‘Horrified, troubled and saddened.’ SLO County residents react to ICE shooting | Opinion
Think again, America
Call some people “terrorists” and kill them, and some Americans will approve. Kill them in the Caribbean and Venezuela, and they’ll consent. Kill a woman in Minneapolis, calling her a terrorist, leaving her 6-year-old son an orphan?
Did you think the brutality we inflict outside our borders wouldn’t be turned inward? Did you think the dehumanization we use to justify that cruelty wouldn’t be deployed at home?
It’s time to, finally, wake up. Those unleashing terror to subjugate our population are officials and agents of our own government. They’ve been given permission to do so by the Supreme Court, Congress and the silent acquiescence of most Americans.
If we still believe we live in the democratic republic our ancestors and contemporaries fought and fight for, will we exercise the responsibilities conferred on us with the rights we covet? We will either use or lose them.
David Broadwater
Atascadero
What the videos showed
I am horrified, troubled and saddened by the killing of a mother of three by an ICE agent. Apparently, he had an incident six months ago when, while serving a warrant, he grabbed a car door and was dragged.
What I see in the videos is that Renee Good was parked diagonally across the road, blocked by another car. Agents rushed the car, confronting her. Three or four agents were hollering at her to both get out of the way and get out of the car. She reacted by first trying to back up, and then trying to drive forward.
An agent in front of her car drew his weapon while the car was moving backward and then fired three shots when Renee turned the wheel to the right, trying to get away from the confrontation. She died on the spot. Yet the Trump administration denies what we can see with our own eyes. The other thing that bothers me is the current administration’s determination that any state not fully gung-ho in support of the GOP is an enemy, and the people of that state will be squeezed financially, will not have legal or human rights, and are subject to forfeiture of life, liberty, and property.
How many more have to be seized, detained, deported without due process, or killed while exercising their constitutional rights? Will the Supreme Court ever act to protect the rights of the people? Or will the justices continue to sit on their hands, maybe claiming they have to wait until cases wend through the lower courts while irreparable harm is done to the country?
Ron Gottesman
Arroyo Grande
More on ICE
Among my associates, I believe that I am considered a fairly intelligent person. However, I fail to understand why decent Americans are allowing the atrocities in our nation to continue. The most recent, as all sentient Americans should know about, is the senseless shooting of an American citizen by federally employed thugs known as ICE.
With an existing problem of privately owned firearms already out of control, why does it make any sense to release thousands of thugs, untrained in law enforcement, on the streets? Clearly this is only another step in turning the US into a fascist dictatorship. I beg you, contact your Congress reps and voice your anger. Beg them to use their power to stop the insanity.
Janet F. Langton
Templeton
Run for your life!
The county’s chief law enforcement officer, DA Dan Dow, advises via social media that the killing of Renee Good in Minnesota should be a “sobering lesson to all of us.”
While appreciating his effort to sober up the public, it should be pointed out that his statement of the lesson is based on an unsupported, apparently questionable statement of the facts. The lesson should be that if you are in the vicinity of a masked enforcement officer showing no personal identification who might decide, despite evidence to the contrary, that you are interfering or impeding him/her, you should run for your life. Don’t expect a warning. A simple arrest is unlikely. Sobering? More like terrifying.
Steve Belasco
San Luis Obispo
Restore Oceano’s natural defenses
The draft 2025 Soil Conservation Plan for Oceano Dunes SVRA is a disappointing endorsement for hauling our beautiful beach to the dump. For years, massive amounts of sand have been tracked out on vehicle tires from the Grand and Pier Avenue exits, resulting in tons of sand being hauled to landfills — an estimated $80,000 annual expense.
This violates the Public Resources Code. Constant vehicle traffic and parks’ heavy machinery destroy coastal biodiversity and prevent the formation of natural foredunes. We saw the proof during the 2020 COVID-19 closure, when sand stopped piling up on streets and protective dunes immediately began to reform.
By ignoring this evidence, State Parks plans to rubber stamp these destructive practices in the new Soil Conservation Plan, leaving Oceano vulnerable to flooding. To meet legal conservation standards, the Grand Avenue and Pier Avenue entrance/exits must be immediately closed to motorized traffic and allowed to naturally restore. We must stop treating our beach like a highway, restore it as a vital natural defense for our community and allow one of the most beautiful beaches in California to survive. Mother Nature proved in 2020 that this restoration can be done rapidly.
Bonnie Ernst
Oceano Beach Community Association