The Great Farce of Norwalk: ICE Loses a Parking Spot, Finds Its Rage

By David Shuster

In the bucolic town of Norwalk, Connecticut -- with it’s vibrant middle class, manicured hedges, and consistent ranking as a top 100 place to live in America -- the federal government recently dispatched the tyrannical knights of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) not to uphold the law, but avenge a bruised ego.

This tale of federal fury began not with a crime wave, nor a terror plot, but something so anodyne as a parking dispute.

Yes, you read this correctly. ICE — that phalanx of masked men who believe themselves to be the last xxxxxx between the republic and collapse — was denied the sacred right to park at the Norwalk Police Department.

The local police chief, having retained some sense of constitutional decency, told these federal peacocks to flap elsewhere.

No badge, no courtesy. No warrant, no parking.

For any normal agency, this might have been a momentary inconvenience. But for ICE, an institution whose moral compass seems to have been fashioned by Gestapo officers on a bender, it was nothing less than heresy.

So, with their pride bruised and their SUVs presumably overheating while double parked on Main Street, the agents embarked on what can only be described as a tantrum in boots (that goose-step to the mere thought of committing violence).

Unfortunately at that moment, Ricardo and Nunez Chavez, two brothers happened to be driving their red pickup truck on Norwalk’s Main Street. More significantly, the Chavez brothers possess Latino features.

That’s all it took for the Trump tyrants to erupt.

The masked ICE agents refused to identify themselves, blocked the path of the Chavez truck, and then smashed the windows when the brothers hesitated to get out.

Ricardo Chavez bolted and tried to run. An ICE agent then tasered him, causing Chavez to fall and smash headfirst into the pavement.

The agent then handcuffed Chavez, ignored the man’s bloody temple, and disregarded infuriated bystanders who urged ICE to take Ricardo Chavez to a hospital.

Nunez Chavez got out of the truck, and told the agents his wife could bring his paperwork to the scene (both brothers are legally entitled/documented to be in the United States). The problem is these Judge Dredds don’t care a one whit about justice—in fact they often seem to try and achieve just the opposite.

Chavez had his arms quickly twisted and pinned behind his back. There would be no patience nor paperwork allowed for Nunez. And no ambulance ride to the hospital for Ricardo.

The Chavez brothers were shoved into unmarked vehicles like sacks of contraband.

All of this was across the street from the police department headquarters, and the parking spots ICE had wanted.

A short time later, the Mayor of Norwalk, himself a former Norwalk police chief, held a news conference. He denounced the conduct of these ICEe agents as both rogue and unjustified.

That is commendable. But it is also irrelevant. Trump’s Securitate do not answer to reason or to jurisdiction. They only answer to grievance, vengeance, and whatever sadistic thought seeps into Stephen Miller’s head that day.

It is difficult to figure out what offense the Chavez brothers committed, other than existing. Their legal paperwork? On the way. Their rights? Disregarded. Their humanity? A footnote.

Indeed, one suspects that their true crime was “Driving While Latino” — an offense that ICE, in its self-deputized crusade, considers punishable by roadside abduction.

This is not merely about Norwalk, CT, it’s happening across the country with regularity. Recently in Portland, Oregon, a peaceful protester — and military veteran, no less — was flattened for the crime of standing and observing I.C.E. Agents, who absurdly claimed that the man was in their way.

Video of this event shows no warning, no request, just a sudden bone crunching cheap shot tackle from behind.

In downtown Washington—already increasingly authoritarian due to Trump’s calling in the National Guard—D.C. I.C.E. agents recently tackled and assaulted an Uber Eats driver just doing a delivery. The feds pulled him from his moped and threw him to the street.

Nearby, in Washington, D.C.’s Latino neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, ICE agents filmed themselves ripping down a protest sign criticizing the Border Patrol. How very adult.

And, let’s be honest, nothing screams liberty like silencing opinions the U.S. Constitution explicitly defends.

What we are witnessing is not law enforcement. It is theater — grotesque, petty, and vindictive — performed by men drunk on authority and unshackled by oversight. Absolute power corrupting absolutely.

They are not protecting America; they are punishing America for daring to be diverse and humane.

One might ask, what kind of man smashes a window instead of showing a warrant? What sort of officer bleeds a human being rather than speak his name? And most damningly — what kind of government allows this, not in secret, but in broad daylight, on Main Street across from local police headquarters?

The answer is federal government agents who confuse cruelty with strength, and parking privileges with a divine right.

There was a time when government service meant duty. Today, in the hands of ICE, it is an opportunity for cowards — who seek not to serve, but to settle scores, and engage in sadistic, psychopathic, racist fantasies.

The tragedy of Norwalk is not that it happened in a so-called sanctuary city. The tragedy is that it can happen anywhere in America. Anytime.

This is what America has become under Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

David Shuster is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist who is best known for his work at NBC News and as an anchor MSNBC. He is a contributor to Blue Amp Substack and co-host of our weekly show (Thursdays, 2pm et, on Substack), “Amped Up w/ Cliff Schecter.”