October 6, 2025 • 48 mins
Mia talks with Unraveled’s Raven about ICE’s horrific raids in Chicago from a traffic stop murder to helicopter apartment raids.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast where the
it is the authoritarian takeover of the city of Chicago.
I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today is an episode
that was significantly delayed by the fact that our guests
got shot in the face by riot munitions while attempting
to cover an anti ice protest and an ice facility,
and then her coworker was fucking grabbed by the FEDS
(00:29):
the next day, which she was also still out at
for reasons that are semi incomprehensible to me, because again,
she was just shot in the face. Since this is Raven,
a journalist with the independent outlet Unraveled, which really truly
is doing a lot of incredible work on the incredible
(00:50):
proliferation of ice raids around Chicago. Raven, Welcome to the show.
Oh boy, oh boy?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is right? Thanks for that intro. Yeah, we're in the
shit right now. We're in it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I guess it would immediately start this with you
are mostly you're basically okay from my understanding, from getting
shot in the face of the right munition like a
week ago.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I am. I am basically okay. I have like some
swelling still in my jaw. I'm going to the doctor.
We'll see like if there's any soft tissue like lingering
effects later on down the line. But nothing's broken.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, which, thank god, holy shit, thank god that I
can really fuck you up permanently.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Like yeah, I mean it's been several weeks now of
the fence just pummeling people with these stupid little pepper
ball rounds yep, and like the core of it is
like metal, you know, it's like this little bullet thing
with like the pepper powder on the outside. So if
you shoot someone in the face with those, I mean,
like we've seen horrific injuries these last few weeks, and
(02:01):
also like people getting concussions from like you know, sear
gas canisters exploding right by their heads and other things,
broken bones from these really violent arrests, and yeah, it's
just been awful. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I was shot at,
like literally, I was like taking a photo of a
(02:22):
fed like an oppressed gaggle. We were all hiding behind
this van while we're just like being shot at. And
this guy, I mean he stared right at me and
like right down the barrel of my lens, like he
knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, another reporter. It was like a similar situation where
these guys like fucking ambushed them. Like it was just
two reporters like hiding behind a van, and these guys
came up along the side of the fence and just
started like shooting them in the face with these rounds.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah. So, and this has been at the protests at
the ICE facility in Broadview. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Broby is like just a tiny little suburb, like just
outside of Chicago. It's Stilling Cook County, majority black suburb,
actually black working class, the mayors of Black woman And
now this ICE facility has been there for a while. Obviously,
people were protesting there weekly for like over a decade,
but nothing like what we've seen these last few weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah. Okay, let's go back in time a little bit,
because in between the last time we spoke to you
and now there has been so much unbelievably horrible stuff
in Chicago. I guess let's go back a couple of
weeks and talk about the guy they murdered.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, so, shortly after this latest ice surge began, they
sailed a man at a traffic stop. Two ICE agents
who were seemingly operating completely alone, didn't seem to have
any backup with them. It was just these two guys
in this car who jumped down on the sky. And yeah,
(04:04):
it feels it feels like forever ago, but of course
it was only a few weeks ago. Yeah, and you know,
that's that's an example of just like a police killing
that we may never learn more about because you know,
it involves the FEDS, right, you know, there's no timeline
under which they have to release any information or like
(04:26):
tell us anything about their their own investigation into it. Yeah,
so that is of course really horrifying and horrifying to
know there's kind of these these missing few seconds of
video right where we don't see the actual shot fired yep,
or shots excuse me. We can sort of piece together
(04:46):
what happened, but you know, this happened in a working
class Latino suburb, heavily Latino suburb, not not very far
down the road from the actual ice.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Facility, because you were say, part of what's really frustrating
about this is we can't tell you why they stopped this person, right,
because they won't tell us, right, We know very little
about this other than they stopped the guy. He tried
to drive away and they shot him. That's like that's
all we know effectively, right.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I mean they claim he had some traffic violations, which
is true, but I mean, like who doesn't.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, Like, I don't know. If we're shooting people for
traffic violation, this country is going to have like ten
people in it by the end of it.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Like, yeah, he wasn't suspected of any like crime.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
No.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I believe that it was just opportunistic, yeah, that they
were just looking for an easy target, and these guys
were acting like cowboys, I mean, like just doing this
jump out by themselves. And and also to be clear,
I mean like when they say he drove away from them,
I mean some of the video that we do have
it shows him slowly reversing backwards away from them. It's
(05:56):
not like he just drove over the agents.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
No no, no no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Which is was of course their initial narrative that he
like hit one of them with his car and all
this stuff that of course turned out to be false.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah. And it's also frustrating too because you know, in
the app well, I would say in the absence of
better information, but it's the media. They will just straight
up print you know, no matter just how unbelievably absurd
the lies are, they will just straight up print Department
of Homeland Security press releases as if they have anything
to do with reality whatsoever. Even as it becomes increasingly clear,
(06:33):
even more of an it's ever been, that you simply
cannot rely on police press reports to understand what happened
in the situation. People will just keep printing that. And
so that's the first that's the version of the story
that goes out first, which is what everyone sees. Yeah,
and they don't see the video where it's very clearly
not what happened.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yep. It is a maddening situation. So yeah, I mean,
like that happened. And then almost immediately and like concurrently,
of course, all of this other ice activity started ramping up. Yeah,
and then around a week and a half ago, Bovino
showed up and Border Patrol showed up, And now it's
(07:14):
amped up even further because they're even worse than our
regular ice guys.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Bovino and the Border Patrol people, those are the people
who seem to have been pulled out of Los Angeles
and deployed the Chicago.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, Bovino moved this sort of larger border patrol operation
here to Chicago. So there are border patrol units here
from you know, Arizona, from California, different places, and they've
been doing sort of a combination of like just strictly
(07:46):
cornyass propaganda ops, you know, like driving around on their
boats for photos, combined with like actual terrors, like a
few nights ago, hundreds of Feds rating an entire apartment
building of people in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, and I think we'll get to that rate in
a second, because it was unbelievable, sort of gruesome and horrible.
But yeah, I wanted to talk to you just about
sort of what the general sort of ICE operations and
then the border patrol operations have looked like in the
city and what it's been like being in a place
where there's just guys in mass dragging people off the street.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
It kind of feels like streaming underwater and no one
can hear you. Yeah, just sort of witnessing this every day.
And it is still highly dispersed, right like Chicago and
the metro area and the suburban counties where this is happening.
It's a huge, huge area. So, like we talked about
(08:45):
last time, it's a real challenge to focus people's attention
on because it can appear like the waters are calm
like where you live, you know, like they're doing any
of these very fast strike teams and this very dispersed way,
so by the time you even hear about it, they're
already gone. So many cars abandoned on the side of
(09:06):
the road. Was like windows smashed out Jesus Christ, like landscapers,
work bands and stuff. You know, like people are just
rapid responders are just getting to sites where someone's reported
something happening, and all they find is like a busted
out card and then they have to piece together like
potentially what happened. And additionally, the broad view so like
(09:30):
this ice facility where people are protesting regularly. You know,
it's not set up to be a permanent detention center.
It's just supposed to be like a temporary stopping point
because Illinois doesn't have overnight immigration detention. So additionally, there
are like so many extra people crammed into this facility
(09:52):
that wasn't designed to hold them. Yeah, and of course
the conditions are horrible, you know, like they don't have privacy,
they don't have enough bath rooms, they're not getting fed,
they're not getting medication, you know, like after the kidnappings,
after the disappearances, then there's this pipeline of detention horrors
that people are enduring. So this is this is why
(10:12):
people are protesting, you know. I mean, this is why
people are out there yelling at the fence. Because the
people who are who are brave enough to go out
there and yell at the fence or to take the
pepper balls or what have you, they they are in agony.
They're aware of what's happening. They're witnessing all of this
and feeling like this needs to stop. And there are
(10:33):
a lot of people hiding in their homes. Yeah, you know,
like like it it's true, Like I don't always want
to make like Holocaust comparisons because I feel like that
that's what we always go to. But I mean, like
that's the most apt comparison that becomes to most people's mind.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
They think of like and frankiding in your attic, like
those kinds of things, and it's like that is literally
where we are at right now. People are literally in
hiding because they are worried that if they go to
Sam's Club, they will be cannapped by secret police.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah. I think the behavior that they've been exhibiting against
the protesters too, has been very, very similar to what
they've been doing to the people that they're grabbing off
the street. I want to talk to you a bit
about like what it's been like dealing with the way
that the Feds have been attacking the protesters constantly.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, well, these guys are fucking monsters. Yeah, I'm trying
to thread this needle for people of like, all policing
is bad, right, Like all policing is violent, All cops
are violent, But there is something different happening here as
a result of the fact that there is literally zero accountability.
(11:49):
And I'm not suggesting that like police accountability isn't a sham,
because in general it kind of is. But I think, like,
you know, when you take away every single guardrail, these
guys don't have to identify themselves and they don't have
to answer to anyone. Yeah, their bosses aren't going to
write them up. You know. It's it's kind of like
(12:09):
with any other job, right, you know, take a city
cop here in Chicago. Of course, it's rare that any
of them ever actually get fired for the horrible shit
they do. But you know there's this sort of base
level of knowing, like well, I got to show up
to work every day with my name on my vest,
and I also have like all these other bosses and
(12:30):
all these other people who are gonna, like, you know,
maybe make my day harder if I like really fuck
something up, right, And so when we're talking about the FEDS,
there's just nothing. There's just nothing there. They can literally
do whatever they want on top of like just not
having the same level of like quote law enforcement training.
