtn’t be considered advice for others, I don’t think. That’s what I’m saying. It is not a low opinion. It’s about hours and hours and hours of outraging videos, and feeling a call to action, and then getting into bad trouble because of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ali. I am going to roll my comment down below to take both of the comments you made together. Hugs
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In regard to the police, here is what I read above that I take exception to:
Ordinary interactions with police are one of the chief risks to those targeted by ICE. A single false criminal charge could ruin a person’s life, even if it would never hold up in court. Encourage neighbors and coworkers not to call the police. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. Debunk false narratives about rising crime rates—these are just excuses to increase the scope of repression and the profits of those who invest in it. Explain what everyone has to gain by standing in solidarity with those who are on the receiving end of criminalization. Publicly shame police officers and other mercenaries who sell their capacity to inflict harm to the highest bidder.
This is not about calling the local police on immigration enforcement. This is about calling the local police for reasons one would normally call. My primary concern is domestic abuse. The advice above is based upon Kristi Noem finding previous records of “crime” on detainees; mostly being traffic infractions or maybe something for which they served jail but not prison time, and completed their sentences with exemplary behavior since. But the federal government calls that “criminal”. Very broadly, it is. So I understand perfectly why this group who wrote this post would say that, but that’s awful, because if someone in a home is hurting someone else, of course they could call the police! But the instruction is unilateral to not involve police at all. It’s not about a dispatcher saying something about which she knew little to nothing, it’s about creating a police or court record so that the federal enforcement can use it to deport someone.
I do read these things, and I understand the English language very, very well. It’s why the judges wanted me to work for them, because my work was careful and I read everything.
LikeLike
Hi Ali. I did not hear about a dispatcher practicing law by advising a caller to give up a person inside their house. But, we never know if these things are real, or not.
I posted the entire event. It was big news. But I guess you missed it. It was real. But you often disregard posts that have clips from people you think are just giving their opinion. In this case there was a video of the entire event.
My point, which you’ve skipped, is that, yes, someone will see this, believe it, and get into deeper trouble than they need to be. At a time of potential detention by federal enforcement, there isn’t going to be the capacity for measured thinking; people are going to grasp what may save them. This is not about you, but about the materials. They are advising people. Words mean things. People take a lot of things as truth and fact.
The point you seem to be missing which I keep posting is that ICE and Bovino are disregarding all laws and things that they don’t like to ethnicity cleanse the US. I just learned a lot of new stuff on Bovino I will be posting tomorrow, but he is a true racist Nazi.
Yes I agree that people need to look into their rights with their local advocacy groups, but you seem unwilling to admit these memes give them hope and the reason to do so. I have posted video after video of people hiding in their homes, their children either being sent out or they are afraid to let their kids go out to at all. I don’t get your point on this, either you don’t watch the videos I post or you’re caught up on what is legally true. But Ali, when ICE are filled with racist gang thugs who are not taught the laws … there are no laws. We have just seen that when they shot a man in the back and executed him. ICE can not enter your home without a judicial warrant. Yet ICE thugs are being taught they can, until the SCOTUS smacks them down.
I just wish people would pay more attention to what their work actually says before they put it into the public without checking it first. I think I just addressed this above. You may live in a pretty safe area as do I, I read and watch the abuses of ICE all day long. People put stuff online thinking they are helping as do I. We try to vet it. Instead of a blanket disavow give me a specific where what I have posted is wrong and I will deal with it.
But I think you are dealing with a place of privilege I don’t feel. I grew up with the same attacks on me as a gay kid as brown / black people are going through now. I suffered that at every job I had. So if I understand the fight a bit better than you OK. But this is the same fight to remove gay people from society, to remove trans people from society, and now to remove non-white from society. It is a fight for who we are as a people, so no I won’t apologize for memes saying something that may be wrong in one area but not another.
This is not about calling the local police on immigration enforcement. This is about calling the local police for reasons one would normally call. My primary concern is domestic abuse. So I understand perfectly why this group who wrote this post would say that, but that’s awful, because if someone in a home is hurting someone else, of course they could call the police!
Now I understand your objection and I understand it fully. But you missed the other part of that which was to call the other organizations that can help in those situations. No one is saying if your life is in danger don’t call the police, they are saying very clearly depending on the situation look at the options. I have been on a call where a husband was having plates thrown at him and he grabbed his wife’s hands. Her child called it in, everything was calm when we got there but it was a set up, we had to take the man into custody as he assaulted his wife.
Not your situation I know. But there are shades of gray. I now totally understand your objection and I am not sure how to address it. I would only say that for many not white people calling the police can be a death sentence for one of them.
I am so sorry this caused you such distress. I wish I had understood that before I read the last part. I feel shitty now and wonder if I should delete the post to help you. I really care about you. If this posts upsets you that much I will delete it. Hugs and loves.
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There is no need to address anything, Scottie. I simply wanted to mention that among resources for this situation, maybe this website would not be one for actual advice, but maybe only for cathartic reading.
Skipping the parts in the middle which are not where I was or was coming from…
Generally, you and I share opinions about many of these things above. However, what we’re looking at now and need to stay focused on now, is helping where the situation is, while readying for when the situation is where we live. I’ve been posting/saying since POTUS invaded LA that we have to get ready. I do a lot of reading about that. Some of the, I guess commentary that people shouldn’t take seriously?, will get people in trouble. So maybe a clarifier about the post that they need to check with their local experts? Probably what I would have done, like when I write that something has news but is also humorous. But I am not the boss of blogs!
Now. I am sorry, but when there is domestic violence, robbery, etc., the police should be called! If a perpetrator is an undocumented person, maybe they should think about whether they want to do what they’re about to do, as it will exacerbate their situation when immigration enforcement picks them up. I will never agree that a person or entity should take crime being committed against them for being afraid to give the perpetrator a record that will certainly deport and imprison him. Tough shit on that.
I think, with all these comments, that nobody will need clarification or deleting the post, Scottie, but again, I am not the boss of blogs. 🙂 This all started because I made a simple cautionary comment. The rest is just us ironing out the wrinkles between our viewpoints.
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Hi Ali. Your opinion and experience are important. And I do agree that if you are in a situation where you are being harmed you need to get help even if that means calling the police. Again if the local police were like the ones I served with they are good people but even in Vermont we had die hard racist on the force, people I could hardly stand but had to work with. My only question was this part. Organize neighborhood networks, conflict resolution projects, and other ways to address community needs without involving the criminal “justice” industry. If you are an endangered person such as black in a racist area or an immigrant in a place where ICE is raiding / working with the police shouldn’t other solutions to calling the police be used? I am not saying a person should be abused, but far too often I have posted of black people in racist areas calling the police thinking they would help them only to have someone murdered. Maybe community groups, centers for different populations can step in. Churches and church communities can be used.
Each situation is different and the person involved needs to weight the risks of the situation to the risks of calling the police. I agree with you that we don’t want people staying in an abusive situation due to fear of the police, but why are the police so militarized and jacked up these days. If it helps I can include a disclaimer on future posts that mention the police to the effect that each person should do what is best for themselves. Hugs
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Scottie, you do you. I’m hyper aware of the meaning of words, and hyper-concerned that bloggers don’t get in trouble for flip comments. It’s not you, it’s me.
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