Just like maga a small very vocal group of people are demanding the entire country roll back all progress made since the 1950s by minorities. Any new discovery by science no matter the field because it clashes with their holy book which they misread to form their warped view of reality. They do not care to let other others live their lives as they get to live theirs in peace and freedom. No they demand that everyone follow and live by their church doctrines because that way their god will favor them, come back sooner to give them rewards while killing the rest of us. Think of it, these people are OK with creating a situation where the majority die horribly to please his god as long as they get rewarded. Seems selfish to me not Christian. Also another important point is the constant repeating of the Christian surge of republican voters despite it being a lie is to shore up the idea that there was voter fraud that stole the midterms from the republicans. Think of it tRump people used a normal occurrence of vote totals shift as mail in votes are counted as evidence of fraud leading to the Jan 6th insurrection. Below I will post a quote from the article that will be used by republicans to show the democrats stole the midterms. Hugs.
Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement.
A United States and Christian flag are sandwiched together (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Turning Point USA ended 2025 with AmericaFest, a blowout conference for the MAGA powerhouse organization started in 2012 by the now-deceased Charlie Kirk. As described by Teresa Wiltz at POLITICO, “the vibe felt less like a political panel than an evangelical revival.” Watching the speeches from this fireworks-laden shindig, Wiltz’s observation felt like an understatement. Many speeches from the event’s main stage were simply sermons extolling a fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity as the one true faith.
“We’re here for one name, and that’s Jesus,” declared Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old who makes videos of himself accosting strangers, including mentally ill homeless people, under the guise of “winning souls” for Christ. He went on declare that “we’re in the last days” and that every person who doesn’t believe in his version of the gospels will soon “be cast into hell.”
“We’re all on our knees, shoulder to shoulder, under the blood of Christ,” proclaimed the British comedian Russell Brand, who is facing seven charges of sexual assault, including three rape charges, in the United Kingdom. He included Ben Shapiro, by name, in his list of believers, even though Shapiro is Jewish. He then proceeded to insist that Christianity is the key to resolving the conflict between Israel and Gaza, which have primarily Jewish and Muslim populations.
Even rapper Nicki Minaj, newly out as MAGA, understood the primary assignment was talking up Christianity, claiming that she has had “the kind of faith that you think a person is crazy” since she was a little girl.
AmericaFest, as its name implies, is supposed to be a political event, not a church service. By including speakers like Shapiro and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, TPUSA’s organizers were even nodding to the idea that the GOP is supposed to believe in religious freedom and diversity. Or, as Vice President JD Vance put it, “We’re all part of the same American family.” Yet he quickly undercut that message by proclaiming that “By the grace of God, we will always be a Christian nation.” While Vance may claim that you don’t have to be a Christian to be an American, implicit in his words is the idea that only Christians are truly Americans, and everyone else is, at best, second class.
The blunt reality is that AmericaFest wasn’t just overtly religious — it was steeped in Christian nationalism. They equated being an American with being a Christian. But being a Republican, as Crawford suggested in his speech, is synonymous with being an evangelical Christian whose main duty is to convert non-believers. The political message of the event was inseparable from a religious one: that the purpose of the GOP and the MAGA movement is to usher in a religious revival and turn a decadent, secular country into one devoted to a narrow, right-wing version of Christianity.
For decades now, the Christian right has been the most powerful and influential force in the GOP, and yet even by their standards, this marked a dramatic shift toward the theocratic impulse. From a purely rational perspective, this is bad politics. Only 23% of Americans identify as evangelicals. Trump was able to win in 2024 only by convincing large numbers of people outside of evangelical Christianity that he has a secular worldview. This was aided by the fact that he quite clearly doesn’t believe all the Christian language, both coded and overt, his aides coax him to say.