(12:53):
I mean, we've been watching these guys for weeks like
fucking hurt themselves with their papper ball guns like they live.
I really are like dropping shit as they're on the process,
like like watching people have made like call of duty comparisons,
like prowdboy comparisons, and like it is kind of like that.
It's like if you just gave a bunch of chuds,
(13:14):
a bunch of like military and police care and we're like,
all right, go out and like pretend to be a cop.
And that's like literally what it feels like. And so
I'm trying to spread this deal for people of like yeah,
all cops suck, but like what's going on with this
is like so much worse. Like they're just out there
like shooting at people randomly, like and you know, for
(13:36):
no reason. Like it is just one of the craziest
things I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, And I also I want to put this into perspectives,
like you have also covered a lot of protests in
the city.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, I've covered a lot of cop violence. I've been
to a lot of protests, I mean hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds at this point, right, Yeah, And there's just
certain like things that you're used to seeing and certain
there's a certain predictability sometimes to like a lot of
them movement. And what's interesting too, is like in some
ways they are actually more militarized, just in terms of
(14:07):
like their riot formations and like how tightly coordinated their
units are because they practice and they train for like
crowd control stuff all the time. And then you have
these just like ice chuds running around with like way
more gear and they look way scarier, but they're like
way less organized and way more chaotic, and there's not
(14:27):
enough of them, right, so like they're not even like
doing a good job of like backing each other up,
you know, like in the field, like I'm just watching
them like leave their own backs unwatched and you know,
doing things that are like dangerous for them, Like they
want to act like a military unit, but they're like
definitely not.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's I mean, people have made the comparison of like
crowd boys, which I think I don't know, it kind
of works in a sense like street fighters because what
they're acting like, you know, yeah, it's just it's just
been super violent, super awful. Chicago does not have really
any experience with like these just FEDS in general, like
(15:09):
to this level. I know that out in Portland for
years now, like there have been various protests outside of
the ICE or something like, there's just there's been like
a lot more a lot more FED presence out in Portland, Seattle. Yeah,
throughout the past few years of protests, I've seen you know,
people interact with them, and we just we've had nothing
like that here. So this is also like very unprecedented
(15:33):
like for this region.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, because usually CPD is like brutal enough that they
don't you don't end up with like yeah, federal deployments
and now it's like oh boy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Well and also keep in mind this is all happening
in broad View, so like they don't even have I
mean there's been there's been tensions and arguments and discussions
around what's happening with their local police department and just
sort of the interface here too, because it's like this
tiny little police department is now having to sort of
(16:04):
manage what's going on with this ICE facility, and they're
not directly like assisting ICE with croud control, but they
are like basically setting up a perimeter around the area, right,
and so then like there guys are getting to your
gas and like complaining about it.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, was it brought to you the police chief, who
like finally was like, oh holy shit, I've never been
treated this racistly by a police officer before. I was like,
oh my fucking god, Like yeah, you're just now realizing
that you're the baddie, Like when it finally like happens
to you, like.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Come on, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
He he went on on like ABC or whatever and
was just did hit this whole interview about like, well,
ICE is disrespecting me as the police chief, and it's
just like like what did you expect?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Yeah, man, you signed up for the racist organization and
you were like, ah, yeah, I'm in charge of my
local by local chapter of the Racist Association, so it'll
never happen to be like, oh shit, you mean there's
other people who are higher up in.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
The racism police, Like.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
God, yeah. So that's been that's just been like a
weird side story to this of kind of like the
mayor and the police chief and the fire chief are
not thrilled about what's going on, and they're like looking
into the legality quote of the fence that isis put
up just like across this street that goes past their facility,
(17:30):
which is in this kind of like tucked away sort
of industrial park thing. But there are homes like right
on the other side, and you know, they've just blocked
off this entire street and there's like a business on
the other side. You know, it's like obviously a huge
fire hazard to just like block a whole road like that.
They didn't ask permission to like put this up, not
(17:51):
to mention a hazard for the people in the detention center,
which is now boarded up and has this huge fence
across the street. It's like, oh my god, if there's
a fire or like an emergency and they needed to
evacuate the people inside. Yeah, I mean, like obviously people
would die.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It's this incredible mix of both blatant disregard for the
safety of anyone involved and also just wanting to hurt people.
And it's it's this incredible fusion of they are both
incompetent and malicious, which is yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right, which is not a great combination.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
No, let's talk about this raid in South Shore. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, you know, we don't have a we don't have
a ton of details on the true extent of this
because it happened at one in the morning. So two
nights ago, hundreds and hundreds of federal agents showed up
to an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood, which
is a predominantly black neighborhood where a number of newly
(19:03):
arrived migrants settled because there's cheap housing there. Yeah, so
when Governor Abbott started busting people here a few years ago,
that is one place where you know, a number of
people found housing. And unfortunately also too, there's like a
lot of slum lords down that way.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, cheap housing means shit in Chicago. Yeah, of course, Okay,
I uee tents organizing that shity. I have seen shit that,
Like I have seen people sewage like running out of
their bathtubs. I have seen I have seen places with
no electric like literally no electricity, no lights, no running water,
like actually literally like frozen solid in the winter and
no one can contact the landlord. And those were in
(19:42):
parts of the city that were like not even that
badly off. The apartment that I had there almost fucking
killed me from dust inhalation, and like that's like that's
like a like a normal cheap apartment. It gets so
much fucking worse. The pictures from like in side of
the apartment, not even just the parts were like, yeah,
(20:03):
the doors are blown off. It's like these apartments fucking
sucked because they're run by they're run by fucking slanlords.
And yeah, like the housing situation in Chicago, so much
of it is so shit is never going to get
repaired because these landlords don't give a shit because they
can just keep a distracting money from it because you know,
one can go anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And yeah, yeah, I mean these people were living in
really bad conditions. I've heard that like a lot of
people were like scrippled, quadrupled up in units. You know,
I don't. I don't know what it looked like before
it was rated. Yeah, but it's like virtually empty now.
I mean like there there were some and to be clear,
(20:44):
like what happened to back up a little bit, you know,
they hundreds and hundreds of FEDS showed up with this
building in the middle of the night and reportedly detained
everyone in the building. So there were like, yeah, you know,
people in the building who aren't immigrants, like black people
who live in the neighborhood. You know. There was one
woman being interviewed on broadcast who's like an older black woman,
(21:06):
you know, who was just like, yeah, I was like
detained by the FBI, you know, like in the middle
of the night, like asking me if I'm a citizen.
You know, Like, it's just absolutely fucking wild that this happened.
Also as of today, granted this might change by the
time your podcast is.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Out, importantly, So we're recording this the night of Wednesday,
October first. Who fucking knows what we'll have learned about
this or what will happen in between this and when
it comes out probably Monday, probably there will be new horrors.
If you've heard about like the horrors in Chicago, and
it's not in this episode. It's probably because it happened
(21:42):
after we recorded. Things are happening at a terrible rate.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, So as of today, Wednesday, October first, I could
not find a story on the sun Times or the
Tribune website about this raid. And I think, yeah, of course,
a lot of people want to indict mainstream media for
not covering things, which like is fair sometimes. Don't get
me wrong, They've been trying. Things are happening so fast now,
(22:07):
and there are so many horrible things happening every day
that like no news room can keep up.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Alert red alert. They did finally get a story up
five minutes ago, so mid I checked the book. They
got one up. They got one up.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Is the tribute the.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Suntimes sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Okay, okay, well it only took them two days. Okay, sure,
I haven't read it yet. Maybe maybe it's a good story.
I don't know, maybe they went really in depth.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's not terrible. Yeah, it doesn't actually seem I mean,
it's pretty long. I mean I'm going I'm gonna read
one quote from it to get people and understand. This is,
like I actually think is pretty representative of like the
Independent media covers that I've read of it aren't federal
agents and military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women,
and children from their apartment some naked residents. Witnesses said,
(22:54):
that is the thing I've seen in everything report about this,
is that a bunch of people just literally didn't have
clothes on because they were drag out of their bed.
