The DHS views the situation differently. In a statement to NBC, a department spokesperson said that “Garcia assaulted and verbally harassed a federal agent and that he was subdued and arrested for the alleged assault”.
They say this every time, whether or not there is footage obviously proving otherwise.
Apart from being so insulting and pathetic that this is the government’s generic response to unconstitutional arrests (though he is suing under a tort law due presumptively due to qualified immunity), it’s also outright defamatory to falsely claim that someone has committed a crime and assaulted ICE.
The story doesn’t provide evidence either way, but if this just is their typical Baghdad Bob propaganda, I hope the victims of ICE start to sue for defamation as well - drain the new bill’s obscene funding with a wave of court-ordered compensation to ICE’s victims.
Is verbal harassment of police and such even a thing? What if he did shout ‘fucking pigs’ or whatever while he was videoing? To me that would change nothing - but would it?
provide evidence either way, but if this just is their typical Baghdad Bob propaganda, I
They say he was arrested for the “assault,” but yep, they intentionally phrased it to conflate “verbal harassment” with actual (if true) criminal conduct. It’s a meaningless phrase.
If anything, they put it there because to the right wing base, it justifies police violence or could support disorderly conduct, or one of the other catch-all pretextual “crimes” used when police want to arrest someone for no real reason.
That has stopped literally no one from trying to make arrests before.
🖕 ICE
It was so good to hear that in the LA protests
In before “YoU CaN’T SuE ThE GoVeRnMeNt” /s
Applicability of the federal torts act to sovereign immunity is always a good point of discussion.
Federal torts and also “qualified immunity”.
Something else everyone should know about QI
It has literally no legal basis and the 1982 SCOTUS was unknowingly given the wrong text of the law as passed by Congress.
In this case they’re trying to sue the government itself which has sovereign immunity, not qualified. Congress passed a law that allowed some channels past that sovereign immunity but the courts have been very conservative as to how it’s interpreted. That’s the federal torts claims act. One of the key things it doesn’t cover is intentional torts. So if someone though negligence hit you in the mouth and knocked the teeth out, you can sue. If, by contrast, they did it through malice and battery you cannot but you can break through their personal qualified immunity if you could prove malice. Good luck
Aiming a little low IMO