The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
But none of that seems to register with MAGA leadership right now. They’ve convinced themselves — or at least are trying to persuade their donors and followers — that the U.S. is undergoing a massive religious revival. Right-wing media has been pushing the view that huge numbers of Americans, especially young Americans, are converting to fundamentalist Christianity. The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
As my colleague Russell Payne and I reported on in November for Salon’s “Standing Room Only,” Fox News in particular has been running a number of stories claiming a “Charlie Kirk effect” — that the MAGA influencer’s killing in September led to a tidal wave of Americans, especially young Americans, discovering or returning to Christianity.
Since then, there’s been a constant drumbeat of similar claims from right-wing media. “Gen Z embracing faith as more young people return to religion,” Fox News declared again on Dec. 21. NewsNation ran a new year segment that reported a “religious revival” was taking place among the young. This follows many similar segments from both channels dating back months, all swearing to their largely elderly audience that the Zoomers are flooding church services, despite what they may be seeing at their own local congregation. Conservative ministers keep insisting on social media that waves of young people are converting, even as no such numbers show up in surveys with more rigorous research methods.
Much of AmericaFest was also devoted to propping up the narrative that young adults are giving up sex and secularism for Christian nationalism in record numbers. Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, 25, spoke about how Christianity calls on women to “Get married, have babies, have as many as you can and as early in your married life as you can.” Pastor Keenan Clark, 30, preached, “If you have not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ, though you were a conservative, you will find yourself in the bowels of a devil’s hell.” Angela Halili, 29, and Arielle Reitsma, 36, hosts of the “Girls Gone Bible” podcast, preached about saving sex for marriage because “sexual immorality is the only sin that you commit against your own body.”
The presence of Halili and Reitsma is a big clue that this Christian hype may be rooted in something other than an outpouring of faith. As I reported last year, there’s overwhelming evidence that the two podcast hosts were working as poker girls — women who make money at underground poker games by offering flirting and often much more to male players — while launching a Christian channel devoted to preaching the virtues of chastity to young women. Whatever they personally believe, their entire endeavor is rooted in dishonesty, a sin the Bible tends to have more to say about than sexual “immorality.”
There is no evidence-based reason to believe there’s a religious revival among the young that is about to create massive election windfalls for Republicans. On the contrary, a December report from Pew Research found that, “On average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans. Today’s young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago.”
But there’s little doubt that the kind of people who write massive checks to organizations like TPUSA — wealthy, older Republicans — are very interested in hearing that there’s a religious revival in the U.S. It’s worth remembering that TPUSA began as a secular organization, but in 2020, Kirk started to shift to the Christian nationalist cause, arguing there should be no separation between church and state. With this newly religious agenda, money started to pour into TPUSA. Better yet, Kirk nabbed the support of extremely rich Republicans, with half of TPUSA’s $55 million haul in 2020 coming from 10 anonymous donors. In contrast, the organization raised only $8 million in 2016.
TPUSA and right-wing media aren’t the only groups that have a strong interest in creating the illusion of a mass revival swelling among America’s young. Conservative Christian audiences are notoriously gullible, so there’s a big market out there for attention-seekers and outright grifters to cash in using social media. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are awash in young people claiming they have access to Biblical prophecy or know how to perform exorcisms, or who, like the hosts of “Girls Gone Bible,” pair glamorous packaging with claims that young people are embracing an especially sex-free and fundamentalist Christian faith.
There are various degrees of sincerity in these influencers, yet one thing is undeniable: They are exploiting huge audiences of conservative Christians who want desperately to believe in a religious revival and would rather give their time and money to people who are telling them it’s real than to look at the statistics that show that it’s not.
Between groups like TPUSA, right-wing media outlets and social media influencers, there’s now an entire machinery propping up this false narrative that young people are stampeding into the pews. Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement. But none of that matters: TPUSA is here to take Republicans’ money and sell them a story about how all the kids are coming to Jesus — and to the GOP.