They were like fucking naked children, like naked, like people
holding naked babies being pulled out of their fucking apartments
Like Jesus fucking Christ God.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And this was like such a huge number of beds
that like the buses were rerouted around the scene. I mean,
like there's questions. There's questions right now over like the
level of CPD involvement in like protecting the scene. And
this was not just ice. There were a ton of
FBI and a ton of ATF.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, yeah, which you know, it's like, okay, what what
what is the FBI doing right now? They are fucking
dragging naked children out of their fucking homes, like out
of their fucking apartment at one in the fucking morning.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, and they were they were in in fucking moving
vans like Patriot front, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, fucking horrible. I mean, like I got I over
seeing a statement where it was like they were denying
that they had loaded any immigrants into moving vans.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, which like maybe that's I don't know, maybe only
the FBI. Yeah, beautiful malls.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Like I don't know. Yeah, I'm also just like haunted
by like what other reports that I saw where they
were talking about like they separated all of the black
people into like one van and all of the non
black people to another one, And it was just like,
oh God, like these people. There's another thing. I think
this is in the story that you that you wrote
about this or they literally like a fed literally said
(24:25):
fuck them kids.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Oh my god, I don't I deuinitely didn't write that,
but I believe that someone said it.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah it was Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I believe it. I'm I'm I mean, I'm glad to
hear that. Five minutes ago the Sun Times covered it.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You know, Yeah, they finally got around to it. Yeah,
good for them.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
To be clear, like they probably interviewed a lot more
people than we had capacity to. You know, it's been
obviously a huge challenge to even cover all this stuff,
like as this tiny random weirdo ass news outlet, like yeah,
and we're still figuring out as we go, but yeah,
I mean this this I am still it has done
(25:06):
two days and I am like still trying to wrap
my hat around this raid, this specific raid, because it's just, yeah,
so horrific that this happened. And of course, like the timing,
like they knew what they were doing by timing it
in the middle of the night. Of course.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, I'm gonna fucking ref the Times article because I've
just been reading it while you've been doing it, Like Watson,
this is someny. Lists across the street said she saw
agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without
any clothes and into HU haul vans. Kids were separated
from their mothers. It was heartbreaking to watch, said Watson,
even if you're not a mother, seeing kids come out
buck naked and taking from their mothers. It was horrible.
(25:46):
They're literally ripping kids from their fucking mothers at one
in the morning and throwing it apparently allegedly throwing them
at U haul vans.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Like, yeah, I mean, this is like psycho shit. The
last three weeks, four weeks has just spent a gradual
progression of like the most evil shit you've ever seen
in your life. I don't even know what to say
about it anymore, honestly, because it feels like it feels
like our only way of grappling with things like this
is by making comparisons to other things. And I don't
(26:16):
know that that is really helping anybody right now. But
you know, it's it's it's ethnic cleansing, it's genocide. It's
like literally I was just saying earlier today when like
when you drill down to it, like they're disappearing like
vast majority Latino men are there are some women. It's
not only men, but like they are definitely targeting like
(26:36):
mostly Latita men, and like these are people who are
migrating here from Central America who are like if you
look at their lineage, mostly like indigenous to this fucking
continent on like white people. You know, it's just an
extension of like the American project, like of the white
nationalist like extermination of the people indigenous to the AMAS.
(27:00):
Like that is literally what's happening like right now. So yeah,
it does not feel like I don't know, like like
enough people get it to the level that they should.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, well, and that's I think. Like one other thing
I wanted to talk to you about was like the
way the press bubble has worked around this, where again,
the fact that federal agents dragged naked children from their
homes at one in the morning in the third largest
(27:32):
city in the United States, that is a story that
is hitting the mainstream Chicago press today two days later,
and I think the only national coverage of it that
I've seen are from people who are basically like repeating
the scoop that was given to this, like unhinged UFO outlet.
(27:56):
Who were the people that got the exclusive Oh yeah,
right into this yet Oh oh god, no idea what
hold on? Hold on? Let me let me god fuck Okay,
I'm very excited to tell you about this is so unhitched.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I saw like the propaganda video that they made about it.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah. So the group that got like the exclusive like
press release thing from the Feds, which is basically being
like reprinted by Newsweek, who are just a joke at
this point, Like their description of it is like a
federal agent's repelled from black cop helicopters and the rooftop
Chicago residential buildings targeting trend to Agua gang members, according
to news Nation, and I was like, what the fuck
(28:31):
is news Nation? Like, I've I have a pretty good
grasp on like all of the weird right wing news outlets,
I'd never heard of this one. I looked them up
at the first like, big thing that I saw about
them was that, well, ay, they are the people. They're
the person that Chris Cuomo went to after he was
like publicly disgraced as a journalist. And the second thing
I saw about them was that their big thing is
that they like quote unquote take UFOs seriously, and these
(28:54):
are the people who were given like the exclusive scoop
on this is like the UFO outlet.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That is so funny. That is when I watched the
propaganda video that we were watching about it, Yeah it
was News Nation. I just thought it was like, I
don't know, some right wing outlet like any other.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
That's why I thought too that looked at it, and
like the Wikipedia article was like just when there's a
section titled UFOs, I was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Great? Great? I didn't know about the UFO connection. I
mean I saw them. I saw their reporters like actually
at the protests, like interviewing like the one guy in
a maga hat who showed up to counter protests, Like,
of course that's who they interview.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So that's good to know that they are UFO weirdos.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Rehem approved of approved media outlet, the UFO guys.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Oh, I mean, the the the official like like DHS
line on this entire thing is that trend Aragua was this,
Like this entire apartment building was a trend dea Arragua.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I don't just like no, it wasn't like like.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
It's literally just the same fucking thing that Israel does
about hamas right when they're like, oh, yeah, this hospital
that we're.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Bombing, Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
There's hamasoles underneath. I mean, it's like the exact same shit.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah. The connection you made earlier to this functioning as
an extension of like the genocide that founded this country.
I think it might have been Hannah or want okay,
I want to attribute this to her at Hannah w Rent,
which is like it's kind of a mess because of her.
Don't do not ever look up Hannah rent stuff on segregation,
(30:39):
or actually maybe do if you want to see the
worst argument you've ever seen in your life, where like
famed intellectual Hannah or Rent says that segregation is like
a defining quality of like a free society.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Oh no, I'm not like a super expert on Hannah Rent,
but I definitely did not know that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So oh yeah, no that people. People don't.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
I'll say this, Waite, people do not be bringing that
shit up. Everyone else is like, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
God, holy shit. You were like a major subagregation, like
intellectual who got brought out to be like segregation is
actually good, nose is free association. But I think it
might have been her, It might have been someone else.
I've been trying to look for who had this idea,
and I haven't been able to find who it was.
And I vaguely remember being a Rent, But fuck her.
(31:29):
This is a little bit A very long while. Up
was saying, like, there's an idea that I ran into
back when I was in my sort of like days
in the academy about the way that societies reflect their
founding violence. And you know, the sort of like the
founding violence of the United States is the genocide vidicious
people and slavery, and you look at what they're doing
(31:52):
right now, You're just watching sort of in miniature that
violence just being replicated over and over again, where like
you're tearing fucking mothers from their children in the dead
of night, and it's the same people, right, Like this
is an apartment building where almost everyone is black, and
(32:14):
the people who aren't black are immigrants, right and obviously
like some of them are both, but like you know,
but like you're just like watching the founding violence of
this country just being played out over and over and
over again every night. And it's this thing where like
I don't think on a fundamental level that this thing
(32:34):
that we've built, this sort of like this conception of
what democracy is, like this conception of what the state is,
this conception of like what this country is is going
to survive this moment. Either it's going to change completely
or the part of it that was nominally a democracy
is going to be consumed by the part of it
that's just doing this genocide over and over again. I
(32:56):
don't know. I quote this song a Lot Song of Choice,
Peggy Seeger. That's about the rise of fascism that I
think about a lot that has like one of one
of the lines is today the soldiers took away one,
Tomorrow they may take away two one April they took
away Greece, but surely they will never take you. And yeah,
(33:18):
they're just fucking taking people away in the night, right now,
Like that's that's the stage of this where we're at.
And either something fundamentally changes or right, you know, like
that the end of that song is either like they
take you or at the end they don't take you
because they know you didn't care, right.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
And I mean, look, I've been I've been covering civil
conflict and violence, you know, like more or less for
the last five years. Right, I was at January sixth,
like literally in the middle of the mob. I've seen
a lot of shit.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Reporting on it.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Make this very clear, reporting on it.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Clear why I was there. I was not part although
my FASCI stalkers might insist I was part of like
an antipa conspiracy to right, But but you know, I've
seen a lot of shit the last five years, obviously,
(34:18):
and I think this particular moment feels like, yeah, like
we're kind of you know, like we're a marble at
the top of like a spiral, and it's like either
we're going to keep rolling down or or somebody like
jams it or takes the marble off, you know, like
there's just this is a this is a spiral, Like
(34:39):
there are so many factors that are going to contribute
to this getting worse if we do not significantly alter course.
And I think, you know, this feeling that we have
locally of like we're screaming underwater and nobody can hear us.
I'm sure is share a sentiment that is shared in LA,
that is shared in DC, that is Sheridan. Yeah, all
(35:02):
of these cities all over where ICE is doing similar shit.
It can make us really angry. I mean, I've been
really angry at times in the last month about the
lack of like attention whatever. But then I think about
how everyone is overwhelmed because there's so much horrible shit
happening every day on so many places, Like we just
(35:24):
can't keep up anymore, Like none of us can keep up.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, Like I mean, like I'm in Portland right now,
and like it's my job to keep track of this,
and I can't tell you at this exact second whether
a federal diploma to Portland is honor off. I think
it's currently off. But also by the time you're listening
to this, who the fuck knows? And like yeah, like right,
I don't know. There's an Android line about how it's
(35:48):
easier to hide a thousand atrocities and it is to
hide one because you can just keep ramping the tempo
up exactly.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
I don't know. I'm not a historian. I'm just a journalist,
so maybe you would know better than me. But I
feel like we are literally already in a civil war.
