DOJ Prosecutors Directly Contradict The DHS’s Oregon Shooting Narrative

The two murders by immigration officers during Trump’s vengeful “surge” in Minneapolis, Minnesota have grabbed most of the headlines recently. And deservedly so. The violent rhetoric used by nearly every administration official — combined with a lack of training and the explicit understanding no one will be punished by Trump for whatever’s done in Trump’s name — has delivered a day-to-day purge of minorities that this government and its supporters continue to pretend is nothing more than good, solid (immigration) law enforcement.

But before those shootings turned the nation’s attention to Minnesota, hundreds of federal officers had been turned loose in other “Democrat” states. Because officers were encouraged — by arrest quotas and the administration’s portrayal of anyone from other countries as inherently dangerous — to succeed by any means necessary, they did… even if it meant filling people with bullet holes for being on the wrong side of Trump’s version of history.

In January, two Venezuelans were shot by ICE officers. The DHS immediately claimed this was a good shoot, considering how potentially violent these recipients of bullets were.

Yesterday, two suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates—let loose on American streets by Joe Biden—weaponized their vehicle against Border Patrol in Portland. The agent took immediate action to defend himself and others, shooting them. 

After fleeing, the suspects drove nearly five miles to an apartment complex and called emergency medical services. They were transported to separate hospitals. Luis David Nino-Moncada sustained an injury to the arm while Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras was hit in the chest. Nino-Moncada is now in FBI custody. These individuals are not married.  

I’ve highlighted two things from this January DHS press release. Sure, it’s all bullshit but these two sentences need to be called out.

First, just because someone managed to cross the border doesn’t mean they were “let loose on American streets” by a presidential administration.

Second, what the fuck even is this? “These individuals are not married.” Who gives a shit? What bearing does this have on anything? Or are we so far down the white Christian nationalist rabbit hole that simply co-habitating a moving vehicle is justification enough for being shot by federal officers?

Any normal administration would never have included those two sentences, even if it wanted to push the narrative that the people who were shot were dangerous enough to justify the violent reaction. Throwing this shit into the mix is just how the Trump administration does business: like two kids piggy-backed in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a full-grown adult.

And that’s enough to let everyone know very little of what is being said is true. It’s a dog whistle for racism, sexism, and making-a-bunch-of-shit-upism that is meant to appease the Bigot in Chief and make MAGA’s collective panties so wet they should be asking FEMA for flood relief grants. (I’m paraphrasing Shoresy here.)

While that may look good on the permanent DHS press release record, it doesn’t look nearly as bully-smart (I’m coining that) as the people spewing it thinks it does when it runs up against the part of the government that isn’t so easily swayed by bigoted gibberish that’s interspersed with partisan attacks and non sequiturs.

Now that these shootings are being handled in court, the narrative (and I’m being extremely gracious here in treating this froth as the equivalent of an actual narrative) is disintegrating. It turns out prosecutors and investigators can’t actually back up these wild-ass DHS claims. Forced to rely on facts, the DOJ is finding out it doesn’t have many to work with.

During the border patrol stop, the driver, Luis Niño-Moncada, “weaponized their vehicle against” officers, DHS said, prompting an agent “to defend himself and others” by shooting the occupants. Zambrano-Contreras was hit in the chest, Niño-Moncada was hit in the arm and both were hospitalized, then taken into federal custody, DHS noted. The agents were uninjured.

But court records obtained by the Guardian reveal a Department of Justice prosecutor later directly contradicted DHS’s Tren de Aragua statements in court, telling a judge: “We’re not suggesting … [Niño-Moncada] is a gang member.” An FBI affidavit issued following the incident also suggests that in the previous shooting cited by DHS, Zambrano-Contreras was not a suspect, but rather a reported victim of a sexual assault and robbery. Neither Niño-Moncada or Zambrano-Contreras have prior criminal convictions, their lawyers have said.

This is just as sloppy as the quasi-gang database the DHS has been using as an excuse to send Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT hell hole. There’s no investigation going on here. There’s just the DHS claiming that any Venezuelan it shoots or otherwise brutalizes is probably a Tren de Aragua gang member.

No doubt some prosecutors are going to get shit-canned for daring to oppose the DHS’s self-serving narrative in their sworn statements to judges. Given that the DOJ really can’t afford to lose many more of these, one wonders why this administration can’t simply provide a “no comment,” rather than immediately push narratives that it has to know will be contradicted once the facts arrive at the scene.

I mean, just stating what happened in whatever exonerative form you want to use (“officer-involved shooting”), followed by the assertion that the shooting is currently under investigation would be far better than what this administration chooses to do EVERY CHANCE IT GETS.

Whatever dubious charm these statements might have held during Trump’s blustery return to office has long worn off. I suspect even many of the MAGA faithful are getting a little tired of every incident being greeted by government statements that are long on hyperbole but short on facts. Sure, there are still a number of people so fully-cooked that they can’t achieve an erection without being lied to for paragraphs at a time, but given this constant onslaught of pure garbage in response to government violence, I have to believe some of the people who very definitely voted for this are rolling their eyes every time DHS front-mouth Tricia McLaughlin opens her mouth.