This is a playing of the New York Times breakdown of the videos of the Renee Good murder by Jonathan Ross. In a frame by frame slow down the video that the right claims shows that Ross was struck by Good’s car instead clearly shows that his torso was several feet away from her bumper. He was not struck by the car. He was not in danger. As he was not in danger why did he shoot. He was angry and out of control because a lesbian insulted him and another lesbian made his life harder so knowing he would face no consequence for his actions and had no restraint on what he could do he acted on his anger. This has happened many times with ICE already and will continue until these people face consequences for their actions.
The border patrol guidelines had to be changed because so many officers were shooting people in frustration using the excuse they were in danger after they deliberately moved in front of cars. Ross knew this, he used the same excuse that they had to make a rule against doing because he was so angry and frustrated. He shouldn’t have been on duty or be allowed to carry a weapon! Hugs
Just like fundamentalist evangelical Christians maga thugs can not be reasoned with, they are on a mission from their god tRump to protect the goal of the cult. They act similar in that they attack anyone who displays a difference to their preconceived view of how things should be according to their religious leaders. They feel an intense desire, no need to destroy any dissent and make everyone conform, by force if necessary. So Renee good presents a threat to their view of how things should be. She doesn’t conform. She is not straight but is a lesbian. She did not immediately bow to the authority and whims of the cult leader, and she seems to support the rights of minorities which the cult feels is harmful to the white straight cis majority. So maga thugs attack without thinking in a pack as that is how they are trained as school yard bullies and they never grew out of it. Hugs
People gather during a vigil for Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent, in Seattle, Washington, U.S., January 8, 2026. REUTERS/David Ryder
The tiny charter school where slain mother Renee Good sent her 6-year-old son has been forced to conduct classes online after receiving a slew of threats following her fatal shooting by an immigration officer.
The threats started pouring in to Southside Family Charter School after the New York Post reported on the school’s focus on social justice and right-wing social media accounts identified the school where Good had dropped off her son shortly before encountering the federal agent who shot and killed her, reported Sahan Journal.
“The attacks and threats to our school have been very hurtful, especially at this painful moment,” school officials told the Journal. “At the same time, we have received much support from our community. This moment has been painful but it has also brought us closer as a community.”
Southside Family Charter School, where Good served on the school board, was founded in the 1970s and became a charter school in 2006, but its enrollment dropped from 119 students last year to just 26 this year after it transitioned from a K-8 to a K-5 program.
“Staff and students prepare and eat meals together,” a school spokeswoman said. “Older students mentor younger students regularly and learn with them as well. Visiting artists and field trips are part of our curriculum.”
Conservative outlets and social media users seized on the school’s social justice curriculum after Good was killed, complaining that students learned about George Floyd’s police murder and staffers were urged to report ICE activity, and a sign notified immigration officers they were not permitted to enter the building without a judicial warrant.
“Our school is responding consistently with how most schools in the area are responding,” school leaders officials said.
Right-wing social media users claimed the school’s focus on social justice was evidence that Good was a domestic terrorist, as Trump administration officials have claimed to justify her killed by a federal agent.
“I’m calling for all federal funds to Minnesota’s Southside Family Charter School to be REVOKED,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) posted on Facebook. “This institution radicalizes students and pushes a left-wing agenda that demonizes ICE agents. The federal government should not subsidize anti-American education.”
A TikTok video viewed more than 100,000 times suggested Good was “trained to fight federal agents” by her son’s school, while others mocked her as “the epitome of the modern-day liberal white woman” and questioned her decision to enroll her son there.
The school eventually shut down its Facebook page and took down most of its online presence in response to the threats.
“At this time we would like to ask the community and members of the media to understand this is a very difficult and painful time for our school community and for Renee’s family,” school leaders said. “We would kindly ask everyone to respect our privacy and allow us the necessary time to grieve. We appreciate the community’s compassion, support, and understanding as we mourn together.”
