Emma Tenayuca was a labor organizer in Texas who is best known for leading a strike of pecan shellers in 1938. Workers called her “La Pasionaria“ which means “Passionflower.” From a young age, she survived violence and imprisonment in her quest to help workers get better working conditions and higher wages.
Tenayuca was born on December 21, 1916, and I know all of you December birthday people will identify with her plight – born too close to Christmas, she never got ‘birthday’ presents. Her family was Mexican American, and had lived in Texas for many generations. She was raised by grandparents who were interested in politics, and was also influenced by the speakers in the San Antonio town square. She was brought up with pride in her family and their roots, and she was encouraged to be educated and politically active by her family.
Emma Tenayuca in 1939, photographed for a Personality of the Week article in The San Antonio Light
Tenayuca was arrested for the first time at 16, for protesting alongside striking workers from the Finck Cigar Company. She used her bilingual language skills to help people with their problems and worked with many organizations working towards better pay and better conditions for Mexican-Americans.
One of the most common positions for Mexican-American women in the area was in the pecan industry. Pecan shelling for 6-7 cents a pound was difficult work (the meat of the shell must remain intact) for little pay. Additionally, the process filled the factory rooms with a fine dust that contributed towards tuberculosis.
In 1938, the factories cut pay to 3 cents a pound and Tenayuca, who was 21 years old at the time, found herself leading a strike of approximately 12,000 workers. The strike faced violent opposition, as detailed in the article “Remembering Emma Tenayuca:”
When Pecan production ground to a halt, the owners fought back: Tenayuca and hundreds of strikers were gassed and arrested by San Antonio police. Some were beaten as well. With the NWA rallying community support, the strike turned into a city-wide uprising of the poorest and most oppressed people in San Antonio.
Thirty-seven days after the strike began the pecan producers agreed to arbitration. A few weeks later, the workers had won a wage increase to seven or eight cents per pound.
Tenayuca faced opposition as a woman, as a Mexican-American, as a labor organizer, and as a member of the Communist Party (she left the Party in 1946). From Americans Who Tell the Truth:
A quarter of immigration arrests since August were labeled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “collateral,” a type of arrest and detention that’s been challenged in court as an end run around civil rights.
Public outrage and lawsuits over the arrests may be tamping down the large-scale sweeps that foster them, but tens of thousands were arrested this way between August and early March.
Immigration arrests are usually based on warrants obtained ahead of time, showing either a removal order from immigration court or evidence of a crime or charge that makes the person subject to deportation.
But collateral arrests can result from street sweeps and raids in which a person is singled out for questioning based on appearance or proximity to someone wanted on a warrant. That person could be taken into custody if agents think they may be subject to deportation and also likely to flee if released.
Labeled for the first time ever, the collateral arrests are reported from August to early March in ICE arrest data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by Stateline. In that time there were about 64,000 collateral arrests, a quarter of the 253,000 total arrests by ICE.
About 70% of the collateral arrests were for people with immigration-related crimes or violations alone, compared with 41% for arrests with warrants. Less than 2% of those with collateral arrests were convicted of a violent crime, one-third the rate of other arrests, and only 18% were convicted of any crime, compared with 33% for other arrests.
The collateral arrests contributed to an overall pattern of lower and lower shares of arrests for serious crimes, and more for immigration offenses alone.
Arrests climbed from about 12,000 in January 2025 to more than 40,000 in December, but fell back to 30,000 this February. The share of people with only immigration-related crimes and violations rose to more than half in December and January, the peak months for collateral arrests, and the share of violent criminals fell from 10% to 4% of arrests in that time.
(This chart is interactive. If you can’t see the arrest data here by mousing over states, you can on the page, linked in the title above, & also at the end of this post.)
New policy
ICE announced a new policy in January to issue warrants in real time if agents think an immigrant is deportable and “likely to escape,” though that policy faces a court challenge.
Total arrests and collateral arrests have been falling since December, whether because of the new policy or because of cutbacks in the large-scale street sweeps that tend to produce them.
One factor is public outrage over raids sweeping up noncriminals in places like Minneapolis and Chicago, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
“The sort of large operations within big cities, as they were occurring, seems to have subsided somewhat,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “After the kind of public outcry following Minneapolis, it seems as though, at least for now, that tactic has kind of been paused.”
