Almost every time people protest the government, the government decides to get on the wrong side of the law. This is something every administration is guilty of, but under Trump, attacking protesters and journalists has become the rule, rather than the exception.

Plenty of litigation has arisen from the protests greeting Trump’s uber-aggressive pursuit of migrants. Under Trump, the expected disregard for protected First Amendment activity (protesting, journalism) has expanded to include a disregard for multiple other constitutional amendments, including the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Trump administration treats any dissent as an act of war against the United States. And his federal agencies treat documentation of government actions as acts of terrorism. On top of all of this is this administration’s blessing of federal agents concealing their identities, which has encouraged them to violate rights more frequently — and more violently — because they know they can’t be easily identified.

Chicago (specifically) and Illinois (more generally) are the new war zones for the Trump administration. Protests prompted by unprovoked violent acts by federal officers have proven to be all the excuse the administration needs to engage in more violence and an expansion of executive power.

Tim Geigner covered a lot of this last week, discussing restraining orders issued against federal officers and the constitutional end-around being performed by the Trump administration with its use of Texas National Guard troops to perform its invasion of Chicago.

But here’s how everything got to that point. And I feel it’s worth looking at more closely because it so clearly demonstrates the cruelty we’re dealing with. The first thing this incarnation of the federal government does is pick a fight. Then it responds (violently) to the reaction it has deliberately provoked.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol (do what now) agents shot Chicago resident Marimar Martinez multiple times, but not before making it clear which side had all the unchecked power:

Body-camera video of a Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting of a woman who was allegedly chasing agents in Brighton Park over the weekend shows an officer saying, “Do something, b—-,” before pulling over and shooting the woman five times, the woman’s attorney said in federal court Monday.

The video appears to contradict the government’s allegation that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire on her late Saturday morning on Kedzie Avenue near 39th Street, her attorney, Christopher Parente, said at a detention hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

Whenever a major news agency uses the phrase “appears to contradict” in reference to federal government claims, I’m inclined to believe said footage directly contradicts those claims. On top of that, there’s security cam footage that absolutely refutes federal officers’ claims that they were pursued by a “convoy” of “ten” allegedly hostile vehicles.

This attack has understandably resulted in protests and news coverage. Just as predictably, this has resulted in more unprovoked aggression from federal officers, which includes one officer’s decision to fire a whole bunch of pepper balls at peaceful protesters, despite being in a position even violent protesters would be unable to reach.

Here’s a description of what went down here, provided by a rather unexpected news source:

Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

This is Rev. Black. And this is what happened to him — something the government can’t hope to refute credibly because, well, the narrative belongs to the people:

CW: protester being struck in the head by a pepper ballFootage I took earlier of the moment Reverend David Black, a regular protester outside of the Broadview Detention Center, was shot in the head with a pepper ball by ICE agents on the roof of the facility.

— Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart (@mskellymhayes.bsky.social) 2025-09-20T02:22:06.567Z

Black is one of the plaintiffs engaged in a lawsuit against federal officers and their tactics. And now — ahead of the expected deployment of [checks notes] Texas National Guard troops to Chicago — the government is restrained (judicially, but probably not in actuality) from doing more of the stuff observed in the video posted above.

The restraining order [PDF] says all sorts of things federal officers already likely know to be true, but have chosen to ignore because most of them are bullies who’ve found an outlet for their aggression that includes health care benefits and a decent pension. You know, things like not beating, pepper spraying, or arresting journalists, peaceful protesters, and — more directly — peaceful members of the clergy. It also limits the use of riot control weaponry to when it’s truly justified, rather than just whenever officers feel like firing off a magazine full of pepper balls.

But there’s little reason to believe this will actually change anything. ICE will continue to act as though it’s above the law because… well… it’s backed by an administration that spends each and every day above the law. While that’s horrific on its own level, it can often feel abstracted. And that’s why it’s necessary to see what this all looks like on the ground. It’s something that personifies the cruelty of this administration. It’s officers yelling “Do something, bitch!” before filling a person full of bullets. And it’s federal officers standing on a roof purposely firing pepper spray rounds at someone on the ground just because they’re pretty sure they’ll get away with it. On top of all of this is an administration that honestly wants to kill people who disagree with it. If it didn’t have this ultimate desire, it wouldn’t be sending the military into cities that are not experiencing anything close to the violent unrest that has justified National Guard deployments in the past.

It’s Dirty Harry politics — thuggery masquerading as law and order that wanders around provoking confrontations in hopes of eliciting any reaction it can, however implausibly, use to justify deadly force. Don’t let them get away with it.

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