The video below shows another shooting where the ICE thug fired into a car striking a person when he shifted his weapon to his other hand. The car was not moving and full of pepper spray. The man was not trying to drive. Yet ICE told a judge the man had weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over ICE thugs. The judge dismissed the case because ICE refused to hand over the body cam footage that showed what the ICE thug did and that DHS was lying. Again. Hugs
Full disclosure I love watching Digby when she is on The Majority Report. That lady knows her stuff. I don’t know much about Tom Sullivan but if she is willing to put him on her site I will give him the benefit of the doubt. As for Randy Fine. He is a fanatic Christian nationalist who wants the US to be run by his church doctrines, who help write and push for the don’t say gay bill in Florida saying he couldn’t tolerate that when LGBTQ+ people came out to their peers they were accepted instead of being ostracized and beaten up. Yes he wants to return to the days of being different from the straight cis majority got you harassed, harmed, and injured. I guess that means if you are too afraid to come out and live as who you are it will make you a good straight cis person willing to submit to his god? He also is desperately stupid and is full die hard maga. He is another racist who thinks might makes right. Hugs
Where are the Epstein files? A social media poster on Monday noted, “So when an ICE officer tells you to get out of the car, you’re supposed to get out of the car, what are you supposed to do when a judge tells you to release the Epstein files?”
Thus in the field failure to comply with orders barked by kitted-out and under-trained DHS enforcers merits a bullet to the head. Yet failure of AG Pam Bondi’s DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by Dear Leader, seems not to merit not even a slap on the wrist. Immediately after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the right claimed her death was the consequences of her own choices.
Donald Trump’s “Great Again”: For my friends, a pardon; for my enemies, a bullet to the head. God bless America.
Here’s a choice a fine Republican from Florida’s 6th District made on Monday: H.R.7012 – To authorize the annexation and subsequent admission to statehood of Greenland, and for other purposes.
Is it a troll by a Trump brown-noser? The image suggests that that is likely. But these days, who can tell? Rep. Randy Fine has one cosponsor. Greenland has a tenth the population of Wyoming and no love for Donald Trump. Fine would likely oppose statehood for Puerto Rico or the District.
“By acquiring Greenland, we would prevent our adversaries from controlling the Arctic Region and secure our northern flank from Russia and China,” writes Fine.
Malcolm Nance, former naval intelligence officer, foreign policy analyst and pundit, itemized for Fine a few consequences of annexing Greenland. One assumes from the worst-case rant (and a few misspellings) that Nance is emptying both barrels at the former gaming executive. Nance’s response on X is over the top, but satisfying nonetheless:
CONSEQUENCES FOR DUMBASSES: You are an F’ing idiot. If we invade Greenland we go to war with 31 nations. NATO stays together but without us. Its HQ is in Brussels, not the Pentagon. Our global reach across the Atlantic will end with our closest refueling base in Israel or Egypt. 100,000 American soldiers will be forced to board civil airliners and sent home or be taken as POWs/Detainee sWITHOUT WEAPONS OR EQUIPMENT. Canada will close its airspace and sea space. US Ballistic Missile Defense at Pettufik and Fylingdales ENDS, which means we see nothing except what space sensors can see. US Intelligence is reduced to Fort Meade, Ft Gordon and Colorado Springs and Hawaii. CIA spies will be rolled up by their former friends in HOURS. NO ONE WILL SHARE ANYTHING WITH US. ALL GLOBAL SHIPPING WILL BE CLOSED TO US. Denmark operates the largest shipping company in the world. SIX OUT OF TEN global shipping companies are in Europe … Worlds Biggest container ships? DENMARK! Australia, NZ, Canada are Commonwealth so they will cut ties with us or be neutral too.
PS Denmark & locals tun all life support and generators at Pittufik and Canada resupplies it … all 150 US Spece force personnel would become POWs to guys on sleds. FYI They have troops there now and 35,000 Caribou hunting rifles.
FYI France and UK have nukes. Hundreds of them so you cannot intimidate them with that.
Oh and they collapse the US economy by sanctioning us and selling off 2.3 Trillion in US treasuries simultaneously. Also no Botox, Ozempic or insulin. Its made in Denmark.
Ya fucking dope.
