People my age learned many important life skills from a philosophy book disguised as a directory of information and products called “The Last Whole Earth Catalog.” We learned life skills like how to survive being in the middle of a crowd when it panics. And how to act when being arrested.
In the wake of the shooting of Renee Good last week, there has been a lot of discussion of questions like, “did ICE agents have the authority to stop her vehicle and question her?” That is an academic question in terms of her family, now sentenced to live the rest of their lives without her.
There is a great discussion available online by University of Virginia Law School Professor Rachel Harmon about the issue of orders from law officers. It’s at https://www.talksonlaw.com/briefs/do-you-have-to-comply-with-all-police-orders. As she points out, you cannot be arrested for failing to comply with an illegal command. But as she also points out, you have no way of knowing in the moment what is and what is not an illegal command. And seemingly there are states in which active resistance to a command is illegal even if the command itself is unlawful. Most importantly, as we saw last week, failing to follow a police order can be very dangerous whether the order is lawful or not.
A standard saying is, “comply now, complain later.” In general, whether an officer of the law – which for the moment can be defined as any person with a badge and a gun – tells you to do something, your only safe option is to follow that person’s commands. It doesn’t matter if the person is a Reserve Sheriff’s Deputy waving you through a red light as you are driving in traffic leaving a sporting event or an ICE agent pointing a gun at you and screaming. (And I recognize that ICE agents do not bother even flashing a badge, but they are at least issued badges.)
In the moment, the person with the gun gives the commands, and you should follow them. It’s your best option in a time when ICE officers are violating legal and human rights of people they wrongfully detain and the current Secretary of Homeland Defense has openly admitted that her staff ignore lawful court orders.
While a person receiving an order is best off complying, there are things the person receiving orders and observers can do to fight injustice:
- If you are not the subject of their attention, get out your cell phone and record the actions of ICE agents any time you can see one. If possible stream them to a social media platform so that if your phone is confiscated, the evidence you have collected remains available online. Do this even if nothing seems to be going awry. As we have seen, an interaction between an ICE agent and a civilian can turn deadly for the civilian in seconds. Note that in general, and in particular anytime out in public when one is not actually interfering with the activities of a federal officer, filming the actions of a federal officer IS constitutionally protected – see https://www.freedomforum.org/recording-police/. That does not mean that in the moment you are protected from intimidation or assault by ICE agents – another reason to live stream everything you record with your telephone.
- If you are the target of attention, while complying with orders you have received, scream out as loud as you can your name and the name and number of a contact person. That way observers know who to contact so someone can get to work as quickly as possible to get to a court, working on your behalf.
There is more for each person to do to prepare for the unexpected – and right now it is rational to expect that federal agents may behave unexpectedly. The information you need to be prepared for being stopped by ICE is available online at
https://immigrantjustice.org/for-immigrants/know-your-rights/ice-encounter/ This information was prepared for immigrants, but every person within the legal boundaries of the US must be prepared.
Let me close with a quote of the statement by the President of Old Dominion University and then one last comment:
“It is with great sadness that Old Dominion University mourns the loss of one of our own, Renee (Macklin) Good, a proud Monarch who graduated in December of 2020 from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English. Following Renee’s tragic killing earlier today in Minneapolis, our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends, loved ones, and the Monarch Nation.
This is yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation. Indeed, this tragedy reflects the deep strain being felt in countless communities across our nation. As citizens, it is our duty and right to call upon leaders and officials to restore civility in all facets of our lives, especially at the hands of those who are entrusted to protect and serve.
May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace. My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.” – Old Dominion University President Brian O. Hemphill, Ph.D.
As poignant and compelling as these words are, it would be better had they not been needed.
If you are confronted by a federal agent pointing a gun at you and giving you an order, comply while also yelling information to observers that will enable people to help you through the court system. Do your best not to panic. There are some things worth dying for. Telling an ICE agent to bugger themselves is not one of those things – even though such statements might be well be merited.
The world is a better place with you in it and alive. If an agent of the US federal government points a gun at you, stay alive. Then fight to restore civility – as the President of Old Dominion University called for – once no one is pointing a gun at you.