Not quite right in the head...

I was ambushed on FB by a video of an ambush. I could theoretically track it down but I don't think it would do my brain much good to do it. There's enough videos of this going down, I'm fairly sure that just a search string of "BLM police ambush" would bring it up. There was a black couple driving in their car away from where the principle activity of the protest was going on. They were going away. Neither of them were doing anything of particular suspicion except driving while black. Their car windows were up. The driver's intent was on navigating traffic as the passenger was staring ahead, presumably looking out for pedestrians because there was a lot of foot traffic.

A police officer in riot gear walks up to the passenger side door and starts banging on the window. The passenger looks over, clearly alarmed. The driver is doing their best to keep driving despite the distraction. In a matter of seconds, they swarmed the car. A pole weapon of some sort was used to puncture the tires of the car on the passenger side. They attempted to force open the doors of the car (which leads me to believe they were locked, it looked like a newer model car and those auto lock the doors once you go above 5 miles an hour and won't unlock until the car is put into park, regardless of if you slow back down below the threshold). Then they broke the window on the passenger side and reached in to wrench open the door. As they did this, they broke open the window on the driver's side. The passenger was dragged bodily from the car and thrown to the ground. The driver of the car was tazered multiple times from multiple angles. I couldn't watch the rest of the video.

The majority of the "officers" engaged in the activity here were not clearly marked as police. The only reason why I knew the one who walked up to the car and started hammering on the window with his fist was a police officer was because he was accompanied by a police officer in tactical gear carrying a round style riot shield with the word police clearly printed in bright yellow across the back of his vest. The rest of them, gods only know who they were. But they were carrying weapons. They ambushed this car in traffic leading away from the protest and dragged these citizens out.

I don't know where this happened except it was somewhere within the United States. I would assume Portland, WA because that's where the majority of this bullshit has been happening. The sight of it, however, looked like it could have been downtown of the city just north of us here, of any city in the country. These people were not being violent. They were not breaking the law. They weren't given the opportunity to "obey the police." They were ambushed and violently assaulted under color of law by unmarked agents of the government. Because they were black and in the wrong place.

Witnessing this brutality second hand triggered my ptsd to some extent. I got a little spacey and had a hard time thinking clearly. It brought up memories of my parents brutalizing my brothers and I was helpless to stop them. I am a bit more oriented in the present. I am saddened that my trauma won't let me act in some fashion to stop this. I am terrified what this means for people who would be branded political dissidents. I have the luxury of being fairly inobtrusive because I am a white, middle aged woman. I have over the years moved from wearing my fancy headcoverings to just a bandanna. It helps me blend in better. It keeps me from having people slow down and give me dirty/threatening looks when I'm out taking a walk. I dress relatively conservatively. That with the bandanna has people assuming that I am one of the local more conservative Christian mothers.

I, however, am not what they assume. I don't know when they're going to start coming for people who are mentally ill. I don't know when they're going to start coming for the people who oppose Trump and his party. I don't know when they're going to start coming for the people with autism and other disorders. But I have studied history. I have watched this since the inception of the Department of Homeland Security. They're going to come for us. They were just biding their time until the people who fought against fascism were dying off.

The Boomer generation will write this off as a mad woman's ramblings. They'll call me a "snowflake" or something else stupid. Now is not the time to try to reason with them. It is clear that they have been duped (willfully or not) into thinking that fascism will bring back what they consider their golden era of their youth. Now is the time to pour sand into the gears. Now is the time to lose paperwork. Now is the time to sabotage the machine. Until someone comes and puts them down. 

Of course this has to happen in the midst of a pandemic. Gods help us.