The Trump administration’s focus on mass deportation opened the way for more collateral street arrests with less investigation, she added.
“If it’s a more targeted arrest, they would take the time to sort of essentially have an investigation. It’s a pretty resource-intensive way that just would not yield the kind of numbers ICE was being told to produce,” she said.
The new policy was filed in court papers in February as a response to a lawsuit over ICE sweeps in the District of Columbia last year, alleging ICE agents “have flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, indiscriminately arresting without warrants and without probable cause District residents whom the agents perceive to be Latino.”
The case resulted in a preliminary injunction in December requiring a halt to warrantless arrests without establishing probable cause that the person is living here illegally and is a flight risk.
One plaintiff in the class-action case, José Escobar Molina, said in the lawsuit that agents in two cars pulled up to him as he approached his work truck on Aug. 21, grabbing him by the arms and legs and handcuffing him without asking any questions. Escobar, 47, said in the court papers that he’s lived in the district for 25 years and has had temporary protected status as a Salvadoran native the whole time. He was held overnight in Virginia before being released.
Other lawsuits are also challenging collateral arrests, such as an incident in Idaho in which agents with warrants for five people ended up arresting 105 immigrants at a Latino community event in October.
“I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me,” said Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, one of the citizens and a North Carolina native, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. He said he was doing landscaping work Nov. 15 when agents pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him, then held him in a car before releasing him.
One Illinois case that started in the first Trump administration challenged warrantless arrests and traffic stops used as a pretext for immigration arrests. A 2022 settlement required ICE to document “reasonable suspicion” of illegal status before arresting somebody. The case continues since a judge found in February that the new ICE policy of issuing warrants in real time after a detention violates the consent decree.
Shares of collateral arrests
In the months since August where collateral arrests are now labeled, the District of Columbia and Illinois stand out with high shares of collateral arrests. More than half the arrests in the district were collateral, as were 41% of those in Illinois. There were eight states in which at least 30% of arrests were collateral: Alabama, Maryland, West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota.
West Virginia, where there was a “statewide surge” of immigration enforcement in January with state and local cooperation, stands out for its high rate of total arrests as well as a large share of collateral arrests.
For the eight months between August and early March, West Virginia had 1,831 arrests, or 1 in 10 of the state’s noncitizen population as of 2024, the latest data available. That’s by far the largest share in the country, followed by 7% in Wyoming (where truck drivers were targeted for immigration arrests in February) and 4% in Mississippi.
West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey, in a statement, cited the cooperation of state and local agencies with ICE through the 287(g) program that assists with immigration enforcement. He praised ICE, saying “they have removed dangerous illegal immigrants from our communities and made our state safer for families and law-abiding citizens.”
Few of those arrested in the surge were violent criminals, however. More than half of those arrested during the surge were collateral arrests, and only 1% — nine immigrants — had a violent crime conviction, according to the Stateline analysis. More than three-quarters, about 500 people, had only an immigration-related violation or crime.
Judges didn’t always agree that collateral arrests and detentions in the West Virginia surge were legal under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, ordered two detainees released in January. He noted that “similar seizures and detentions are occurring frequently across the country” without any evidence they’re necessary as required by the Constitution.
It’s World Press Freedom Day, I celebrated with a great conversation on The Andy Borowitz Showwith Andy and director Laura Nix about free speech, and the predictions made in the film DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE that have come true since its release.
Today, the national average gas price is $4.43 a gallon. That’s the national average. If you are in California, a gallon of gas will cost you more than $4.43. If you’re in a place like South Carolina, it will probably be a little less. At any rate, it’s much more expensive than it should be, all because of Donald Trump.
One whatabout that MAGAts use is that gas prices were high when Joe Biden was president, at least for a minute. What they leave out is that Joe Biden didn’t do anything to cause high gas prices. When gas prices were high under Biden, they were high internationally, and again, not because of any negative policies inflicted by President Biden.
Today, gas prices are also high internationally, and it’s all because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump chose to start a war that didn’t need to be started. Trump is trying desperately to get a deal with Iran and get them to the negotiating table, which is where they were before he started dropping bombs on them. (snip-MORE)
WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) — Trash littered the Jackie Robinson Pavilion Sunday morning; a plaque with the words ‘FRIENDS OF JACKIE’ had the name ‘Jackie’ crossed out in pink marker — ‘Mark Goston’ written underneath.
