Bulwark Takes - ICE Shot a 21-Year-Old in the Eye and Blinded Him

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Tim Miller gives his take on a wave of disturbing ICE confrontations, including Minneapolis agents threatening civilians and a California protester who was shot in the face and left blind.

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller for the bulwark. We're continuing to cover these just really grotesque scenes out of Minneapolis and the confrontations between ICE and CBP agents there and the folks that are just trying to live their lives in the city. We put out a call for some feedback on that. And so we're going through, you know, both video we've been provided as well as stuff that's out there in the public space. So you guys can get a sense of what is happening because I think sunlight is our best answer here. And I guess just to say part of the reason why I believe

sunlight is our best answer here is that the polling on this looks horrible and not like, oh, well, the polls, you know, in the past said that Hillary was going to win or that Kamala and Trump was a toss-up, then he won and maybe the, you know, not that. It's not a close call. I mean, the ice numbers have tanks down 30s, points in their approval. There have been some extensive research done by folks who do

very, who do really serious data analysis. They've done these deep dives. And what they're finding is that when people see these videos of these mass thugs, bullying people, it is having a persuasive effect. They're changing their mind. It's changing their view on the deportation campaign, on ICE, on Trump's management of this. And so I just think from both, humanitarian and a journalistic and a political standpoint, it's important that people see what's happening. So I want to start here with this video on Tuesday from the middle of a street in Minneapolis where ICE is cutting this woman out of her seatbelt and pulling her from her car. She's surrounded by about a dozen agents as she shouts multiple times, I'm going to the doctor.

Let's watch. Jesus Christ. Back up, back up, back up, back up, back up. You can hear there, I'm autistic. I'm trying to go to the doctor. We can see a little bit more of that in another video taken by NPR news. Let's watch that as well. I have a brain injury.

Put me down. I was just trying to get to the doctor and I'm autistic. It takes me a second to understand. Step back. Step back. I just like, What is the point of this? Why are there 12 agents detaining this woman?

Like, is she a threat? Is she a violent criminal? Are people worried about her? Is she going to ram somebody with her car? Like, this, it's just ridiculous to use this type of manpower and these type of tactics to detain this person. Sometimes I like to just look at this in this perspective of, what if they're doing a responsible campaign to crack down on people here illegally?

I would be again, I'm extremely liberal on immigration policy, and I would think that, you know, there'd be certainly ways to handle this differently. But just kind of imagine what it could look like. Like, the lady says she's going to the doctor. Like, you know, they could go to the hospital. They could go to our house. You can, you know, give her a citation that says that she has an order for removal. Give her a chance to remove herself. voluntarily. She doesn't, within a certain period of time, go back to the house. But like,

there's no need for violence. There's no need for state violence. Like, the only point of it is for the show to try to intimidate, try to scare people. And that's why they have, you know, these thugs are pushing people that are monitoring it and, you know, trying to be tough guys in the street. You know, it's just all this big cosplay that is inhumane and wrong. Some Republicans in he'll disagree with that though and i want to play one republican congresswoman's response to that video she's here illegally she's probably getting free health care taxpayers are paying for if she truly isn't illegal i i just now am seeing this i've been busy all day so i have not seen this i don't know the background the truth will come out like it always does um but if she is here illegally and

she's on her way to the doctor and she's resisting arrest who cares okay i mean uh for charters, is she resisting arrest? I don't know if that's clear. She's being manhandled. They're cutting her out of the car. I love that we're falling into this, like, the taxpayers. This administration is really concerned about judicious use of taxpayer dollars, really? Like, what do you think? Who the hell knows what health care this woman is on? But let's say she's on government health care. What is going to cost more? This doctor appointment that she's going to? or having 12 thugs deployed to Minneapolis to follow her out. You know, we spent an absolutely ludicrous amount of money to coo the leader of Venezuela

the other week. Okay. I didn't hear Mary Miller out there saying, why are taxpayers paying for us to move an aircraft carrier into the Caribbean and, you know, and put together. a plan for a invasion of Caracas. Because let me tell you, a lot

more. The cost of that was significantly higher than this lady's doctor's appointment. So you know, it's just, it's totally heartless. And I do think that there's going to be a backlash. And we're already seeing

the signs of a backlash against that attitude from Republican leaders. Okay. I want to move on. There's one other video that's been getting a lot of attention, no one to flag, that is not out of Minneapolis. This one's out of Santa Ana. And I thought Jacob Soberov

was really good on this on the pod the other day. It's kind of reminding that a lot of these other places, these activities are still going on with the focus is on Minneapolis. Luckily, here in New Orleans, it has been tamped down quite a bit because most, if not all of the folks

that have deployed here haven't redirected to Minneapolis. us, so we still have kind of our baseline number. But in a lot of these other places, there's still our resources, and ICE is out there recruiting more and more people every day. So I want to play, this one, I do want to warn you, the footage here is pretty tough to watch. But this is a video of a 21-year-old in California who is protesting ICE,

who was shot in the face with a non-lethal round. So I want to watch that and then a little bit of the aftermath. So you all, this is different. You heard the shooting there and now you can see his face. He looks like a child. So yeah, you heard the shooting there and then you could see his bloodied face. His family told the LA Times they had to go under six hours of surgery. I wonder if the taxpayers paid for him.

for that. Mary Miller. What if you thought about that? He went under six hours of surgery. Doctors found shards of plastic glass and metal embedded in his eyes and around his face. He's a fractured skull around his eye

and nose. Doctor said he's permanently blind in his left eye. And unlucky it's just the left eye. This is not the end of it, though. After they shot him in the face with that non-lethal round at point-blank range. You saw them drag him there.

