A young woman describes her fears because of the treatment by ICE.
The petition cites several citizens and legal residents who were detained, or beaten during immigration operations, including Cary Lopez Alvarado, 23, who tearfully recounted the day in June that U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped her in Hawthorne by her husband’s work. She was nine months pregnant and they were “pulling me and dragging me, handcuffing me from the back, which later turned to shackles under my belly,” she recalled as she held her three-month-old baby in her arms.
After she was released, she went to the hospital where doctors told her she had already dilated two centimeters. The petition said that “excessive use of force” by Border Patrol officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents caused her to give birth prematurely.
“Every time I see a vehicle that looks like theirs, I’m scared that you might try to pull me over,” she said. “I still live in fear.”
It does not take many negative experiences with law enforcement for people to develop a lasting dislike and distrust of them. My father always referred to the Texas Rangers as the “Pinche Rinches.” Used as such, pinche means fucking rangers. He recalled incidents from his youth that left a bitter taste for life. Not only will masked goons be disliked by many for their actions, but dislike will likely be attached to all police agencies. I have many family members who are/were police officers, but all the negative experiences with the police have left the same bitter taste. Having a gun pointed at my head at the police station when I stopped to pick up my wife, who was a police officer, allegedly because he thought I was someone else, having been made to stand in the rain while they searched for any criminal history. I was stopped because someone had backed up and hit another car. My car had no damage, and to add to the story, the policeman referred to me as a Meskin. I did file a complaint, and when they responded, they said that he didn’t mean anything by it as he was married to a meskin. There are other examples; all this happened in the 1970s when five gabacho cops beat up Joe Campos Torres and threw him into the bayou, where Torres drowned. The last words Torres heard were “Let us find out if this wetback can swim.“
Did I mention that my wife, who was a police officer, was shot three times in the back by an HPD officer? We were divorced at the time.
My grandson, whom we raised and had custody of, has joined the military and recently asked to borrow my truck. Soon after that, I traded in my car and bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve. I did it because he has dark skin, as many undocumented do (he is a U.S.-born citizen). I was afraid that, because of his skin and driving a vehicle, Hispanics, like to drive, would bring unnecessary attention to him. I don’t want him exposed to the same things I was exposed to as a young man. My grandson has his goals set on becoming a Houston Police Officer. He leaves for boot camp in early November. Yes, I completely support his decisions.
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