“This kind of stuff is always upsetting, no matter where it happens, but it’s particularly annoying when it affects League 42,” the league wrote in a Facebook post. “We have worked hard to improve these facilities from when we started 13 years ago. And there is no comparison.”
This isn’t the first time a League 42 baseball facility has been vandalized. In 2024, Wichita police arrested 45-year-old Ricky Alderete in connection with the theft and burning of a statue of Jackie Robinson in McAdams Park.
The statue was donated to the non-profit baseball group League 42 in 2021. Soon after the theft, the founder and executive director of League 42, Bob Lutz, launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to replace the statue.
The youth baseball league said it received a $100,000 gift from Major League Baseball to replace a statue of Jackie Robinson. The GoFundMe raised a total of $194,780.
After six months without the statue, a new Jackie Robinson statue was unveiled in August 2024.
Now, in light of the recent vandalism at the pavilion, the league is working with the City of Wichita and District 1 councilman Joseph Shepard, according to a Facebook post.
“… we will be discussing ways to combat this nonsense,” League 42 wrote. “I don’t understand why people can’t just leave things alone. We want to share our facilities, and we believe the Jackie Robinson Pavilion is a destination spot for Wichitans and for visitors to our city. But when our citizens do this kind of damage, what are we really showing off?”
KAKE crews have confirmed the trash has been cleaned.
This guest is an immigration attorney with expertise in ICE tactics and in ICE detention. She dispels the misunderstanding and the myths created by the tRump administartion. These detentions are civil detentions not criminal and entering the country with out inspection is a class B misdemeanor. Another thing she mentions is the ever-increasing costs for detention which is currently $200 a day per detainee and there are over 70 thousand detainees. She gives a lot of other useful to know information including the brutality in the detention centers. For example they are taking detainees out in the Everglades and forcing them to stand with hands shackled in the hot sun being eaten by misketoes and bugs. They are putting people in “hot boxes” and leaving them there in the hot Florida sun with no water or medical treatment when they are let out. She describes many more examples. Hugs
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney from Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization that provides critical, affordable legal defense to immigrant families affected by detention, deportation, and abuse, joins Sam to discuss abuses at the Alligator Alcatraz ICE detention center in Florida. To find resources or ways to help those targeted by ICE in your area you can visit Freedom for immigrants, American Immigration Council or visit the ACLU to find your local affiliate.
Political violence is on the rise — making the job more dangerous for state lawmakers and posing new challenges for state law enforcement officials.
Every high-profile act of violence sets off new waves of threats and fears of more — the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September sent chills down the spines of elected officials throughout the country. But Utah, where he was killed, was already ahead of the curve on addressing threats to lawmakers and high-profile public officials.
Nine years earlier, it had set up a new unit to track and prevent violence against public officials.
The unit follows a four-step process, said Taylor Keys, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Safety: It receives and identifies reports of threats and concerning behaviors, gathers the facts, assesses the individual’s risk of posing a real physical threat, and then manages the risk with intervention and case management.
But many states aren’t as proactive and prepared as Utah. Most state legislatures are in session only part-time, and many of the state enforcement agencies charged with protecting them are stretched thin and lack standardized procedures for reporting threats, collecting data and conducting regular training.
A spate of high-profile violent attacks over the past year threw this reality into stark relief.
And for some lawmakers, the environment is becoming untenable: Two recent reports show that harassment, abuse and violence are leading factors driving women and younger legislators, especially, to exit office.
State legislatures shape consequential policy and serve as a critical pipeline for higher office. But serving in office and entering the pipeline to power poses increasingly high risks to personal safety, especially for groups already underrepresented in the halls of power. While being a state lawmaker is a part-time job with a part-time salary in most states, lawmakers can’t opt out of being a full-time public figure.
“Elected and appointed officials live in a risk environment by nature of their job and their outward, public-facing positions,” said former Lt. Col. Tim Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, who spoke to The 19th in 2025 before he retired from the agency after more than 46 years in law enforcement. “Within the last year and a half to two years, that’s moved into a threat environment.”
