Footage of a man being detained by supposed ICE agents has gone viral and people are concerned that the individuals depicted in the clip aren’t actually immigration officers at all.
The clip was shared to Reddit on the r/PublicFreakout board and shows a Chinese man being pushed against a wall by people who appear to be putting him in restraints. The man is in clear distress as the group, who are all wearing face coverings, bundle him into a car.
It’s a pretty worrying video to say the least. The man looks pretty distressed and the people arresting him don’t exactly look like they belong to a government authority.
Was this even ICE? Or was it a random kidnapping?
People have speculated that this was the actions of ICE as the federal agency has been engaged in a lot more raids in the last few months. However, there isn’t anything in this video to prove that is the case. None of the people detaining the man are wearing identifiable uniforms that would prove they are working for ICE. On Reddit people expressed their concern that this was a kidnapping, plain and simple.
One individual wrote, “I see no badges, no reason to assume this was legal.” Another echoed the sentiment, writing, “No badge, so that’s kidnapping. Show a badge or people are gonna fight back.” The lack of identification from these people, coupled with the fact that they are covering their faces really doesn’t seem like something ICE would do. Another person on Reddit claimed that they were “bounty hunters,” although it’s not clear where they got such information from.
What happened to the man?
Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of information on who the man being kidnapped is. According to thenerdstash.com, the incident took place outside the front of the Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau. The man was speaking Chinese, possibly Mandarin according to one individual on Reddit. His words apparently translated to: “Jiu Ming! ICE! Save my life.”
Unfortunately the person filming was unable to help. It’s hard to blame them when they would have had no clue what was going on, whether this was ICE, or some sort of criminal organization kidnapping random civilians off the street, (on a side not, the fact that the line between a government authority and organized crime has become so blurred is a rather depressing fact).
While the man seems to think it’s ICE taking him away we have no way of knowing for sure. Even if it was ICE, it’s unlikely we’d ever know what they did with the man. It’s all quickly devolving into a messy situation in cities across the U.S. Redditors expressed concerns that kidnappers may take advantage of the confusion to snatch unsuspecting people off the street.
The government has somehow managed to normalize kidnapping in broad daylight and yet people will still defend the Trump administration and the president’s aggressive policies on immigration.
