Wife and I stopped at a gas station to use the restroom. Pulling up I noted an old SUV on the side of the road that seemed to have one or more cars pulled over (4-5 total vehicles), blue flashing lights on the interior sides and interior rear. Y’all, blue lights are cop only, with some jurisdictions allowing ambulances and fewer allowing fire, not filthy unmarked 20-yo SUVs.

There was a young man standing by the driver’s door talking to someone in front of him, but he was the only human I saw when we drove in and out. Plain clothes, but his position and body language said the flashy car was his.

Say it was a dumb kid with illegal lights, purposefully impersonating law enforcement. This was in the country, but it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. Legit cops would have been all over his ass.

The infuriating part? I have a legal, brown, immigrant wife and live in a country where that well could been an ICE agent hassling people. Or a rando hassling people.

Also infuriating, the Republicans told me my whole life that the Democrats wanted to turn America into Soviet-style communism. Now my wife has to carry her fucking papers every time she leaves the house, comrade. And even that doesn’t protect her from arrest.

Can’t imagine anything else this could have been. I’ve seen hundreds of plain vehicles over the decades, this was not one of them unless it was a seriously deep-cover thing, and if it was, the officer wouldn’t have fucking lights.

Cannot think of a rational explanation except ICE. Am I nuts?!

EDIT: I should note the dumbest part: Saw no one with a mask. Is it really legitimate law enforcement if they’re not masked?!

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      14 days ago

      Hate to bring up “gang violence” as a major cause of gun deaths, because that’s mostly white gun nuts (like me) saying, “Brown criminals killing each other ain’t my problem.”, but it’s true of most of the Chicago gun ownership and, to a wider extent, Illinois. They have some laughably weird and ineffective gun laws up there that, none the less, prevent legal ownership.

      Reading between the lines, sounds like Florida cops are most cooperative with ICE, but this is NW Florida. Not very populated, cut off from the rest of the state by uninhabited swamps to the east and basically Southern Alabama in nature. Also, checked ICE offices, none even remotely close, for now. I’m looking for masked animals and you woke me to how very close they could be.

      I hate living and thinking and planning like this. Thought I’d die of old age long before the American Empire died out. Me in my 50s, “Maybe I should go to camp tomorrow and practice with the 12-gauge pump. Been awhile…” Shooting used to be purely for fun.