The 19th spoke with experts and reached out to state-level law enforcement agencies in all 50 states to capture a comprehensive picture of the scope of political violence against state lawmakers and how law enforcement is responding. Officials in a dozen states told The 19th how they identify and respond to threats, what data they collect, and how they’re adapting their responses and procedures to an ever-evolving landscape.
As political violence is on the rise, many states are scrambling to keep pace. Political violence, Cameron said, was a major topic of discussion at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference he attended in 2025.
“Anyone charged with executive protection is really looking closely at what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and looking to utilize technology to leverage that in every way they can,” he said. “So it is going to be a challenge moving forward. And nobody has enough people.”
A February report from the nonprofit organization Future Caucus, based on interviews and surveys with 89 young lawmakers in 31 states, found that threats of violence “have become a serious deterrent to both candidate recruitment and retention,” especially for women, lawmakers of color and LGBTQ+ lawmakers.
“This is a four-alarm fire,” said Layla Zaidane, the president and CEO of Future Caucus, which supports young state lawmakers in bridging divides and working on policy across the political aisle.
“They can stomach the low pay. They can stomach no staff. They can handle even trying to figure out the toxic polarization and transcending that,” Zaidane said of young lawmakers. “But political violence was the thing that, when you add it all together, was the decider of: ‘I don’t know if I’m going to run again, I don’t know if this is worth it.’”
The rise in violent incidents is having an outsized impact on women, who make up half of the United States population but account for only a third of state lawmakers; even fewer women of color are represented in the political arena.
And when it comes to hyperpolarization and the increasingly toxic and hostile climate in state capitols, “women bear the brunt of this, multi-fold, compared to their male peers,” said Aparna Ghosh, the founder and executive director of the Ghosh Innovation Lab, a nonpartisan organization that conducts research and builds tools to support diverse and representative state legislatures.
A report the Ghosh Innovation Lab published last summer, based on 60 interviews and a nationally representative survey of over 300 women legislators, concluded that the assassination of Hortman “exposed a crisis that has been building for years.” Women lawmakers, the report found, “face systematic harassment, threats, and violence that compromise their safety, well-being, and democratic participation.”
The report found that 93 percent of women lawmakers said they experienced some form of harm or abuse in office, 59 percent said it disrupted their legislative duties and 32 percent said it impacted their desire to stay in office.
“It’s not just about an incident, but it’s about the everyday things that add up that push them out of office,” Ghosh said. “This is a huge problem for democracy, because this constant harm that women are facing is eroding the intent to run for office, so it’s eroding democracy in some way.”
(Emily Scherer for The 19th)
In the wake of Hortman’s assassination, several states have weighed legislation that would allow lawmakers to have their home addresses and other identifying information removed from public records. And as federal campaign spending on security expenses has continued to climb into the millions, 25 states now officially or informally authorize state candidates to use campaign funds for personal security, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Vote Mama Foundation.
The role of law enforcement has also come under scrutiny, with the Ghosh Innovation Lab report concluding that state capitols and law enforcement “systematically fail to protect women legislators.”
The top safety shortcomings identified by women legislators surveyed for the report were a lack of training in handling threats (53 percent), the absence of a panic button for reporting incidents (46 percent) and unclear reporting procedures (42 percent). They also cited inadequate technological solutions, insufficient legal support, buildings feeling overly exposed, too few security officers and poor coordination with law enforcement.
“Whatever training they’re getting is their own responsibility, and that’s part of where the system breaks down,” said Ghosh. “It’s two things: One is that we’re not a proactive system, we react to incidents, that is one huge thing. And the second is it feels like safety and security is a legislator problem, not an institutional problem.”
At the federal level, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) protects members of Congress, often in coordination with local law enforcement, and issues regular public assessments indicating that threats against federal lawmakers are on the rise.
But far less is known about the risk environment and security landscape for state lawmakers.
States have widely varying levels of security for their state capitol complexes and different open carry rules. A 2024 review from the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau found that 39 states use metal detectors in their capitol buildings, 31 use X-ray machines to scan packages and belongings and 10 require visitors to have photo identification.
Many states have dedicated capitol police forces, specialized units within state police or highway patrols responsible for protecting lawmakers and executive officials, or both. Local sheriff’s offices and police departments also respond to reports of threats from state lawmakers.
“The big problem is that there’s no standardization in the protocols and processes, and this is the gray zone where the system breaks down,” Ghosh said.