And then look at what they were doing to him once they had detained him. Just the gratuitous use of force here, guys who feel like they are immune because they've been told they're immune by the vice president and by Trump's chief thug and by Trump himself. And so they're just going to, you know, take out their own issues on our own. other people, truly just horrifying. It's a free country. You should be able to protest and shout and complain about government action without worrying that some lunatic is going to pop you in the eye. Like, sorry.

What's the JV I like to use about the police? This is not a draft. We didn't force anybody to take these jobs. Okay. Part of the job of being a public servant in the public eye is that you take criticism. People yell at you sometimes. People are unhappy. That's because you serve the public.

If you don't want to have a job like that, then don't take one. But these guys signed up for this. They're protesters out there exercising their First Amendment rights. And they're doing severe medical. damage to them, injuring them. So it's, it's, it's really, really gross. I want to now turn back to Minneapolis. There, on Sunday, there's a local that noticed ice officers were in his neighborhood. And he told us that he saw them turn down an alleyway. So I guess he was monitoring that. And suddenly he was surrounded by ice officers banging on his window. And you can see

the video of that here. This is your warning. This is your warning. Stop fucking following us. You are impeding operations. This is the United States federal government. I live over here. I got to get to my house.

This is your warning. Got to get to my house. Go home to your kids. Go to church. Go to home to your kids. This is your last warning. I will arrest you. Okay.

Like, dude needs to take a fucking chill pill. What are you doing? Like, this is happening all the place. And we keep seeing these images, just how aggressive they are in dealing with cars. And obviously, the Renee Good shooting, but just time and again,

I'm seeing these pictures of, like, guys with their car window bashed in by these guys. You can just see the way they're menacing somebody. This person lives in the neighborhood. They're not impeding operations.

Okay? You can drive around your neighborhood. You can tell people in your neighborhood that they're ice agents to your neighborhood. This isn't China. That is allowed here. Okay? this is a free person executing his constitutional rights in his own vehicle and some masked goons

are surrounding his car and menacing him that's bad and this is not cherry-picked we are seeing this all over the place but we just had this video firsthand as a representative example that that wasn't the end just want to play the end of his exchange there is the same car god bless let's these people go to church. Let these people serve the Lord and worship. Let people, let people, let let people, let people, I guarantee you're not going to like the outcome. Go home to your children. It's Sunday. Yeah, go, exactly. Let people go to church. You did not learn from what just happened? Go home to your kids. Learn what. Do you not learn from what just happened? This is, I think, the third different ICE agent I've seen in videos saying some version of that, do not learn from what

just happened with Renee Good. And that is a threat. That is a threat from a public servant against a U.S. citizen. We should not be threatened by our government. They should not be threatening us with violence. And it also belies the reality of the shooting of Renegov. Because simultaneously the state the Trump administration, J.D. Vance, want us to think that this was a domestic terrorist who endangered the life of a police. officer and so he felt he had no choice but to kill her to defend himself that's a story they're

telling okay so if that's the story they're telling how does that match up with ice agents threatening other people who are not trying to kill them and saying to them do you see what just happened do you not learn from what just happened you're not going to like the outcome okay well what I thought what we were supposed to learn from what just happened was that you shouldn't, from their point of view, is that you shouldn't try to ram your car at an agent, or then they'll shoot you. Are we supposed to learn something else? It seems to me it's quite revealing.

It's quite revealing. When the agents are saying, you're not going to like the outcome of this, did you not learn from what just happened? They're saying that like, if you protest a little too aggressively, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you speak up too. loudly, then one of our guys might just shoot you in the face. And to me, that confirms the obvious story that all of us have been telling, which is that the shooting of Renee Good was a crackdown on a protester that they felt

was too mouthy. And so I killed her, even though she was turning away. Otherwise, that argument doesn't make sense, right? Like the argument would you not see what just happened? It doesn't make sense if you're saying, well, you know, because this guy obviously in the car wasn't trying to kill them. So what would he have to learn from that situation if the story was that they, that they shoot somebody if they try to kill them in self-defense, right? I think it's extremely revealing that these guys are using that tragic killing of Bray Good. And they're saying, yeah, we might do it too.

Watch out. as a way to try to get regular citizens of Minnesota to not speak out, to shut up, to stay in their home. And that is not how things work in a free country. Watch out. That's pretty ominous stuff. Pretty ominous stuff. So we're going to keep monitoring that. I appreciate you guys for sending us anything.

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