This Is Not What Justice Looks Like

I watched a video of half a dozen ICE agents in full body armor — large men, masked, armed, armored like soldiers — beating a 5'7", 155-pound, 48-year-old gardener outside a store he was working on.

I wasn’t angry because I hate law enforcement.

I was angry because these men had let the privilege of their uniform outweigh their humanity.

This wasn’t policing. This was a pack mentality, sanctioned brutality dressed up as “enforcement.” And it wasn’t an isolated moment. It was a window — one of thousands — into what our justice system has become for far too many people in this country.

George Floyd’s neck was pinned under an officer’s knee for 9 minutes and 29 seconds — as three other officers stood by and watched. Michael Brown was shot six times in Ferguson and left in the street for four hours. Breonna Taylor was asleep in her own home when officers fired 32 rounds into her apartment during a botched raid. Tamir Rice was 12 when police shot him seconds after arriving on the scene. Sandra Bland was arrested during a traffic stop and found dead in a jail cell days later.

We know these names. But there are thousands more we’ll never hear. Names like Jose Luis Sanchez, an immigrant father in El Paso beaten and hospitalized by Border Patrol. Names like Roxsana Hernández, a transgender woman who died in ICE custody after being denied medical treatment. Names like Carlos Ingram-Lopez, who died handcuffed and face-down while begging for water.

The list doesn’t end. It just keeps getting buried.

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Yes, there are officers who joined the force to protect and serve. Many still believe in that mission. But we have to tell the truth: there is also a growing number drawn to the badge because of the power it gives them. The authority. The control. The ability to act with near impunity.

And the system rewards them.

The numbers are undeniable. Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Latinx people face disproportionately high rates of use of force, surveillance, and immigration enforcement. Indigenous people are incarcerated at a rate 38% higher than the national average. When people of color are charged, they are far more likely to be convicted, and once convicted, they receive harsher sentences than white counterparts for the exact same crimes.

This isn’t justice. It’s oppression in a uniform.

And it’s not just local law enforcement. The private prison industry — a $5 billion machine — profits from keeping bodies behind bars. Entire counties and states depend on arrest quotas and detention numbers to keep prison contracts active. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with Customs and Border Protection, have become increasingly militarized — not to protect us from violent threats, but to target low-wage workers, asylum seekers, and families trying to survive.

In some cases, local law enforcement aids and abets this cruelty — by sharing data, coordinating raids, and funneling detainees into for-profit detention centers.

This is not the America we’re told to believe in.

This is an America where children are torn from their parents and caged.

An America where a routine traffic stop can end in death — depending on the color of your skin.

An America where cruelty has become not just tolerated, but institutionalized.

We’re told it’s about law and order. But we’ve seen the footage. Heard the cries. Buried the dead.

This isn’t about safety. It’s about control. It’s about maintaining a system that punishes poverty, criminalizes color, and shields those in power from accountability.

And as long as we let it go on — as long as we excuse the inexcusable — we are complicit.

So yes, I watched that video. And I got angry.

Because that man could have been my neighbor. My uncle. My father. Or yours.

Because when we allow uniforms to erase empathy, and badges to override morality, we lose more than justice — we lose our soul.

And that’s not something we can afford to lose any longer.