That’s fair. Over the top, but fair. (I especially appreciate Nance’s observation about the potential loss of strategic refueling bases.)
Marcy Wheeler already pointed out that Trump admitted to the New York Times that his need to possess Greenland stems from a personal problem.
Elon Musk’s own AI already reported that not owning Greenland is no impediment to building new U.S. bases there or expanding existing ones. As for mining, several reports observe that if whatever useful minerals lie buried in Greenland, if they were “getable,” mines would already be in operation:
Researchers say it would be extremely difficult and expensive to extract Greenland’s minerals because many of the island’s mineral deposits are located in remote areas above the Arctic Circle, where there is a mile-thick polar ice sheet and darkness reigns much of the year.
Not only that, but Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, lacks the infrastructure and manpower required to make this mining dream a reality.
“The idea of turning Greenland into America’s rare-earth factory is science fiction. It’s just completely bonkers,” said Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at The Arctic Institute. “You might as well mine on the moon. In some respects, it’s worse than the moon.”
So is our sitting president. Pray for consequences for him.
Remember the clip I posted of the house invasion yesterday? Well this is the full clip. With no warrant ICE gang thugs broke into the home that had kids in it, stormed the house like they were in a war zone going after enemy combatants, and manhandled the woman and her kids. This is not police behavior, and it is not legal. But what can a person do if twenty heavily armed guys broke into your home? Where are the police who are to be protecting the public from gangs like this. No one knows who these guys are, they could be there to rob someone or rape them. Maybe traffic the kids? Who knows. I am tired of this. These armed criminal gang thugs are not going into bad areas, areas with other gangs, areas that they might be hurt, they are going after suburban parents and homes with kids? Hugs
Amanda: This gives me Barbie animated movie vibes.
Sarah: His head is so big, and his neck is so long, and I’m also confused by the size of her head and the length of her arms.
This is giving me the uncanny valley vibes of that one Julie Anne Long Cover – not the smirking git one, the giant head lady one.
This one:
Sarah: “Head too big, arms too short” will be the name of my podcast about disturbing cover art.
Elyse: That’s similar to my favorite kitten/puppy stage “ears too big, legs too long”
Sarah: His neck is long, right? It’s not just me?
Elyse: I think it’s not long, it’s broken.
Sarah: “How.” ” How what?” ” How did you know that my father was Gumby?” ” Everyone knows your father is Gumby, my lord.”
Elyse: LMAO
Sarah: “I thought we had hidden it.”
“You thought you had hidden your lineage and connection to Lord Gumbert Rubberthwaite, Earl of Stretetshingtonshoreley?” … “Which is pronounced ‘Stretchley?’ Really, you thought that was a secret?”
Elyse: I would read that book.
From Kelly B: One-the title is Behind the Net but they are clearly in front of the net. And two-the physics required to sit on a hockey net like that.
Sarah: This is just awful on so many gravitational and proportional levels.
Amanda: Girl has got to be engaging her core like crazy.
(snip-go read it-it’s hilarious! And post your own comments below!)
The government take over of thoughts and what material people can read is happening with the assistance of the tech community. The limiting what people can see or read started with the idea of restricting any media that positively presented the LGBTQ+ community so to protect the children they claimed. See how quickly it has progressed in less than a year to simply the government telling / demanding the right to tell people what they can read or view so that the government is never disfavored or contradicted. Totally as China and Russia work. How do you like living in such a society. Remember the people who had these books on their device had paid for them and Amazon did not return their money, they just reached in and deleted the material they did not want you to read. Once the precedent is set it will be used by any new government who wish to control the population and how they feel about the society they live in. Hugs
A commuter using an Amazon Kindle while riding the subway in New York.Credit…Lucas Jackson/Reuters
In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole by Amazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said.
Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.
Customers whose books were deleted indicated that MobileReference, a digital publisher, had sold them. An e-mail message to SoundTells, the company that owns MobileReference, was not immediately returned.
Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic books between devices and apparently to make them vanish.