We just don't know it yet, or like we're waiting
for like some specific thing to like prove it, you know,
like I don't, I don't know. I think generally nobody
knows until it's like already, you're already in it. To me,
(36:29):
it feels like we're in it yea. But I also
wonder if that's just the cognitive effect of like us
being here literally in it because so much is going on,
and then thinking like, well, if the ice surge subsides
two months from now, is it going to still feel
this way? I don't know. I mean, to me, it
feels like we've got several more years of the Trump
(36:52):
regime at least if we look at this in the
sense of like, well, they're escalating, and then also this
is going to keep going for over more years. Yeah,
that's a terrifying concept. Yeah, where do we go from
here if it's just gonna like get even worse?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, And I don't know. I think I've been there
a lot recently.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
It's the thing I've been telling listeners of this show
is that, like the upside of all of this is
that everyone hates them. Yeah, oh yeah, Like their proof
of ratings are so bad. Everyone fucking hates them, and
all of this stuff is hideously unpopular. And the giant
economic collapse that is very obviously going to happen when
the giant AI bubble that is like that is like
(37:36):
a third of the US's GDP pops what it inevitably
does because it doesn't make any money. They're doing all
of this in a situation where the economy still appears
to be functioning, and when that shit implodes on them,
shit is going to be even worse for them than
it is now. But also, like, on the other hand,
(37:56):
unless people do things about it, then it doesn't really
matter how popular or not they are as long as
no one is willing to stop them. And I guess
that's like the last thing I kind of want to
close on is about like, can you talk a little
bit about like what you've seen organizing wise that you
can talk about that have been effective.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, I think people here are still figuring it out
these protests outside of the ice facility. You know, there
has been a lot of autonomous organizing. Chicago does not
have the same entrenched autonomous organizing culture that you see
in like Portland or Seattle for like a ton of reasons, yeah,
(38:39):
which are like beyond the scope of this episode in
one series of the history the history of organizing in Chicago,
and like how we're in this specific moment. You know,
it's important to remember, like this is a city where
like the FBI murdered Fred Hampton, Right, it is bad.
So there's a lot of tension between organizing factions about
(39:01):
how they want things done, and a lot of it
is fear driven for a good reason, because people are terrified,
and yeah, they're still figuring stuff out. I mean, I
think for lack of a better firm. Last Saturday, people
got their shit rocked by border patrol. You know, they
were so violent, they were so aggressive, they were just
so out of hand, just like immediately too, I mean
(39:23):
it was just like zero to sixty instantly, like there
was just a Saturday we saw them just immediately tear
gas and shoot at people over nothing, like nobody was
doing anything and they just assaulted the crowd with like
the most tear gas I've ever seen in my life.
So I think folks were definitely underprepared for that. But
(39:47):
that doesn't mean that it's like insurmountable to resist something
like that. I think there are questions surrounding the best
way to protest this specific building because of the location,
and it's tough because it's not in Chicago. It's hard
to get to for some people.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
But I don't want to I don't want to write
anybody off. I mean, I think people are just still
figuring things out, like it's it's ice is adapting, border
patrols adapting, and so then organizers also have to adapt,
like it's like this tennis match, right yeah, yeah, And
so you know, we are also very much here. Our
activists are not used to like a huge and our
(40:25):
press also by extension, are not used to like a
huge amount of chemical weapons.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Chicargo doesn't use tear gas like historically, like they just
beat people right or like shooting with right munitions, like
they don't tear gas, and I think I was literally
always told, like growing up in the city as an activist,
was like, if they start using tear gas, they're once
its way from shooting you, right, And they finally did
it in twenty twenty, which is the first time I
anyone had seen it in like decades, right, And the
fact that like they're just doing it all the time now,
(40:51):
like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Well, the Feds, I mean we saw this in la
like at the beginning of this summer, where like Border
pat Role specifically just has this enormous amount of chemical
weapons that they like I don't know, maybe maybe they're
going to expire soon and they have to use them all.
Like like I don't know, I don't know what the
(41:13):
rationale there is other than just being evil. Yeah, but
it's like literally their first voice of like they're just
I mean, they're fucking enjoying it. They're fucking enjoying it.
They're enjoying yeah, shooting at people to your gassing them
playing g.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I Joe Like yeah, I mean, I will say it
does also raise the question, like how much of this
stuff do they actually have, because like twenty twenty they
went through decades of stockpiles, right, right, And like this
is the thing that, like, I don't know, someone who
has a lot of time and as an investigative journalist
should try to go track down how much of the
countries tear gas supplies they've been able to replenish, because
(41:50):
they used a lot of it on us in twenty twenty.
And like, I mean, this is I don't know if
it is famous. I guess bicycles. It's kind of a
famous story that one of the one of the South
Korean military dictatorships was taken down by a student like
protest movement that calculated exactly how much tear gas the
police had and did this thing where they would do
(42:10):
these marches where they would a whole bunch of people
would show up and the police start characterizing them, and
they would just slowly keep her treating and keep her
treating until they ran the state out of tear gas.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
I mean, I know, I hope to see that level
of strategy in America.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, law, Like, you know, like nothing, nothing, nothing is
impossible with the power of really really pissed off students.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what
the I'm not familiar with the manufacturing process for these
kind of like how long does it take the like
replenish and where do they source it?
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeap, this is this is one hundred percent a Hey,
I know a bunch of journalists listened to this podcast.
If what if you wants to go do this, you
would be doing a great service to everyone in this country.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Like, right, I'm like assuming that it's not made in
the United States and they're like importing these things a hu.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Huge amount of American American tear guests ends up like
all over the world because we're one of the big
suppliers of it.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Okay, well, then I was mistaken. The popper ball gun
dispenser company apparently is based in Lake Forest, so it's
actually local.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, since you're kind of oh well.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's just like a glorified paintball gun basically.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah. The thing I've been getting from listening to you
talk about this and from talking to other people is
that like, both part of what's making this so horrible
and also maybe where they fail is that these people
don't know what they're doing. They just like violence, right,
and liking violence and being willing to hurt people is
(43:59):
a very effective short term strategy for causing violence, right,
but it remains to be seen whether it's an effective
long term strategy for like holding power and accomplishing their goals.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. It feels
like it feels like there their operation is brittle, like
it wouldn't take a lot to like impede it. But
because they are so violent and so out of hand,
that just like the slightest resistance, it's still really challenging
to figure out. I mean, and to your point earlier
(44:31):
about everybody hating them, I mean, that is palpable.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I have heard the anger and the rage pouring out
of people at these guys, you know, like, of course
it's palpable how much people hate them, how much what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Of course they're struggling to hire. Of course they're all
wearing masks because they're fucking terrified they're going to be docs,
you know, like they know that they're hated. But that's
also a double edged short because I think knowing that
every but he hates you anyway, well, that's just also
sometimes going to make you even more violent because you
don't care anymore.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, and I mean I think the traditional social movement
gambit has been like the more people can see how
violent they are, the more people will go out to
resist them. And I think right now we're in this
scenario where because of the sort of media blackout and
like the media bubble that's been put around this, it
just hasn't been getting out the things that they've been doing.
(45:29):
And I think that is also a thing that you
random listener can do things about in terms of like, hey,
tell people you know that, like, yeah, there's like a
thing a federal occupation of a city and they're like
dragging naked children screaming from their homes, like tearing them
away from their parents. Like that's a thing that you
(45:51):
can like, that's the thing you could directly do. That
is a very very low lift.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, and also countering this like national guard misdirection thing
that is just like constantly going on where it's like
every fucking two days, Trump and Pritzburgh are arguing about
you know, one hundred troops coming to town who are
essentially just infrastructure for ice. They might block some roads,
but like they're not the main threat.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, yeah, do you have anything else that you want
to tell people? And then also where can people find
and support your work as you go hopefully not get
shot again.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Well, I've resigned myself to the fact that I get
shot again. But they can find us.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
At Unraveled on all the social platforms, you know, Unraveled,
press dot com. And I think the only other thing
I want to say is, you know, as bleak as
this episode sounded, we do have to keep the fighting
spirit alive and not just like yeah, resign ourselves to
total dumerism. We have the moral high grounds, like we
(47:00):
are doing the right thing and they are not.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, and we can win this.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I want to close on the story that came to
mind when you said that, which was the story of
the liberation of Turin in World War two, where Turin
was like, you know, like one of the great industrial
cities of Italy and it's directly under the occupation of
the Nazis. By the end of the war and ahead
of the Allied advanced the city plans and uprising, and
(47:28):
the SS commander who is running the city explicitly tells them,
if you like, if you do this, we will turn
this into another warsaw And they do it anyways, and
they beat them. All of these factory workers who had
had guns smuggled in successfully do an uprising and defeat
like an SS panzer division and just kick the shit
out of them and liberate Turin. And you know, those
(47:50):
were people facing odds that were so much worse than
the ones they were facing today. They were facing a
straight up military occupation by the SS, and they beat them,
and they've read themselves. And you know, history is replete
with dictators who thought that their occupations would last forever,
until one day the Americans were withdrawing from Iraq, and
(48:14):
the only thing that's eternal is their fear of the uprising,
the will one day destroy them.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Thanks for listening.
