This is America now

 There is no justice.  Only Gestapo.

No excuse

 

No one is safe

 The Trump reign of fear ups the stakes.

Two harrowing stories: one in Massachusetts, one in New Jersey.

Worcester, MA:

A woman was led by federal agents in cuffs away from her family, through a throng of community organizers trying to stop it, and into an unmarked car. The local police arrived to prevent the community from protecting their neighbor from an unlawful kidnapping. They succeeded, and in the process arrested two of the people who tried to stop it.

[...]

And then I see the mother, a young woman in a green shirt, wailing, crying, held on either side by menacing white men in tactical vests, black neck warmers pulled over their noses in the style du jour for our secret police forces.

Surrounding them are a few dozen community members who were tipped off about the ICE raid and got to it before the police did. Before I arrived, they demanded to see a warrant. The ICE agents refused to provide one, so they created a human chain, which the ICE officers eventually broke through.

[...]

An ICE agent opens the door and the woman's daughter shrieks—an unforgettable noise of agony. Her mother is about to disappear, into the purposefully vague bureaucratic world of forced removal.

[...]

A Worcester cop comes over, stepping between the open car door and the community, past the ICE agents stuffing the mother into the back seat, and he looks at a woman holding the shrieking daughter's baby.

[...]

The woman's daughter then jumps on the hood of the car. A Worcester cop pulls her off.

[...]

These federal agents were wearing a myriad of badges and few of them had name tags. Most of them had "POLICE" written somewhere on their tactical vests. There were ICE insignias, but also Customs and Border Patrol, and one ATF.

[...]

[F]ederal agents showed up, without saying why, intending to bring [the woman] to an undisclosed somewhere without even proving they had the legal right.

[...]

In the background, a Worcester police officer looks at the desperate woman holding her baby trying to stop the agents from taking her mother and says "Do you want to stay with your baby?" The tacit threat of separation for her protestation of another separation. Later he would complain "She's putting the baby in harm's way." A classic move: "harm" goes undefined because the harm is him.

[...]

Another officer, frustrated, says "They don't need a warrant." Finally, one of them tells the truth. Due process is not a matter they're concerned with. The deportation must proceed. Trying to stop it is the unlawful thing.

[...]

A cop pulls his cruiser behind us—we're boxed in now—and from the intercom says "This is the Worcester Police Department. This is an unlawful assembly, I'm warning you to disperse right now or you will be subject to arrest."

[...]

As the car pulls away, nudging into the thick crowd, the daughter shrieks another horrible horrible horrible shriek, communicating the non-communicable as the disappearers take another step toward disappearing her mother. As the car breaks from the crowd she runs after it. A Worcester police officer, his voice frothing with anger, shouts "Arrest her right now. You are under arrest." And then four cops swarm her, grab her, throw her to the ground. All the while she's crying crying crying. Her hair's caught in her mouth and matted to her face, wet with spit and tears. Four cops hold her pinned to the ground.

[...]

Next to me is a TV reporter from a Spanish language station and her cameraman. She yells out, "What's your name?" and the woman responds in Spanish. I can't make it out. She asks her age and this one I catch: “dieciséis.”

Not a woman—a girl. A 16-year-old girl. Now in custody for the crime of reacting in an unruly way to the sudden forceful disappearance of her mother.

I keep asking about the charges. The only cop who doesn't ignore me explains "I'm not the arresting officer." The arresting officers go on ignoring me.

[...]

Eventually I get an answer, and it's the usual package job: disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly. The charges they throw on anyone they want to arrest for the sake of arresting them, knowing they're unlikely to stick. But sticking isn't the goal. The officer who tells me this has a tactical K9 Unit vest on. He tells me the 16-year-old girl was interfering with police business.

[...]

In a statement posted to the department's Facebook page Thursday night, the WPD said they responded to "a report of a federal agent who was surrounded by a large group of about twenty-five people." The daughter was charged with reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. [A] community organizer faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (unknown liquid), disorderly conduct, and interfering with a police officer. Both were out on bail by Thursday night, according to local organizers. The name and whereabouts of the woman taken by ICE remains unknown.

  Welcome to the World

Newark, NJ:

Fox News angle:

The mayor of Newark was arrested Friday at an ICE detention facility in New Jersey where congressional leaders had scheduled an afternoon "oversight" visit.

  NBC

Why is oversight in BS quotes?

A spokesperson confirmed Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody by federal police outside Delaney Hall, a detention facility run by private prison operator GEO Group, in Newark.

[...]

Baraka had visited the facility in recent days amid efforts to close the recently reopened prison. The mayor has made public claims that the detention center is not operating legally.

Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join a scheduled tour of the facility with three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman.

"We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances," Rep. Coleman wrote in a post on X.

When federal officials blocked Baraka's entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.

“The agents started intimidating and putting their hands on the congresswomen. There was yelling and pushing,” Martinez said. “Then the officers swarmed Baraka. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put Baraka handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car.”

In a statement, The Department of Homeland Security said that the lawmakers had not asked for a tour of the facility, contrary to witnesses' accounts. The department said further that as a bus carrying detainees was entering the facility, “a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”

It said Menendez, Watson Coleman, and a number of protesters were currently “holed up in a guard shack” at the facility.

[...]

[I]n February, ICE awarded a 15-year contract to The Geo Group Inc. to run the Newark detention center. Geo valued the contract at $1 billion, which is an unusually long and large agreement for ICE.

The announcement was part of President Donald Trump’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.

Baraka sued GEO Group soon after the deal was announced.

Geo touted the contract with Delaney Hall during its earnings call with shareholders Wednesday, with CEO David Donahue saying it was expected to generate more than $60 million a year in revenue.

