Content warning: state violence
U.S. military veterans have been facing arrest and injury protesting ICE raids. Marine veteran John Cerrone was arrested while protesting at an ICE detention center outside Chicago. He was held for nine hours alone in a cell with walls covered by blood, hair, and mucus. While behind bars he was visited by an ICE agent who boasted that he had shot Cerrone in the head with rubber bullets and insulted him using crude language.
“Their conduct was completely unprofessional,” Cerrone said. “The conduct of these agents was such that if it occurred in [the military]... they would be court-martialed.”
Jose Vasquez is a former U.S. army staff sergeant who now serves as executive director of the progressive veterans’ organization Common Defense. He says of veterans like Cerrone that they “have stood up at ICE protests and faced arrest because we recognize a pattern of state-sanctioned abuse.” He added, “What drives many veterans into action is not only the injustice faced by immigrants and protesters, but also the larger threat to democracy rooted in government brutality and militarization. The disturbing escalation in arrests and violence signals that the basic freedoms we once swore to protest are under attack.”
Veterans like Nicholas Podjasek, who was born in Honduras, have cancelled appointments at the VA hospital out of fear of being detained. Podjasek said that he and many others are worried about being detained by ICE “because we are brown.”
(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action. Emphasis original.)
Oh no, the state sanctioned international terrorists are getting arrested by the state sanctioned domestic terrorists!
Even at their best westerners can’t help themselves but fawn over child killers