🧊 🧊, Baby

A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested.

“How many bodies did you guys grab today?” he said one agent asked.

“Oh, we grabbed 31,“ the other replied.

“That was a good day today,” the first agent responded.

The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said.

Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents’ jobs.

In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he’d been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Garcia was at a Home Depot (a notorious hangout for hardened criminals), when “La migra” showed up in the parking lot, surrounding a van. Mr. Garcia says an agent lunged at him, and he pushed him off. That gave the agent an excuse to handcuff him, with the help of three other agents. Four people on one non-immigrant who they weren’t looking for.

No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification.

“They assumed that I was undocumented,” he said later in an interview.

And then:

On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses.

It felt surreal and enraging.

“They were trying to build some sort of case,” Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license.

After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him.

The agent said they wanted to “take your side of the story.”

Garcia declined.

Probably the reason he was finally released. Not that he should have been detained in the first place.

Detaining U.S. citizens probably feeds their quota, because ICE is just making shit up:

"Trust me! Have I ever lied to you?”

Reports are coming in that Antifa are assaulting ICE officers by showing them pictures of fentanyl and referring to their tactical leggings as “mom jeans”

Is this guy a statistic on the assaults side, or on the detainees side? (Who among us doubts agents are juicing the numbers?) (video at the link)

ICE agents in tactical gear chase down and tackle a U.S. citizen in L.A.

After realizing he’s American, they just slink away.

Their only explanation: “Why were you running?”

Probably because two masked men with guns were trying to snatch him.

And my favorite Keystone Cops episode:

Compton, CA: A masked, heavily-armed man wearing body armor jumped out of a SUV today to kidnap a local resident.

He forgot to put the vehicle in park, causing it to roll down the street damaging other cars. He jumped in the vehicle (which had no platess) and drove off without identifying himself.

Video at the link, again. Probably not ICE, since it was one guy. But now, like “The Dark Knight,” we’ve got copycats who are either kidnappers, or think they’re “the good guys.” Either way, not what government should be encouraging.

Then again, Trump doesn’t understand what government is. And the GOP Congress doesn’t seem to care.