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to it could Happen here, a podcast where the
it is the authoritarian takeover of the city of Chicago.
I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today is an episode
that was significantly delayed by the fact that our guests
got shot in the face by riot munitions while attempting
to cover an anti ice protest and an ice facility,
and then her coworker was fucking grabbed by the FEDS
(00:29):
the next day, which she was also still out at
for reasons that are semi incomprehensible to me, because again,
she was just shot in the face. Since this is Raven,
a journalist with the independent outlet Unraveled, which really truly
is doing a lot of incredible work on the incredible
(00:50):
proliferation of ice raids around Chicago. Raven, Welcome to the show.
Oh boy, oh boy?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is right? Thanks for that intro. Yeah, we're in the
shit right now. We're in it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I guess it would immediately start this with you
are mostly you're basically okay from my understanding, from getting
shot in the face of the right munition like a
week ago.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I am. I am basically okay. I have like some
swelling still in my jaw. I'm going to the doctor.
We'll see like if there's any soft tissue like lingering
effects later on down the line. But nothing's broken.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, which, thank god, holy shit, thank god that I
can really fuck you up permanently.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Like yeah, I mean it's been several weeks now of
the fence just pummeling people with these stupid little pepper
ball rounds yep, and like the core of it is
like metal, you know, it's like this little bullet thing
with like the pepper powder on the outside. So if
you shoot someone in the face with those, I mean,
like we've seen horrific injuries these last few weeks, and
(02:01):
also like people getting concussions from like you know, sear
gas canisters exploding right by their heads and other things,
broken bones from these really violent arrests, and yeah, it's
just been awful. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I was shot at,
like literally, I was like taking a photo of a
(02:22):
fed like an oppressed gaggle. We were all hiding behind
this van while we're just like being shot at. And
this guy, I mean he stared right at me and
like right down the barrel of my lens, like he
knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, another reporter. It was like a similar situation where
these guys like fucking ambushed them. Like it was just
two reporters like hiding behind a van, and these guys
came up along the side of the fence and just
started like shooting them in the face with these rounds.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah. So, and this has been at the protests at
the ICE facility in Broadview. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Broby is like just a tiny little suburb, like just
outside of Chicago. It's Stilling Cook County, majority black suburb,
actually black working class, the mayors of Black woman And
now this ICE facility has been there for a while. Obviously,
people were protesting there weekly for like over a decade,
but nothing like what we've seen these last few weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah. Okay, let's go back in time a little bit,
because in between the last time we spoke to you
and now there has been so much unbelievably horrible stuff
in Chicago. I guess let's go back a couple of
weeks and talk about the guy they murdered.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, so, shortly after this latest ice surge began, they
sailed a man at a traffic stop. Two ICE agents
who were seemingly operating completely alone, didn't seem to have
any backup with them. It was just these two guys
in this car who jumped down on the sky. And yeah,
(04:04):
it feels it feels like forever ago, but of course
it was only a few weeks ago. Yeah, and you know,
that's that's an example of just like a police killing
that we may never learn more about because you know,
it involves the FEDS, right, you know, there's no timeline
under which they have to release any information or like
(04:26):
tell us anything about their their own investigation into it. Yeah,
so that is of course really horrifying and horrifying to
know there's kind of these these missing few seconds of
video right where we don't see the actual shot fired yep,
or shots excuse me. We can sort of piece together
(04:46):
what happened, but you know, this happened in a working
class Latino suburb, heavily Latino suburb, not not very far
down the road from the actual ice.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Facility, because you were say, part of what's really frustrating
about this is we can't tell you why they stopped this person, right,
because they won't tell us, right, We know very little
about this other than they stopped the guy. He tried
to drive away and they shot him. That's like that's
all we know effectively, right.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I mean they claim he had some traffic violations, which
is true, but I mean, like who doesn't.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, Like, I don't know. If we're shooting people for
traffic violation, this country is going to have like ten
people in it by the end of it.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Like, yeah, he wasn't suspected of any like crime.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
No.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I believe that it was just opportunistic, yeah, that they
were just looking for an easy target, and these guys
were acting like cowboys, I mean, like just doing this
jump out by themselves. And and also to be clear,
I mean like when they say he drove away from them,
I mean some of the video that we do have
it shows him slowly reversing backwards away from them. It's
(05:56):
not like he just drove over the agents.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
No no, no no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Which is was of course their initial narrative that he
like hit one of them with his car and all
this stuff that of course turned out to be false.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah. And it's also frustrating too because you know, in
the app well, I would say in the absence of
better information, but it's the media. They will just straight
up print you know, no matter just how unbelievably absurd
the lies are, they will just straight up print Department
of Homeland Security press releases as if they have anything
to do with reality whatsoever. Even as it becomes increasingly clear,
(06:33):
even more of an it's ever been, that you simply
cannot rely on police press reports to understand what happened
in the situation. People will just keep printing that. And
so that's the first that's the version of the story
that goes out first, which is what everyone sees. Yeah,
and they don't see the video where it's very clearly
not what happened.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yep. It is a maddening situation. So yeah, I mean,
like that happened. And then almost immediately and like concurrently,
of course, all of this other ice activity started ramping up. Yeah,
and then around a week and a half ago, Bovino
showed up and Border Patrol showed up, And now it's
(07:14):
amped up even further because they're even worse than our
regular ice guys.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Bovino and the Border Patrol people, those are the people
who seem to have been pulled out of Los Angeles
and deployed the Chicago.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, Bovino moved this sort of larger border patrol operation
here to Chicago. So there are border patrol units here
from you know, Arizona, from California, different places, and they've
been doing sort of a combination of like just strictly
(07:46):
cornyass propaganda ops, you know, like driving around on their
boats for photos, combined with like actual terrors, like a
few nights ago, hundreds of Feds rating an entire apartment
building of people in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, and I think we'll get to that rate in
a second, because it was unbelievable, sort of gruesome and horrible.
But yeah, I wanted to talk to you just about
sort of what the general sort of ICE operations and
then the border patrol operations have looked like in the
city and what it's been like being in a place
where there's just guys in mass dragging people off the street.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
It kind of feels like streaming underwater and no one
can hear you. Yeah, just sort of witnessing this every day.
And it is still highly dispersed, right like Chicago and
the metro area and the suburban counties where this is happening.
It's a huge, huge area. So, like we talked about
(08:45):
last time, it's a real challenge to focus people's attention
on because it can appear like the waters are calm
like where you live, you know, like they're doing any
of these very fast strike teams and this very dispersed way,
so by the time you even hear about it, they're
already gone. So many cars abandoned on the side of
(09:06):
the road. Was like windows smashed out Jesus Christ, like landscapers,
work bands and stuff. You know, like people are just
rapid responders are just getting to sites where someone's reported
something happening, and all they find is like a busted
out card and then they have to piece together like
potentially what happened. And additionally, the broad view so like
(09:30):
this ice facility where people are protesting regularly. You know,
it's not set up to be a permanent detention center.
It's just supposed to be like a temporary stopping point
because Illinois doesn't have overnight immigration detention. So additionally, there
are like so many extra people crammed into this facility
(09:52):
that wasn't designed to hold them. Yeah, and of course
the conditions are horrible, you know, like they don't have privacy,
they don't have enough bath rooms, they're not getting fed,
they're not getting medication, you know, like after the kidnappings,
after the disappearances, then there's this pipeline of detention horrors
that people are enduring. So this is this is why
(10:12):
people are protesting, you know. I mean, this is why
people are out there yelling at the fence. Because the
people who are who are brave enough to go out
there and yell at the fence or to take the
pepper balls or what have you, they they are in agony.
They're aware of what's happening. They're witnessing all of this
and feeling like this needs to stop. And there are
(10:33):
a lot of people hiding in their homes. Yeah, you know,
like like it it's true, Like I don't always want
to make like Holocaust comparisons because I feel like that
that's what we always go to. But I mean, like
that's the most apt comparison that becomes to most people's mind.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
They think of like and frankiding in your attic, like
those kinds of things, and it's like that is literally
where we are at right now. People are literally in
hiding because they are worried that if they go to
Sam's Club, they will be cannapped by secret police.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah. I think the behavior that they've been exhibiting against
the protesters too, has been very, very similar to what
they've been doing to the people that they're grabbing off
the street. I want to talk to you a bit
about like what it's been like dealing with the way
that the Feds have been attacking the protesters constantly.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, well, these guys are fucking monsters. Yeah, I'm trying
to thread this needle for people of like, all policing
is bad, right, Like all policing is violent, All cops
are violent, But there is something different happening here as
a result of the fact that there is literally zero accountability.
(11:49):
And I'm not suggesting that like police accountability isn't a sham,
because in general it kind of is. But I think, like,
you know, when you take away every single guardrail, these
guys don't have to identify themselves and they don't have
to answer to anyone. Yeah, their bosses aren't going to
write them up. You know. It's it's kind of like
(12:09):
with any other job, right, you know, take a city
cop here in Chicago. Of course, it's rare that any
of them ever actually get fired for the horrible shit
they do. But you know there's this sort of base
level of knowing, like well, I got to show up
to work every day with my name on my vest,
and I also have like all these other bosses and
(12:30):
all these other people who are gonna, like, you know,
maybe make my day harder if I like really fuck
something up, right, And so when we're talking about the FEDS,
there's just nothing. There's just nothing there. They can literally
do whatever they want on top of like just not
having the same level of like quote law enforcement training.
