David Horsey is the best in the trade!!! His Editorial cartoons nail it every time.

 By 

David Horsey

Seattle Times cartoonist

Ever since the Second World War, there is a phrase that has been used to describe the worst types of police terror: Gestapo-like tactics.

It is a phrase that can be overdone. Not every excess of law enforcement is comparable to the actions of the Gestapo, Adolf Hitler’s political police who used violence and intimidation to beat down the opponents and victims of the Nazi regime.

But there are certainly times when it does apply. The ruthless cops who bludgeoned peaceful Civil Rights marchers in Selma at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 is one example. The police attack on demonstrators outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago might be another.

For certain, it is accurate to characterize the current behavior of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as Gestapo-like. Despite the lies being told by Trump administration officials, ICE is not targeting only criminals and “bad hombres” (in President Donald Trump’s terminology). As evidenced by incident after incident, day after day, it is an irrefutable fact that, in carrying out Trump’s roundup of alleged undocumented immigrants, ICE agents are employing brutal force, racially profiling and violating constitutional rights as they chase down peaceful people at their workplaces, their homes, on city streets, at shopping malls and outside of churches.

An appalling example is the Latino man in Los Angeles whose car was surrounded by ICE storm troopers outside a Home Depot a few days ago. They pulled the man from his car and took him away, leaving his 1-year-old girl in the back seat. The man is an American citizen, born in California, according to his mother, who says she is also a citizen. The child got home safely, but her father has disappeared into the dark netherworld of ICE custody, like hundreds of other victims.

This incident is not an outlier, it is a common example of the illegal tactics being employed by the poorly trained, pseudo-cops of ICE who are a disgrace to all the disciplined, brave police officers in America.

There are many countries around the world where good folks are terrorized by violent goons in the service of authoritarian regimes. Until this year, the United States was a leader in condemning and opposing such regimes. Now, the USA is one of them.

See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey

View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons

Editor’s note: Seattle Times Opinion no longer appends comment threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many comments violated our community policies and reviewing the dozens that were flagged as inappropriate required too much of our limited staff time. You can comment via a Letter to the Editor. Please email us at letters@seattletimes.com and include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words.

David Horsey:  is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Seattle Times. His latest book is “Unhinged USA.”