To get a clearer picture of the protection landscape, The 19th asked these questions to state agencies responsible for protecting state lawmakers in all 50 states:
What steps should a lawmaker take if they receive a threat?
What are the agency’s processes for identifying and responding to threats?
Does the agency collect data or produce threat assessments on threats to public officials, including state lawmakers? If not, are there plans to start collecting that data and/or to make it public, as the U.S. Capitol Police does?
Has the agency implemented or plans to implement any additional security measures, safety plans or training for state lawmakers/capitol protectees in the wake of the Hortman and Kirk shootings?
Representatives of law enforcement agencies in 27 states responded to The 19th’s inquiries. Representatives of agencies in four states declined to comment, and 19 did not respond to requests for comment. Of the agencies that responded, many declined to share specific security plans or details but said they were committed to ensuring the security of state elected officials and those working at and visiting state capitol complexes.
The basics are the same: All agencies said lawmakers should immediately report a threat to a state, capitol or local law enforcement agency. But where lawmakers report threats can vary depending on whether the legislature is in session and the nature of the threat: a lawmaker might report a threat to the state capitol police or the highway patrol if the legislature is in session, or to their local police or sheriff’s department if they’re in their home county.
All the law enforcement officials emphasized that keeping evidence of threats is important.
Chris Loftis, a spokesperson for the Washington State Patrol, also said lawmakers should preserve “all evidence, including emails, voicemails, and social media posts” and are “advised not to engage directly with the individual making the threat.”
States use different methods to identify and trace threats. Many said they work with other agencies to monitor, identify and respond to threats. New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said the agency has a team of social media analysts who identify threats. Sgt. Ricardo Breceda of the New Mexico State Police said they use a variety of sources, including law enforcement databases.
“Our response depends on the nature and severity of the threat and can range from routine follow-up investigations to the activation of specialized tactical teams if necessary,” Breceda said.
Some officials and courts have found that some harassing and abrasive rhetoric directed at public officials falls under the First Amendment’s free speech protections, a finding that has at times frustrated lawmakers. Zaidane pointed to a 2021 case in which a man charged with making a threat to a Michigan state legislator’s office was acquitted after his lawyer said he was “just blowing off steam.”
“I think, at a minimum, better enforcement of laws and coordination with law enforcement would make lawmakers feel like the system has their back,” Zaidane said. “Like there are still bright lines that we should not cross in America and that we are committed to upholding those.”
Another thing lawmakers want more of, Ghosh said, is data.
For over 20 years, the U.S. Capitol Police has published annual public threat assessments detailing the number of threats they investigate. In new data released in January, the USCP’s Threat Assessment Section reported investigating nearly 15,000 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” against lawmakers, their families, staff and the U.S. Capitol complex in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the USCP has investigated more threats.
But most state law enforcement and state capitol security agencies either don’t collect or don’t publish such statistics. Utah is one of just a few states in the country that collects statewide data on threats to state lawmakers and produces assessments. The lack of comprehensive data from official sources makes it difficult to know the scope and scale of political violence against state lawmakers.
“They want that kind of tracking and monitoring system,” Ghosh said of women lawmakers. “They want security briefings annually.”
Some state agencies told The 19th they don’t have a full picture of how threats are reported and investigated across their states because jurisdictions respond differently to threat reports. Several others said they do centrally collect that data but don’t release it for security reasons.
“We collect data, but sometimes we’re not aware of the other complaints that potentially could be made to the sheriff of whatever respective county,” said Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
Some state agencies share data with other law enforcement authorities, including through fusion centers.
Ghosh said women lawmakers also want more official safety training from law enforcement — many told her that they spend thousands of dollars out of pocket for self-defense and security training.
“They want systems to back them up and say, ‘We’re going to prepare you for what’s coming,’ even if it doesn’t happen,” Ghosh said.
Many states are working to expand security as well as training for lawmakers in the wake of the Minnesota shooting, though most declined to share specifics.
Cameron said that in Wyoming, the conversation about improving protective operations “never stops.” The state Highway Patrol has a trooper focused on protective intelligence who attended a threat intelligence course at the U.S. Marshals Service headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia, and investigates threats against lawmakers, he said.
“We’re constantly training our people. We recently instituted a special response team, more or less a SWAT unit, but they’re cross-trained to do executive protection,” he added. “Sometimes we’ll activate some of those members, so our [executive protection division] has additional personnel, either for advanced work or on site work or escort work.”
