1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

There is a fundamental difference between citizens and the government, and those acting on the government’s behalf. The government and its agents are held to a higher standard of care. For months, Trump has deliberately stoked chaos. He escalated an already volatile situation in Minneapolis after federal agents murdered Renee Good and then refused to investigate the killing. When people are abused again and again by those in power, anger is not a mystery. It is a predictable outcome. What the government is doing now is even more dangerous. It is arguing that the victim deserved to die, that they were asking for it. This is the oldest excuse for state violence, and it has never been legitimate. Every trained officer knows this. Citizens may yell. They may protest. They may escalate emotionally. The state does not get to escalate lethally in response. Your job is to de-escalate, exercise restraint, and preserve life. Lethal force is meant to be the absolute last resort used only when there is no other option left and an imminent threat cannot be stopped by any lesser means. Taking a life is irreversible. That gravity is what separates law enforcement from execution. People who truly serve understand this. They treat the use of force as a failure to be avoided, not a tool to be justified after the fact. Yet ICE’s response suggests something far darker a willingness to treat irritation, defiance, or past encounters as retroactive permission to kill. Even if a previous encounter involved shouting, kicking a car, or spitting those things happen every day. A repeat encounter is an opportunity to handle a situation better, not a pretext to end a life. The argument the government is now advancing is not self-defense. It is the claim that prior encounters, irritation, or defiance can retroactively justify a killing. That is not policing - it is collective punishment logic. If this standard were legitimate, officers would be allowed to approach repeat encounters already primed for lethal escalation, civilians would effectively be placed on informal execution lists, and due process would be replaced by memory, bias, and resentment instead of law. It would allow ICE agents to act as judge, jury, and executioner. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS NOT THE TRUE AMERICAN SPIRIT.