ICE Shooting Open Thread

Winter in Thüringen.

I know: I’ve been pretty much AWOL for the last two weeks. Bad eugyppius.

It’s been nothing serious. There is the extremely mild depression brought upon me by the winter dark and the freezing temperatures; there is some writer’s block encouraged by the descent of German politics into a state of paralysis never seen before and the attendant proliferation of retarded stories I have no intention of writing about ever; and finally there is some personal exasperation over the recent Greenland drama.

What I plan to do about this, in order, is: a) stop being mopey and get back to regular running despite the ungodly cold; b) plan and cultivate some new avenues of content, among them book reviews and a look at various presently relevant historical matters; and c) write a long post tomorrow offloading my thoughts about the Greenland Thing specifically and the apparent shift in Trump administration attitudes towards Europe more broadly.

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In the meantime, I fear the most recent Minneapolis ICE shooting of Alex Pretti looks pretty rough:

Pretti is shot in the back only after he is disarmed – whether because of a misunderstanding among the officers after one of them shouts “gun” (around this time one of Pretti’s arms appears to bend towards his waistband), because the first shot you hear is a negligent or accidental discharge (perhaps of Pretti’s gun) that provoked all the other shots, or for some other reason. Kristi Noem, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, immediately issued a statement accusing Pretti of “domestic terrorism.” It would be vastly better, in cases like this, for administration officials simply to avoid all specific comments pending the ongoing investigation. As I said earlier, as long as these aggressive protests continue, there are going to be shootings.

Anyway, I await your thoughts in comments.