(12:53):
I mean, we've been watching these guys for weeks like
fucking hurt themselves with their papper ball guns like they live.
I really are like dropping shit as they're on the process,
like like watching people have made like call of duty comparisons,
like prowdboy comparisons, and like it is kind of like that.
It's like if you just gave a bunch of chuds,
(13:14):
a bunch of like military and police care and we're like,
all right, go out and like pretend to be a cop.
And that's like literally what it feels like. And so
I'm trying to spread this deal for people of like yeah,
all cops suck, but like what's going on with this
is like so much worse. Like they're just out there
like shooting at people randomly, like and you know, for
(13:36):
no reason. Like it is just one of the craziest
things I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, And I also I want to put this into perspectives,
like you have also covered a lot of protests in
the city.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, I've covered a lot of cop violence. I've been
to a lot of protests, I mean hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds at this point, right, Yeah, And there's just
certain like things that you're used to seeing and certain
there's a certain predictability sometimes to like a lot of
them movement. And what's interesting too, is like in some
ways they are actually more militarized, just in terms of
(14:07):
like their riot formations and like how tightly coordinated their
units are because they practice and they train for like
crowd control stuff all the time. And then you have
these just like ice chuds running around with like way
more gear and they look way scarier, but they're like
way less organized and way more chaotic, and there's not
(14:27):
enough of them, right, so like they're not even like
doing a good job of like backing each other up,
you know, like in the field, like I'm just watching
them like leave their own backs unwatched and you know,
doing things that are like dangerous for them, Like they
want to act like a military unit, but they're like
definitely not.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's I mean, people have made the comparison of like
crowd boys, which I think I don't know, it kind
of works in a sense like street fighters because what
they're acting like, you know, yeah, it's just it's just
been super violent, super awful. Chicago does not have really
any experience with like these just FEDS in general, like
(15:09):
to this level. I know that out in Portland for
years now, like there have been various protests outside of
the ICE or something like, there's just there's been like
a lot more a lot more FED presence out in Portland, Seattle. Yeah,
throughout the past few years of protests, I've seen you know,
people interact with them, and we just we've had nothing
like that here. So this is also like very unprecedented
(15:33):
like for this region.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, because usually CPD is like brutal enough that they
don't you don't end up with like yeah, federal deployments
and now it's like oh boy. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Well and also keep in mind this is all happening
in broad View, so like they don't even have I
mean there's been there's been tensions and arguments and discussions
around what's happening with their local police department and just
sort of the interface here too, because it's like this
tiny little police department is now having to sort of
(16:04):
manage what's going on with this ICE facility, and they're
not directly like assisting ICE with croud control, but they
are like basically setting up a perimeter around the area, right,
and so then like there guys are getting to your
gas and like complaining about it.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, was it brought to you the police chief, who
like finally was like, oh holy shit, I've never been
treated this racistly by a police officer before. I was like,
oh my fucking god, Like yeah, you're just now realizing
that you're the baddie, Like when it finally like happens
to you, like.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Come on, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
He he went on on like ABC or whatever and
was just did hit this whole interview about like, well,
ICE is disrespecting me as the police chief, and it's
just like like what did you expect?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Yeah, man, you signed up for the racist organization and
you were like, ah, yeah, I'm in charge of my
local by local chapter of the Racist Association, so it'll
never happen to be like, oh shit, you mean there's
other people who are higher up in.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
The racism police, Like.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
God, yeah. So that's been that's just been like a
weird side story to this of kind of like the
mayor and the police chief and the fire chief are
not thrilled about what's going on, and they're like looking
into the legality quote of the fence that isis put
up just like across this street that goes past their facility,
(17:30):
which is in this kind of like tucked away sort
of industrial park thing. But there are homes like right
on the other side, and you know, they've just blocked
off this entire street and there's like a business on
the other side. You know, it's like obviously a huge
fire hazard to just like block a whole road like that.
They didn't ask permission to like put this up, not
(17:51):
to mention a hazard for the people in the detention center,
which is now boarded up and has this huge fence
across the street. It's like, oh my god, if there's
a fire or like an emergency and they needed to
evacuate the people inside. Yeah, I mean, like obviously people
would die.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It's this incredible mix of both blatant disregard for the
safety of anyone involved and also just wanting to hurt people.
And it's it's this incredible fusion of they are both
incompetent and malicious, which is yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right, which is not a great combination.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
No, let's talk about this raid in South Shore. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, you know, we don't have a we don't have
a ton of details on the true extent of this
because it happened at one in the morning. So two
nights ago, hundreds and hundreds of federal agents showed up
to an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood, which
is a predominantly black neighborhood where a number of newly
(19:03):
arrived migrants settled because there's cheap housing there. Yeah, so
when Governor Abbott started busting people here a few years ago,
that is one place where you know, a number of
people found housing. And unfortunately also too, there's like a
lot of slum lords down that way.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, cheap housing means shit in Chicago. Yeah, of course, Okay,
I uee tents organizing that shity. I have seen shit that,
Like I have seen people sewage like running out of
their bathtubs. I have seen I have seen places with
no electric like literally no electricity, no lights, no running water,
like actually literally like frozen solid in the winter and
no one can contact the landlord. And those were in
(19:42):
parts of the city that were like not even that
badly off. The apartment that I had there almost fucking
killed me from dust inhalation, and like that's like that's
like a like a normal cheap apartment. It gets so
much fucking worse. The pictures from like in side of
the apartment, not even just the parts were like, yeah,
(20:03):
the doors are blown off. It's like these apartments fucking
sucked because they're run by they're run by fucking slanlords.
And yeah, like the housing situation in Chicago, so much
of it is so shit is never going to get
repaired because these landlords don't give a shit because they
can just keep a distracting money from it because you know,
one can go anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And yeah, yeah, I mean these people were living in
really bad conditions. I've heard that like a lot of
people were like scrippled, quadrupled up in units. You know,
I don't. I don't know what it looked like before
it was rated. Yeah, but it's like virtually empty now.
I mean like there there were some and to be clear,
(20:44):
like what happened to back up a little bit, you know,
they hundreds and hundreds of FEDS showed up with this
building in the middle of the night and reportedly detained
everyone in the building. So there were like, yeah, you know,
people in the building who aren't immigrants, like black people
who live in the neighborhood. You know. There was one
woman being interviewed on broadcast who's like an older black woman,
(21:06):
you know, who was just like, yeah, I was like
detained by the FBI, you know, like in the middle
of the night, like asking me if I'm a citizen.
You know, Like, it's just absolutely fucking wild that this happened.
Also as of today, granted this might change by the
time your podcast is.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Out, importantly, So we're recording this the night of Wednesday,
October first. Who fucking knows what we'll have learned about
this or what will happen in between this and when
it comes out probably Monday, probably there will be new horrors.
If you've heard about like the horrors in Chicago, and
it's not in this episode. It's probably because it happened
(21:42):
after we recorded. Things are happening at a terrible rate.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, So as of today, Wednesday, October first, I could
not find a story on the sun Times or the
Tribune website about this raid. And I think, yeah, of course,
a lot of people want to indict mainstream media for
not covering things, which like is fair sometimes. Don't get
me wrong, They've been trying. Things are happening so fast now,
(22:07):
and there are so many horrible things happening every day
that like no news room can keep up.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Alert red alert. They did finally get a story up
five minutes ago, so mid I checked the book. They
got one up. They got one up.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Is the tribute the.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Suntimes sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Okay, okay, well it only took them two days. Okay, sure,
I haven't read it yet. Maybe maybe it's a good story.
I don't know, maybe they went really in depth.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's not terrible. Yeah, it doesn't actually seem I mean,
it's pretty long. I mean I'm going I'm gonna read
one quote from it to get people and understand. This is,
like I actually think is pretty representative of like the
Independent media covers that I've read of it aren't federal
agents and military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women,
and children from their apartment some naked residents. Witnesses said,
(22:54):
that is the thing I've seen in everything report about this,
is that a bunch of people just literally didn't have
clothes on because they were drag out of their bed.