He said he’d like to see more adoption of drones and drone technology, an area where law enforcement in the United States is “behind,” to protect the state capitol and lawmakers.
Ghosh said the women lawmakers she’s spoken to need three things to carry out their work: to feel prepared, protected and nurtured.
“It’s simple things, right?” she said. “Their safety needs to feel well supported and ready to do the work that they’re meant to do. They want these three things, and when it breaks down is when they’re unable to do this work.”
The Justice Department (DOJ) going after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is another case where the Trump regime is going after its enemies. An enemy of hate groups, as SPLC is, is an enemy of the Trump regime.
SPLC has now been indicted on 11 counts, but remember where those indictments of James Comey and Letitia James went, straight into the trash. Donald Trump’s DOJ couldn’t obtain an indictment against the guy who threw a sandwich at Border Patrol agents. The DOJ just dropped its bogus case against Jerome Powell.
And remember the person in charge of the Justice Department is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, who is angling to get the job permanently, or at least until Trump’s next mood swing, and he fires the Attorney General to replace him with Greg Gutfeld.
I think the mentalist who was scheduled to host last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner should have received combat pay. Not because of an assassination attempt, but for having to roam through Donald Trump’s empty head.
I don’t believe last night’s assassination attempt was staged or fake. I do believe there was a serious assassination attempt at last night’s WHCD dinner. I don’t want to jump into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But from what we know at this point, the assassination attempt may not have been on Trump’s life, but maybe just on any cabinet member’s life that the attempted shooter could’ve found, or at least that’s how it sounds from the bits of his manifesto. I have read.
I do believe it was extremely shitty for Donald Trump to use the assassination attempt as an argument for his stupid illegal ballroom that is currently being held up by a court.
I’m infuriated by what Melania Trump tweeted today:
As a naturalized citizen and editorial cartoonist who has seen colleagues from around the world targeted, jailed, and even murdered for creating satire, I value our First Amendment. The First Lady, who is also an immigrant, should realize the importance of free speech and a free press but she lives in an entitled world and like her husband, is trying to control the news media to silence her critics. She is undermining the foundations of a democracy and is just as miserable a human being as her husband.
Donald Trump has been falling asleep during meetings lately. He’s fallen asleep during cabinet meetings, and here at the 26-minute mark, you can see that he falls asleep twice during a meeting about healthcare last week.
Tell me that he’s not falling asleep and instead is doing some deep thinking or is meditating. Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
Yesterday, I told you that I do not believe the assassination attempt was fake or staged. It’s not that I don’t believe the goons and the Trump regime would try that. It’s because I don’t believe these idiots could pull it off.
I hate this would-be assassin. First, he ruined my Saturday night. I had planned to clock out and go through at least a couple of the movies on my Netflix watchlist. Instead, I watched CNN all evening. Yeah, I’m a news buff, but I think it’s important to turn off sometimes, which I try to do on Saturdays and Sundays. I mean, I start the mornings with news programs and maybe through the middle of the day. But by late afternoon, I just want to turn all that shit off and not think about politics and, most importantly, not think about Donald Trump. This would-be assassin took my Saturday away from me. (snip-MORE)
Today, the government charged Cole Tomas Allen with attempt to assassinate the president, interstate transportation of a firearm, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. Prosecutors asked a judge in the District of Columbia to detain Allen in custody pending trial.
The charges filed against Allen differ from what U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro suggested they would be over the weekend, but, as we discussed, that was to be expected, with charging decisions remaining fluid as officials learn new information. A prosecutor indicated that the attempt to assassinate Trump was made with a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, but that Allen was also carrying a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, three knives, “and other dangerous paraphernalia.”
This is a criminal complaint, issued by a judge based on an agent’s affidavit, attesting to probable cause. The government will almost certainly follow up with a grand jury indictment in the next week or two. If they don’t, the judge will hold a preliminary hearing within 14 days if Allen remains in custody, 21 days if he’s released (which isn’t happening here), to determine whether probable cause exists. Federal prosecutors almost never go this route because it requires them to put their evidence on full display at this early stage in the proceedings, and unlike grand jury proceedings, where the defense doesn’t have a role, it permits cross-examination of the government’s witnesses. Expect a grand jury indictment shortly.
