Federal agent during violent DC arrest: “Liberals already ruined” this country

A delivery worker was tased, punched and kicked by multiple federal agents in the middle of the street outside a popular brunch spot in Northwest DC on Saturday morning, a video shared with The Handbasket shows. While customers sitting outside at the Logan Circle cafe munched on avocado smash and matcha pancakes, two and then an additional four masked agents beat the shit out of the man in broad daylight. This is America.

America's largest cities are currently under siege: Not by local gangs and rampant street crime, but by occupying law enforcement sent by the federal government. Strangers—mostly men, many with their faces covered—patrol neighborhoods by foot, car and even horse in search of problems, and this week the terror entered our nation’s capital. Agents from the FBI to the Secret Service and the immigration agencies of the Department of Homeland Security invaded our nation’s capitol this week. As of Thursday, the White House told TIME that more than 100 people had been arrested since Trump’s goon squad took over, claiming they were a result of warrants for various felonies and violations of immigration orders. On Wednesday night alone, 1,650 thugs occupied the city. 

During the agents’ violent attack on a delivery worker Saturday morning in DC, bystanders repeatedly demanded the agents share their badge numbers. One of them—his face fully obscured by a black balaklava—eventually shot back, “Do I have to answer to you?”

It was a moment as brazen as it was astonishing. We’ve long known that federal agencies operating under Trump consider themselves above or outside the law. But to hear it stated so confidently, so plainly, that the federal government does not have to answer to the people who pay their salaries was jarring.

“You guys are ruining this country. You know that, right?” one bystander said to the agents at one point during the incident. An agent, ironically clad in a rainbow face mask, replied “Liberals already ruined it.”

Again, brazen and astonishing. He’s saying the agents have no choice but to be doing because liberals provoked them with their crazy ideas about freedom and democracy. He’s admitting that he’s acting in a partisan capacity and has no reservations about saying so. His words drip in disdain for anyone who believes our current police state is anything but an atrocity. 

A response people like to lob when stuff like this is shared is, “are you surprised?” I expect this time will be no different, but I’d like to preemptively address it. 

There is a difference between being surprised and shocked. Is it surprising that Trump’s stormtroopers are acting with impunity? The past nine months have taught us no, of course not. But is it shocking to see a man—someone’s family member, someone’s friend, someone’s neighbor—being brutalized by agents who are fully aware they’re being watched and recorded? Yes. And I hope it remains shocking. There can be no day when this is normal. 

Earlier this week one of Trump’s jackbooted thugs found himself at the business end of a Subway sandwich. The ovular carbohydrate weapon traveled a short but mighty distance after it was hurled by a 37-year-old white man named Sean Dunn, hitting an FBI agent square in the chest before tumbling to the ground. It was the sandwich’s maiden, and—as far as we know—only voyage. (Dunn was later arrested on a felony assault charge by 20 or so agents, shown in a pathetic video posted to social media by the White House on Thursday. He has since been released.)

Meanwhile, Black and Brown residents of DC are bearing the brunt of the harassment, getting stopped for no reason with no recourse. “If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said this week.

In another video shared with me this week, a Black life-long DC resident is seen being hassled by a group of Secret Service and Custom and Border Protection agents who claimed he fit the description of a robbery suspect. Bystanders recorded the interaction, which thankfully ended with them declining to detain him. 

“Y’all try that shit again, I’m going to war with y’all,” the man yelled at the agents as they got in their cars. “I promise. On my life. On my mother’s soul.” The sad truth is that the federal government has already declared war on the people. 

With the ICE response in Los Angeles, the violent federal crackdown in DC, and the repeated depictions by right wing media of New York City and other blue state urban centers as dangerous hell holes, cities have been demonized in ways that aren’t just wildly racist, but wildly untrue. For every DHS post on X reminding white people to “remember your homeland’s heritage, there are millions of real Americans who live, work and play seamlessly—for the most part—within small spaces, fulfilling their wants, needs, and desires. City life is not perfect, but nothing is. City life is, however, wondrous in so many ways that are lost in the Call of Duty cosplay.

Last week on stage at the Netroots conference in New Orleans, I spoke with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) about ICE: specifically that she believes it should be abolished. It’s a stance that’s considered far left, but after witnessing ICE and other federal agents in DC this week, abolishing ICE should be the baseline Democratic position. 

“ICE is a terrorist organization,” Ramirez told me. “It needs to be defunded and needs to be abolished.”

In our conversation (which you can watch in full here) I pointed out that many people don’t know that ICE hasn’t always existed and that it was only established in 2003. “There are some members of Congress who apparently don't know that either,” Rep. Ramirez said.

Which brings us to this current moment where secret police are assaulting people on American streets for all the world to see and Democratic leadership is still not calling to burn it all down. Once upon a time, the Washington Post’s tagline was “Democracy dies in darkness.” Yet here we are, sun shining, cameras on, and democracy continues to wilt and wither. 

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