Private prisons in a police state.

UPDATE 05/09/2025:  Also, in DC today...

The politics of fear.

UPDATE 07:56 pm:

UPDATE 05/10/2025:

Trump 2.0 - Cruel and abusive

 

There was no justifiable reason for putting them in the men's prisons.  Trump/MAGA is simply mean and hateful.

Trump 2.0 - The cruelty is the point

 Fucking Nazis.

Speaking of prisons...

For the second time in weeks, a Missouri prison has ignored a court order to release an inmate whose murder conviction was overturned. Just as in the case of Sandra Hemme, actions by the state’s attorney general are keeping Christopher Dunn locked up.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser on Monday tossed out Dunn’s conviction for a 1990 killing. Dunn, 52, has spent 33 years behind bars, and he remained Tuesday at the state prison in Licking.

Dunn wasn’t released after his conviction was overturned because Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey appealed the judge’s ruling, “and we’re awaiting the outcome of that legal action,” Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said in an email Tuesday.

  AP

So, he could be wrongly imprisoned for a lot longer.

“In our view, the judge’s order was very clear, ordering his immediate release,” [St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe] Gore said at a news conference Tuesday. “Based on that, we are considering what approach and what legal options we have to obtain Mr. Dunn’s relief.”

An unsurprising headline

The attack is reported to have happened on Friday at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages.

[...]

In a statement, the agency said responding employees contained the incident and performed “life-saving measures” before the inmate, who it did not name, was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.

[...]

Chauvin, 47, was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August 2022 to simultaneously serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.

[...]

In Minnesota, Chauvin was mainly kept in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection.”

[...]

Floyd, who was Black, died on 25 May 2020 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9½ minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd was suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit US$20 bill.

Bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe”.

[...]

Last week, the US supreme court rejected Chauvin’s appeal against his murder conviction. Separately, Chauvin is making a bid to overturn his federal guilty plea, claiming new evidence shows he didn’t cause Floyd’s death.

  Guardian

Can't wait to hear that "evidence".

In November 2022, an inmate at the facility’s low-security prison camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had, misfired and no one was hurt.

"Shouldn't have had." No kidding?

In July, disgraced sports Dr Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

Also not surprising, as Nassar is "disgraced" by virtue of having sexually abused young people in his care.

But/and...

The real problem in Fulton County

It's got nothing to do with MAGA election claims.

Jesus wept

"For a term of not more than life."  Well, that's a relief.  

Evil, evil people.

https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1500984912752648200

MAGA to the dark ages

Inmates at an Arkansas prison said they weren’t told that they were treated for COVID-19 with the drug Ivermectin, a known livestock de-wormer, according to The Associated Press.

In an interview with the newswire, three inmates at a Washington County, Ark., jail said they didn’t know they were given the anti-parasite drug as medication for the virus until last week.

Inmate William Evans said that inmates felt that they were being tested as guinea pigs for the medication, saying he was given the drug two weeks after testing positive for coronavirus, the AP noted.

[...]

“I asked what are they, and they’d just tell me vitamins,” Inmate Edrick Floreal-Wooten told the AP.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

How Arizona keeps prisoners beyond their release date

According to Arizona Department of Corrections whistleblowers, hundreds of incarcerated people who should be eligible for release are being held in prison because the inmate management software cannot interpret current sentencing laws.

KJZZ is not naming the whistleblowers because they fear retaliation. The employees said they have been raising the issue internally for more than a year, but prison administrators have not acted to fix the software bug.

[...]

The Arizona Department of Corrections confirmed there is a problem with the software.

  KJZZ

Biden administration needs to do better

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

JFC

LOL.

Private prison owners no doubt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Innocence Project

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus Christ, this country

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

WTeverlovingF?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Exactly what people have been worrying about

I imagine the same scenario could be playing out in other prisons, and in border detention centers.

UPDATE:

Prison & drugs

Whose son is this?

Michael Douglas?    or    Anthony LaPaglia?

   

I would have guessed wrong.

Find out on Stay Tuned with Preet, as he discusses drug trafficking and prison.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

New York to close notorious Rikers Island

New York City moved toward sweeping criminal justice reform Thursday, with a City Council vote to shutter one of the country’s most notoriously violent jails as part of a deliberate and ongoing reduction in inmate population.

The 35-to-14 vote gives Mayor Bill de Blasio the final approval he needs to replace the jails on Rikers Island with four smaller detention centers throughout the city — an $8.7 billion project that was conceived by left-leaning reformers but rejected by a movement protesting the creation of any new jails.

  Politico

A trade-off. Now maybe go after justice reforms.

And don't get too excited yet. It's still going to be open for a while.

It would have been virtually impossible, during the crack epidemic and surging violence of the 1980s and ‘90s, to imagine a successful push to close Rikers Island. The plan is only possible through policies that enable the city to reduce its jail population — from roughly 11,000 in 2014 to 7,000 today and a goal of 3,300 by 2026 when Rikers would be closed.

[...]

But a steady drop in violent crime — 295 murders last year, compared to 673 in 2000 and 2,245 in 1990 — has provided room for a political consciousness about the failings of the criminal justice system, which paved the way for Thursday’s vote.

The abuse at Rikers was underscored by Kalief Browder, who hung himself in 2015 at the age of 22 after spending two years in solitary confinement awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a backpack.

[...]

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer [...] opposed the plan, saying the city should not spend money on new jails, but rather focus more on decarceration.

“The criminalization and brutalization of people of color led to mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex that we seek to end here today,” he said. “Voting to invest $10 billion right back into that system is something I cannot do.”

“If they build it, they will fill it!” a crowd of like-minded opponents chanted as they left City Hall Thursday.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Just...