7 Questions About the Latest CBP Shooting
Border Patrol agents shot two more people in their vehicle, this time in Portland. And the story they’re telling doesn’t add up.
Two notes: (1) Just a heads-up that The Secret Show will be super late today. Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.
(2) Bulwark+ members asked me to unlock yesterday’s Triad about Renee Good and Ashli Babbitt. Done. Yesterday’s newsletter can now be read in full by anybody. Please share it if you think it adds value.
As always, thanks to everyone in the Bulwark+ fam for telling me what they think is important. Today, I have a couple Big Idea questions for you and I’m looking forward to our conversation. If you’re not already a member and this is the sort of community you’d like to be part of, I hope you’ll join us.
1. More Shots Fired
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security shot two more people in their vehicle yesterday. This time it was in Portland, the shooters were Border Patrol agents, and there does not seem to be any video of the incident. At this point our understanding of what happened relies entirely on official statements from DHS and the Portland Police Department.
The federal government says that:
At roughly 2:00 p.m. local time on January 8, agents from the U.S. Border Patrol—a component of DHS’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—conducted a “targeted vehicle stop” of a red pickup truck.
This stop took place in a medical clinic parking lot near Adventist Health Portland, one of the city’s major hospitals.
The truck was driven by a man and the passenger was a woman.
The woman was “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring.”
“When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents.”
“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
That’s where the federal government’s portion of the story ends. It seems obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: None of this information has been corroborated and just this week the Department of Homeland Security has engaged in documented deception when describing the shooting of civilians.
Our scene continues with a report from the Portland Police Bureau, which is substantially more detailed.
At 2:18 p.m. PPB officers responded to a 911 call reporting shots fired at the hospital parking lot. They confirmed that federal agents were present and had fired a weapon.
At 2:24 p.m. PPB officers responded to a second 911 call from a man claiming he had been shot. This man was in a red pickup truck in the parking lot of an apartment complex eight miles from the location of the shooting report.
Upon arrival at the apartment complex, PPB found a man in the driver’s seat of the truck and a woman in the passenger seat. Both had apparent gunshot wounds.
Police applied a tourniquet to one of the victims (the report does not say which) and called EMS. The two victims were transported to a hospital for treatment.
Some questions:
(1) Why did the CBP officers believe that the passenger in the vehicle was “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring”?1
(2) What is the evidence that this woman is as DHS describes her?
(3) How did the CBP officers identify themselves? Were they wearing badges and in uniform?
(4) Where were the CBP officers standing relative to the truck? What direction did the truck move in? How fast was it moving? Why did the CBP agents have reasonable fear for their lives?
(5) The DHS account says a single shot was fired, which would suggest that it passed through one of the victims and then struck the other. If this is true, then the shot must have been fired from the side of the truck. Why would an officer next to the truck fear for his life? Did this truck have the ability to drive sideways?