April 30: ICE Rapid Response Team
the organizer told a story about a volunteer
who responded to a call at around 9:00 p.m.
at a parking lot outside a department store
where three apparent custom enforcement
vehicles were lurking with engines running.
The store was closed and no one came in or out
and the volunteer didn’t know what to do
so she called the organizer who showed up
with his dog and several other volunteers,
and they waited together and kept watch
for more than an hour and nothing happened
until the organizer called the local TV station,
who sent a somewhat grumpy camera man
to the scene to get some footage of what
seemed to be an ICE raid about to happen.
The camera man set up and turned his lights
and camera on one of the cars which then
backed up to a spot further from the store,
and when the camera man followed the car
and set up again, ready to get rolling,
the car sped away and left the scene.
The same thing happened with the other
two cars, one by one, and when the cars
had all departed, 17 store employees came
out of the store after having hidden for hours
in a stock room, terrified and unsure about
what to do. They thanked the volunteers
and went home, shaken up but free and safe.
And so it was that an organizer, his dog, a half-dozen
volunteers, and a grumpy camera operator
helped 17 department store workers go home
to their families rather than being detained
and sent to a concentration camp hours away.
Humanity will be saved by acts such as this.