They were like fucking naked children, like naked, like people
holding naked babies being pulled out of their fucking apartments
Like Jesus fucking Christ God.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
And this was like such a huge number of beds
that like the buses were rerouted around the scene. I mean,
like there's questions. There's questions right now over like the
level of CPD involvement in like protecting the scene. And
this was not just ice. There were a ton of
FBI and a ton of ATF.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, yeah, which you know, it's like, okay, what what
what is the FBI doing right now? They are fucking
dragging naked children out of their fucking homes, like out
of their fucking apartment at one in the fucking morning.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, and they were they were in in fucking moving
vans like Patriot front, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, fucking horrible. I mean, like I got I over
seeing a statement where it was like they were denying
that they had loaded any immigrants into moving vans.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, which like maybe that's I don't know, maybe only
the FBI. Yeah, beautiful malls.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Like I don't know. Yeah, I'm also just like haunted
by like what other reports that I saw where they
were talking about like they separated all of the black
people into like one van and all of the non
black people to another one, And it was just like,
oh God, like these people. There's another thing. I think
this is in the story that you that you wrote
about this or they literally like a fed literally said
(24:25):
fuck them kids.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Oh my god, I don't I deuinitely didn't write that,
but I believe that someone said it.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah it was Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I believe it. I'm I'm I mean, I'm glad to
hear that. Five minutes ago the Sun Times covered it.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You know, Yeah, they finally got around to it. Yeah,
good for them.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
To be clear, like they probably interviewed a lot more
people than we had capacity to. You know, it's been
obviously a huge challenge to even cover all this stuff,
like as this tiny random weirdo ass news outlet, like yeah,
and we're still figuring out as we go, but yeah,
I mean this this I am still it has done
(25:06):
two days and I am like still trying to wrap
my hat around this raid, this specific raid, because it's just, yeah,
so horrific that this happened. And of course, like the timing,
like they knew what they were doing by timing it
in the middle of the night. Of course.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, I'm gonna fucking ref the Times article because I've
just been reading it while you've been doing it, Like Watson,
this is someny. Lists across the street said she saw
agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without
any clothes and into HU haul vans. Kids were separated
from their mothers. It was heartbreaking to watch, said Watson,
even if you're not a mother, seeing kids come out
buck naked and taking from their mothers. It was horrible.
(25:46):
They're literally ripping kids from their fucking mothers at one
in the morning and throwing it apparently allegedly throwing them
at U haul vans.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Like, yeah, I mean, this is like psycho shit. The
last three weeks, four weeks has just spent a gradual
progression of like the most evil shit you've ever seen
in your life. I don't even know what to say
about it anymore, honestly, because it feels like it feels
like our only way of grappling with things like this
is by making comparisons to other things. And I don't
(26:16):
know that that is really helping anybody right now. But
you know, it's it's it's ethnic cleansing, it's genocide. It's
like literally I was just saying earlier today when like
when you drill down to it, like they're disappearing like
vast majority Latino men are there are some women. It's
not only men, but like they are definitely targeting like
(26:36):
mostly Latita men, and like these are people who are
migrating here from Central America who are like if you
look at their lineage, mostly like indigenous to this fucking
continent on like white people. You know, it's just an
extension of like the American project, like of the white
nationalist like extermination of the people indigenous to the AMAS.
(27:00):
Like that is literally what's happening like right now. So yeah,
it does not feel like I don't know, like like
enough people get it to the level that they should.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, well, and that's I think. Like one other thing
I wanted to talk to you about was like the
way the press bubble has worked around this, where again,
the fact that federal agents dragged naked children from their
homes at one in the morning in the third largest
(27:32):
city in the United States, that is a story that
is hitting the mainstream Chicago press today two days later,
and I think the only national coverage of it that
I've seen are from people who are basically like repeating
the scoop that was given to this, like unhinged UFO outlet.
(27:56):
Who were the people that got the exclusive Oh yeah,
right into this yet Oh oh god, no idea what
hold on? Hold on? Let me let me god fuck Okay,
I'm very excited to tell you about this is so unhitched.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I saw like the propaganda video that they made about it.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah. So the group that got like the exclusive like
press release thing from the Feds, which is basically being
like reprinted by Newsweek, who are just a joke at
this point, Like their description of it is like a
federal agent's repelled from black cop helicopters and the rooftop
Chicago residential buildings targeting trend to Agua gang members, according
to news Nation, and I was like, what the fuck
(28:31):
is news Nation? Like, I've I have a pretty good
grasp on like all of the weird right wing news outlets,
I'd never heard of this one. I looked them up
at the first like, big thing that I saw about
them was that, well, ay, they are the people. They're
the person that Chris Cuomo went to after he was
like publicly disgraced as a journalist. And the second thing
I saw about them was that their big thing is
that they like quote unquote take UFOs seriously, and these
(28:54):
are the people who were given like the exclusive scoop
on this is like the UFO outlet.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That is so funny. That is when I watched the
propaganda video that we were watching about it, Yeah it
was News Nation. I just thought it was like, I
don't know, some right wing outlet like any other.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
That's why I thought too that looked at it, and
like the Wikipedia article was like just when there's a
section titled UFOs, I was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Great? Great? I didn't know about the UFO connection. I
mean I saw them. I saw their reporters like actually
at the protests, like interviewing like the one guy in
a maga hat who showed up to counter protests, Like,
of course that's who they interview.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So that's good to know that they are UFO weirdos.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Rehem approved of approved media outlet, the UFO guys.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Oh, I mean, the the the official like like DHS
line on this entire thing is that trend Aragua was this,
Like this entire apartment building was a trend dea Arragua.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I don't just like no, it wasn't like like.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
It's literally just the same fucking thing that Israel does
about hamas right when they're like, oh, yeah, this hospital
that we're.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Bombing, Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
There's hamasoles underneath. I mean, it's like the exact same shit.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah. The connection you made earlier to this functioning as
an extension of like the genocide that founded this country.
I think it might have been Hannah or want okay,
I want to attribute this to her at Hannah w Rent,
which is like it's kind of a mess because of her.
Don't do not ever look up Hannah rent stuff on segregation,
(30:39):
or actually maybe do if you want to see the
worst argument you've ever seen in your life, where like
famed intellectual Hannah or Rent says that segregation is like
a defining quality of like a free society.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Oh no, I'm not like a super expert on Hannah Rent,
but I definitely did not know that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So oh yeah, no that people. People don't.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
I'll say this, Waite, people do not be bringing that
shit up. Everyone else is like, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
God, holy shit. You were like a major subagregation, like
intellectual who got brought out to be like segregation is
actually good, nose is free association. But I think it
might have been her, It might have been someone else.
I've been trying to look for who had this idea,
and I haven't been able to find who it was.
And I vaguely remember being a Rent, But fuck her.
(31:29):
This is a little bit A very long while. Up
was saying, like, there's an idea that I ran into
back when I was in my sort of like days
in the academy about the way that societies reflect their
founding violence. And you know, the sort of like the
founding violence of the United States is the genocide vidicious
people and slavery, and you look at what they're doing
(31:52):
right now, You're just watching sort of in miniature that
violence just being replicated over and over again, where like
you're tearing fucking mothers from their children in the dead
of night, and it's the same people, right, Like this
is an apartment building where almost everyone is black, and
(32:14):
the people who aren't black are immigrants, right and obviously
like some of them are both, but like you know,
but like you're just like watching the founding violence of
this country just being played out over and over and
over again every night. And it's this thing where like
I don't think on a fundamental level that this thing
(32:34):
that we've built, this sort of like this conception of
what democracy is, like this conception of what the state is,
this conception of like what this country is is going
to survive this moment. Either it's going to change completely
or the part of it that was nominally a democracy
is going to be consumed by the part of it
that's just doing this genocide over and over again. I
(32:56):
don't know. I quote this song a Lot Song of Choice,
Peggy Seeger. That's about the rise of fascism that I
think about a lot that has like one of one
of the lines is today the soldiers took away one,
Tomorrow they may take away two one April they took
away Greece, but surely they will never take you. And yeah,
(33:18):
they're just fucking taking people away in the night, right now,
Like that's that's the stage of this where we're at.
And either something fundamentally changes or right, you know, like
that the end of that song is either like they
take you or at the end they don't take you
because they know you didn't care, right.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
And I mean, look, I've been I've been covering civil
conflict and violence, you know, like more or less for
the last five years. Right, I was at January sixth,
like literally in the middle of the mob. I've seen
a lot of shit.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Reporting on it.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Make this very clear, reporting on it.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Clear why I was there. I was not part although
my FASCI stalkers might insist I was part of like
an antipa conspiracy to right, But but you know, I've
seen a lot of shit the last five years, obviously,
(34:18):
and I think this particular moment feels like, yeah, like
we're kind of you know, like we're a marble at
the top of like a spiral, and it's like either
we're going to keep rolling down or or somebody like
jams it or takes the marble off, you know, like
there's just this is a this is a spiral, Like
(34:39):
there are so many factors that are going to contribute
to this getting worse if we do not significantly alter course.
And I think, you know, this feeling that we have
locally of like we're screaming underwater and nobody can hear us.
I'm sure is share a sentiment that is shared in LA,
that is shared in DC, that is Sheridan. Yeah, all
(35:02):
of these cities all over where ICE is doing similar shit.
It can make us really angry. I mean, I've been
really angry at times in the last month about the
lack of like attention whatever. But then I think about
how everyone is overwhelmed because there's so much horrible shit
happening every day on so many places, Like we just
(35:24):
can't keep up anymore, Like none of us can keep up.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, Like I mean, like I'm in Portland right now,
and like it's my job to keep track of this,
and I can't tell you at this exact second whether
a federal diploma to Portland is honor off. I think
it's currently off. But also by the time you're listening
to this, who the fuck knows? And like yeah, like right,
I don't know. There's an Android line about how it's
(35:48):
easier to hide a thousand atrocities and it is to
hide one because you can just keep ramping the tempo
up exactly.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
I don't know. I'm not a historian. I'm just a journalist,
so maybe you would know better than me. But I
feel like we are literally already in a civil war.