The lead charge here is “attempt” to assassinate the president, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1751, so we need to understand a little bit about that crime and what prosecutors will have to prove. An attempt is referred to as an inchoate, or incomplete crime. With attempt charges, the key questions center around whether the defendant had the intent to commit the underlying crime and whether he took a substantial step—more than mere preparation—toward completing it. Here, based on the details in the government’s affidavit, which we’ll get to in a moment, its case looks solid. Allen evidenced an intent to kill the president. And the government has plenty of evidence to argue he went beyond “mere preparation” and took a substantial step toward committing the offense, since he was armed and running for the door to the ballroom, at the point when he was arrested.
The penalties for attempt and for the underlying offense are almost always the same under federal law, and that’s true here, with the statute providing for up to life imprisonment upon conviction.
Allen is also charged, as we expected last night, with violating 18 USC 924(c), which prohibits using a firearm “in furtherance of” a crime of violence. It carries a 10-year penalty if the firearm is fired, which is how Allen is charged. The complaint adds in one count of 18 U.S.C. 924(b), which makes it a crime for anyone who intends to commit a felony to transport a firearm across state lines. The punishment for that crime is up to 10 years in prison.
In order to get the complaint, the government had to provide the judge with a sworn affidavit from a federal agent. The 7-page affidavit provides some interesting details about the government’s evidence, but contains standard language advising the judge that “This affidavit is intended to show merely that there is sufficient probable cause for the requested complaint and does not set forth all of my knowledge about this matter.”
On March 2, President Trump announced he would attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, according to the affidavit. Allen then:
Made a hotel reservation at the Washington Hilton on April 6 for the night before, the night of, and the night after the dinner.
Traveled by train from his home near Los Angeles to Chicago, and from Chicago to Washington, D.C.
Checked into the Washington Hilton hotel the night before the dinner and remained there overnight.
We also get detail that we’ve been lacking until now about what happened when Allen approached the security checkpoint ahead of the ballroom. The affidavit recites that, “ALLEN approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun. As he did so, U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. U.S. Secret Service Officer V.G. was shot once in the chest; Officer V.G. was wearing a ballistic vest at the time. Officer V.G. drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at ALLEN, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. ALLEN was subsequently arrested.” Both of the firearms in Allen’s possession were purchased in California, which explains the transportation charge.
The affidavit also gives us a look at Allen’s full “manifesto,” some parts of which will have legal significance for the prosecution. He begins with a series of apologies to family and friends, including one that confirms his intent to kill:
“I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.”
And he specifies who his targets are, “Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” He writes that Secret Service agents, hotel security, Capitol police, and the National Guard are “targets only if necessary,” if they get in his way, and that hotel employees and guests are “not targets at all.” This careful delineation will be used by the government to establish his intent to assassinate the president. Although he doesn’t mention Trump by name, he writes: “And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” an apparent reference to the president.
The government will offer the manifesto as evidence of the intent they have to show to convict on the attempt charge. He signed the manifesto “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen.”
At the end, he seems to have added a rant about what he says is the Secret Service’s incompetence after he arrived at the hotel, discussing the absence of security or suspicion when he entered the hotel, before writing, “Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce [This is a nickname for the M2 Browning, a heavy machine gun] in here and no one would have noticed s–t.”
The government brought its charges promptly, they appear to be based on solid evidence, and a career prosecutor was in the courtroom today, handling the case. All of which is as it should be.
Unfortunately, it’s also now all about the ballroom, after the president did a lightning-fast pivot at his hasty press conference after the incident Saturday night to say it was why the ballroom he is building at the White House is needed. We’ve already discussed why that doesn’t make sense—the president is an invited guest to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, not the host. The dinner celebrates the freedom of the press, as in their freedom from government control, making the controversial ballroom about the last place on earth it would be appropriate to hold the dinner, unless the press association wanted to make a mockery of that treasured freedom.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Political violence is horrific and deserves the condemnation from both sides of the political spectrum this incident is receiving. It’s fortunate that this incident did not result in any loss of life. There still needs to be a careful after-action report to ensure any mistakes that were made are not repeated. What this cannot become is an excuse to muddy up the freedom of the press or restrict any of the other constitutional rights Americans enjoy.
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