An authorized digital edition of “1984” from its American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was still available on the Kindle store Friday night, but there was no such version of “Animal Farm.”
People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia, who bought the digital edition of “1984” for 99 cents last month. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.”
Antoine Bruguier, an engineer in Silicon Valley, said he had noticed that his digital copy of “1984” appeared to be a scan of a paper edition of the book. “If this Kindle breaks, I won’t buy a new one, that’s for sure,” he said.
Amazon appears to have deleted other purchased e-books from Kindles recently. Customers commenting on Web forums reported the disappearance of digital editions of the Harry Potter books and the novels of Ayn Rand over similar issues.
Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”
Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.
“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.
On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers.
Again we see the institutionalized casual racism in the US. This was the basis of the CRT higher education classes were about. All the media latched on to and went into great detail over a white woman’s shooting by ICE but only report vaguely and sporadically on the shooting of the black / brown people shot by ICE. But when you read the report below think on how racist ICE gang thugs are, the fact that they have broken other laws and assaulted other people with impunity as they are defended by the power of the US government. One last thing to think on. The ICE thug was clearly angry and he had his gun out, ready, and pointed in front of him allowing him to shoot the man without raising his gun. The reported statements from the government never mention him drawing his gun nor raising it, just that he fired his weapon defensively. If he felt threatened why openly approach the man with the long gun? Why no call for back up? Depending on the time was the ICE thug wakened up by the noise of gun fire? Hugs
Friends and family of the 43-year-old man who was fatally shot by a Department of Homeland Security agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve gathered on Sunday to demand accountability and hold a candlelight vigil for their lost loved one.
They identified the victim as Keith Porter, who they say was a well-known and well-liked person in the community.
“If I could say anything to the ICE agent, it’s that you’re a murderer,” said Jasané Tyler, Porter’s cousin. “You stole my cousin from me. You stole their father from them. You stole Francine’s son from her.”
Porter’s loved ones are demanding justice after the father of two died on New Year’s Eve. He was shot by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs agent at the apartments where they both lived.
Keith Porter, the 43-year-old man fatally shot by a DHS agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve. Porter Family
His family contends that he was shooting a gun in the air to mark the new year. A statement from DHS on the incident contends that it was an “active shooter situation.”
“On December 31st, an off-duty ICE Officer bravely responded to an active shooter situation at his apartment complex,” the statement said. “In order to protect his life and that of others, he was forced to defensively use his weapon and exchanged gunfire with the shooter.”
Another statement from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin provided further details. She said that the agent was “in his apartment, when he heard what he suspected were multiple gunshots. The suspected gunfire grew progressively louder, indicating to the officer that whoever was firing a gun was approaching his apartment. The officer took his ICE-authorized firearm and left his apartment to investigate. He moved to the ground level and went outside, where he believed the suspected gunfire was coming from.”
McLaughlin’s statement says that the officer rounded the corner of the building, where he encountered Porter, who they said was allegedly armed with a long rifle.
“The ICE officer identified himself as law enforcement. In response, the individual pointed his weapon at the ICE officer. The officer ordered the subject to put the weapon down, McLaughlin said. “When the subject refused to comply, the officer fired defensively with his service weapon at the subject to disarm him. The subject fired at least three rounds at the officer.”
Porter’s friends and family don’t buy it, especially with members of law enforcement in their own family.
“Every one of them says this is not standard, this is not protocol,” Tyler said.
Black Lives Matter leaders, who hosted the Sunday night vigil, are outraged by what happened.
“Were this anyone else, there would’ve been an arrest,” said Dr. Melina Abdullah, with BLM. “You don’t get to just murder people because you don’t like what they’re doing or how they’re celebrating.”
Los Angeles Police Department officers tell CBS LA that their investigation into the shooting is still ongoing. They also told the LA Times on Sunday that they haven’t yet spoken with the ICE agent due to protocol on how deadly force investigations are conducted when they involve federal law enforcement officers.
Scottie's Playtime 