At one point, Miller told the assembled local police officers, “I see the guns and badges in this room. You are unleashed. The handcuffs you’re carrying, they’re not on you anymore, they’re on the criminals. And whatever you need to get it done, we’re gonna get it done.”
The 40-year-old stated that they had deployed over 13 government agencies, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, and the Department of Defense, which Hegseth has since rebranded as the “Department of War.”
“The gangbangers that you deal with, they think that they’re ruthless, they have no idea how ruthless we are,” Miller added.
“They think they’re tough, they have no idea how tough we are. They think that they’re hardcore, we are so much more hardcore than they are, and we have the entire weight of the United States government behind us. What do they have? They have nothing behind them. So we are gonna win, they’re gonna lose.”
At the Wednesday appearance, Hegseth thanked the assembled Memphis law officers for working in dangerous places “where politicians spend a lot of time second guessing… the impossible decisions that you have to make that they will never understand.”
Hegseth, Bondi and Miller spent around an hour in the Shelby County Office of Preparedness and left via the rear entrance, according to WREG TV.
Bondi said on X that 53 arrests had been made and 20 illegal firearms seized in the first two days of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Why are you assuming anyone is advocating for 3?
This isn’t just a normal cop on a power trip, these “task force” agents were just given the federal government’s blessing to go wild. They have individuals from the department of wildlife getting to live out their authoritarian fantasies and take out their frustrations on an entire city.
I need you to do a quick Ctrl-F for “Now I don’t really know”.
I need you to do a quick Ctrl-F for “probably a tactical mistake”. Yes, I get that especially these particular cops are not necessarily going to behave like ordinary city cops. That makes it a worse idea to commit extra crimes and antagonize them, it doesn’t mean it all of a sudden becomes a good idea or an effective way to push back against fascism.
I grew up in Memphis. I’ve known more than one person that had something planted on them during a search by a regular cop during regular times. They didn’t do anything except end up pulled over by the wrong cop because they “seemed suspicious.”
In high school, I knew someone who was stopped and searched while walking in the wrong part of town, then arrested as a minor for carrying too many condoms in their purse. They were a trans 17 year old, and the cops put them in jail with adult men and laughed while they cried bc they were so scared.
You do not have to do anything wrong to end up a victim of unjust fascist bullshit. You never have. Now, under an authoritarian takeover, it’s not just a possibility that it could always happen, it’s almost a guarantee.
And I’ve observed many times people reacting to all that that you just laid out, by getting super-hostile with the cops and committing additional crimes in the course of that hostility. Never once did it overthrow the system of fascism or make their life any easier. If you want to talk about how to change all that system and make the justice back again part of the equation, then sure, I think that’s super worthwhile and we should talk about it (very genuinely.)