We just don't know it yet, or like we're waiting
for like some specific thing to like prove it, you know,
like I don't, I don't know. I think generally nobody
knows until it's like already, you're already in it. To me,
(36:29):
it feels like we're in it yea. But I also
wonder if that's just the cognitive effect of like us
being here literally in it because so much is going on,
and then thinking like, well, if the ice surge subsides
two months from now, is it going to still feel
this way? I don't know. I mean, to me, it
feels like we've got several more years of the Trump
(36:52):
regime at least if we look at this in the
sense of like, well, they're escalating, and then also this
is going to keep going for over more years. Yeah,
that's a terrifying concept. Yeah, where do we go from
here if it's just gonna like get even worse?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, And I don't know. I think I've been there
a lot recently.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
It's the thing I've been telling listeners of this show
is that, like the upside of all of this is
that everyone hates them. Yeah, oh yeah, Like their proof
of ratings are so bad. Everyone fucking hates them, and
all of this stuff is hideously unpopular. And the giant
economic collapse that is very obviously going to happen when
the giant AI bubble that is like that is like
(37:36):
a third of the US's GDP pops what it inevitably
does because it doesn't make any money. They're doing all
of this in a situation where the economy still appears
to be functioning, and when that shit implodes on them,
shit is going to be even worse for them than
it is now. But also, like, on the other hand,
(37:56):
unless people do things about it, then it doesn't really
matter how popular or not they are as long as
no one is willing to stop them. And I guess
that's like the last thing I kind of want to
close on is about like, can you talk a little
bit about like what you've seen organizing wise that you
can talk about that have been effective.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, I think people here are still figuring it out
these protests outside of the ice facility. You know, there
has been a lot of autonomous organizing. Chicago does not
have the same entrenched autonomous organizing culture that you see
in like Portland or Seattle for like a ton of reasons, yeah,
(38:39):
which are like beyond the scope of this episode in
one series of the history the history of organizing in Chicago,
and like how we're in this specific moment. You know,
it's important to remember, like this is a city where
like the FBI murdered Fred Hampton, Right, it is bad.
So there's a lot of tension between organizing factions about
(39:01):
how they want things done, and a lot of it
is fear driven for a good reason, because people are terrified,
and yeah, they're still figuring stuff out. I mean, I
think for lack of a better firm. Last Saturday, people
got their shit rocked by border patrol. You know, they
were so violent, they were so aggressive, they were just
so out of hand, just like immediately too, I mean
(39:23):
it was just like zero to sixty instantly, like there
was just a Saturday we saw them just immediately tear
gas and shoot at people over nothing, like nobody was
doing anything and they just assaulted the crowd with like
the most tear gas I've ever seen in my life.
So I think folks were definitely underprepared for that. But
(39:47):
that doesn't mean that it's like insurmountable to resist something
like that. I think there are questions surrounding the best
way to protest this specific building because of the location,
and it's tough because it's not in Chicago. It's hard
to get to for some people.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
But I don't want to I don't want to write
anybody off. I mean, I think people are just still
figuring things out, like it's it's ice is adapting, border
patrols adapting, and so then organizers also have to adapt,
like it's like this tennis match, right yeah, yeah, And
so you know, we are also very much here. Our
activists are not used to like a huge and our
(40:25):
press also by extension, are not used to like a
huge amount of chemical weapons.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Chicargo doesn't use tear gas like historically, like they just
beat people right or like shooting with right munitions, like
they don't tear gas, and I think I was literally
always told, like growing up in the city as an activist,
was like, if they start using tear gas, they're once
its way from shooting you, right, And they finally did
it in twenty twenty, which is the first time I
anyone had seen it in like decades, right, And the
fact that like they're just doing it all the time now,
(40:51):
like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Well, the Feds, I mean we saw this in la
like at the beginning of this summer, where like Border
pat Role specifically just has this enormous amount of chemical
weapons that they like I don't know, maybe maybe they're
going to expire soon and they have to use them all.
Like like I don't know, I don't know what the
(41:13):
rationale there is other than just being evil. Yeah, but
it's like literally their first voice of like they're just
I mean, they're fucking enjoying it. They're fucking enjoying it.
They're enjoying yeah, shooting at people to your gassing them
playing g.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I Joe Like yeah, I mean, I will say it
does also raise the question, like how much of this
stuff do they actually have, because like twenty twenty they
went through decades of stockpiles, right, right, And like this
is the thing that, like, I don't know, someone who
has a lot of time and as an investigative journalist
should try to go track down how much of the
countries tear gas supplies they've been able to replenish, because
(41:50):
they used a lot of it on us in twenty twenty.
And like, I mean, this is I don't know if
it is famous. I guess bicycles. It's kind of a
famous story that one of the one of the South
Korean military dictatorships was taken down by a student like
protest movement that calculated exactly how much tear gas the
police had and did this thing where they would do
(42:10):
these marches where they would a whole bunch of people
would show up and the police start characterizing them, and
they would just slowly keep her treating and keep her
treating until they ran the state out of tear gas.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
I mean, I know, I hope to see that level
of strategy in America.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, law, Like, you know, like nothing, nothing, nothing is
impossible with the power of really really pissed off students.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what
the I'm not familiar with the manufacturing process for these
kind of like how long does it take the like
replenish and where do they source it?
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeap, this is this is one hundred percent a Hey,
I know a bunch of journalists listened to this podcast.
If what if you wants to go do this, you
would be doing a great service to everyone in this country.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Like, right, I'm like assuming that it's not made in
the United States and they're like importing these things a hu.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Huge amount of American American tear guests ends up like
all over the world because we're one of the big
suppliers of it.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Okay, well, then I was mistaken. The popper ball gun
dispenser company apparently is based in Lake Forest, so it's
actually local.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, since you're kind of oh well.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's just like a glorified paintball gun basically.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah. The thing I've been getting from listening to you
talk about this and from talking to other people is
that like, both part of what's making this so horrible
and also maybe where they fail is that these people
don't know what they're doing. They just like violence, right,
and liking violence and being willing to hurt people is
(43:59):
a very effective short term strategy for causing violence, right,
but it remains to be seen whether it's an effective
long term strategy for like holding power and accomplishing their goals.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. It feels
like it feels like there their operation is brittle, like
it wouldn't take a lot to like impede it. But
because they are so violent and so out of hand,
that just like the slightest resistance, it's still really challenging
to figure out. I mean, and to your point earlier
(44:31):
about everybody hating them, I mean, that is palpable.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I have heard the anger and the rage pouring out
of people at these guys, you know, like, of course
it's palpable how much people hate them, how much what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Of course they're struggling to hire. Of course they're all
wearing masks because they're fucking terrified they're going to be docs,
you know, like they know that they're hated. But that's
also a double edged short because I think knowing that
every but he hates you anyway, well, that's just also
sometimes going to make you even more violent because you
don't care anymore.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, and I mean I think the traditional social movement
gambit has been like the more people can see how
violent they are, the more people will go out to
resist them. And I think right now we're in this
scenario where because of the sort of media blackout and
like the media bubble that's been put around this, it
just hasn't been getting out the things that they've been doing.
(45:29):
And I think that is also a thing that you
random listener can do things about in terms of like, hey,
tell people you know that, like, yeah, there's like a
thing a federal occupation of a city and they're like
dragging naked children screaming from their homes, like tearing them
away from their parents. Like that's a thing that you
(45:51):
can like, that's the thing you could directly do. That
is a very very low lift.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, and also countering this like national guard misdirection thing
that is just like constantly going on where it's like
every fucking two days, Trump and Pritzburgh are arguing about
you know, one hundred troops coming to town who are
essentially just infrastructure for ice. They might block some roads,
but like they're not the main threat.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, yeah, do you have anything else that you want
to tell people? And then also where can people find
and support your work as you go hopefully not get
shot again.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Well, I've resigned myself to the fact that I get
shot again. But they can find us.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
At Unraveled on all the social platforms, you know, Unraveled,
press dot com. And I think the only other thing
I want to say is, you know, as bleak as
this episode sounded, we do have to keep the fighting
spirit alive and not just like yeah, resign ourselves to
total dumerism. We have the moral high grounds, like we
(47:00):
are doing the right thing and they are not.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, and we can win this.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I want to close on the story that came to
mind when you said that, which was the story of
the liberation of Turin in World War two, where Turin
was like, you know, like one of the great industrial
cities of Italy and it's directly under the occupation of
the Nazis. By the end of the war and ahead
of the Allied advanced the city plans and uprising, and
(47:28):
the SS commander who is running the city explicitly tells them,
if you like, if you do this, we will turn
this into another warsaw And they do it anyways, and
they beat them. All of these factory workers who had
had guns smuggled in successfully do an uprising and defeat
like an SS panzer division and just kick the shit
out of them and liberate Turin. And you know, those
(47:50):
were people facing odds that were so much worse than
the ones they were facing today. They were facing a
straight up military occupation by the SS, and they beat them,
and they've read themselves. And you know, history is replete
with dictators who thought that their occupations would last forever,
until one day the Americans were withdrawing from Iraq, and
(48:14):
the only thing that's eternal is their fear of the uprising,
the will one day destroy them.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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