You really need to stop assuming people believe the way you do.
Well, clearly, at least three of you in this thread do entertain the thought that an American secret police organization that uses the Constitution as toilet paper is at least acceptable, because “solidarity with law enforcement!”
@FFEMT: if the crew went SJW, then I’d give no statement at all. Fire takes oxygen to burn, don’t give it any. But your straw man is noted – you clearly believe that it is more likely for a private ambulance crew to try and attack ice, as opposed to acknowledging that the unaccountable para military secret police may have simply expanded their target list a little bit, and you’re clearly contorting your thought process to try and justify ICE at every opportunity. I am extremely glad that you are not my boss, I feel that you would find a way to throw a crew under the bus for any of your biases. Same for FiremanMike- you claim that there’s two sides to every story, but I do not think that you have the ability to actually stand up for what is right when an authority group is clearly in the wrong. It’s kind of like detonating random boats in the Caribbean and Pacific… you can claim that it’s right and legal, but you know for a fact that it’s wrong. But that would be getting off-topic. Point being, I think that you gentlemen should probably take a step back and reevaluate your personal reputations before you start lending ice your credibility.
Because that’s how these people operate. They commit an unjustifiable, unreasonable action… And then they wait for you to justify it, and then they do it again. And again. And then they push the limits and do it again. And every time, they’re watching you justify it, or ignore it, or try to rationalize it. And when you do those things, you’re expending your credibility. It starts off as a rational, reason approach. Then it turns into collaboration. Eventually, you’re a full-blown enabler.
And when the political wins shift and accountability is installed or enforced, you’re held up right next to the people who did the unjustifiable. After all, it was your credibility that got them there. You might never face charges, but your community will know exactly what your role was. Your people will know exactly what your role was, and how you supported the illegal, unconstitutional, it unsupportable. They will remember how you ignored the warning signs and marginal incidents and took no action except for a tepid defense of the ice agents.
Do you want to know what my answer to this would’ve been? I’ll let you know, because I feel like I’m about to get banned.
Immediate and massive public release of every bit of evidence from the truck. Dash camera footage if available, subpoenas of all body camera footage, and a vigorous and full throated defense of my crew, irrespective of the facts of the case. Why? Because at the end of the day, that service in that crew are serving the citizens of Portland, Oregon they are not serving ice, they are not serving the Trump administration, and they are there to provide emergency medical care to the people of Portland. They are residents of the Portland area, and they have to live in that community. Even if they’re wrong, I would rather my crew be safe, protected, and respected by their community for doing the right thing by their community as opposed to letting ice make a mockery of the constitution in their patient’s rights. In fact, I would support my crew if they told ice to leave, that they were unwanted and unneeded in that situation, and if they wanted to arrest the patient they could do so, but would have to document it. I would support them publicly, and I would support them with the cooperation of my state and federal political representatives. I would have the governor in the mayor and the senators and the congressman right next to me while I politely told ice that they had no authority to do any of what they did to that crowd, and if they wanted to contest it, they can come up and beat me on stage with truncheons. And, of course, there’s a reason for this: I would fully intend for my career in my service to the public to exceed the term of a lame duck president and his un- accountable band of secret police cosplayers.
Those of you that would try to blame your crew for what is pretty obviously a significant overreach and threat by an ice agent are absolutely sickening, it betrays that you have absolutely no understanding of just how fickle “hard evidence“ actually is in a lot of cases. Shows a lot about your own personalities, though, I hope that we never meet professionally.
