This claim appears to be completely unsubstantiated.
I can find evidence of ICE operations in Minneapolis, protesters monitoring ICE activity, and even instances of people impersonating ICE agents. What I cannot find is any credible evidence for the very specific story being circulated here: protesters supposedly disguising themselves in tactical gear, infiltrating groups of ICE agents, accusing individual agents of being impostors, causing the agents to start fighting one another, and then escaping. There are no identified incidents, dates, locations, police reports, videos, or reputable news reports corroborating it.
The original post itself is doing the classic social-media thing of saying “reportedly” without actually reporting who supposedly witnessed it or where it supposedly happened.
It’s entirely possible someone posted this as a joke or satire, but there’s nothing in the screenshot indicating that it’s satire, and people are clearly sharing it as though it were a real tactic that is “happening nationwide.”
So, unless someone can produce actual evidence of an incident, this should be treated as an unsupported claim, not a factual account of ICE protests. The fact that Patton Oswalt is sarcastically asking people not to share it doesn’t magically make the underlying claim true either.
The entire point is that it’s fake. The point of spreading it, is that it causes paranoia within ICE. People will start suspecting each other if they see someone they don’t recognize. And because it’s entirely fake nobody (besides the ICE agents) is at risk.
It’s not unfeasible that someone may try this, but it’s a statement of what is “allegedly” happening and not a call to action. And Patton Oswald is not encouraging people to do it, but encouraging people to spread the rumor around.
I also hope, perhaps naively, that anybody that does have thoughts of actually trying this would do a little bit of research first, to find out where this is happening and try to see if there are any locals doing this that they can join. It would be much less effective for an individual to do this as opposed to a group who can fake legitimacy by vouching for each other if they’re called out. And also to avoid a situation similar to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer trying to sell to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug user. If you pretend to be ICE and start pointing fingers at other people who are also pretending to be ICE, it very quickly defeats the whole purpose and leads to impersonator infighting. And all of this to say, in looking into things further to attempt to effectively do what is being claimed here, they would discover that it is a fabrication.
And as we’ve seen, the right tend to take everything being said at face value as opposed to actually fact checking things. So they are more likely to be duped by these types of rumors.
This claim appears to be completely unsubstantiated.
I can find evidence of ICE operations in Minneapolis, protesters monitoring ICE activity, and even instances of people impersonating ICE agents. What I cannot find is any credible evidence for the very specific story being circulated here: protesters supposedly disguising themselves in tactical gear, infiltrating groups of ICE agents, accusing individual agents of being impostors, causing the agents to start fighting one another, and then escaping. There are no identified incidents, dates, locations, police reports, videos, or reputable news reports corroborating it.
The original post itself is doing the classic social-media thing of saying “reportedly” without actually reporting who supposedly witnessed it or where it supposedly happened.
It’s entirely possible someone posted this as a joke or satire, but there’s nothing in the screenshot indicating that it’s satire, and people are clearly sharing it as though it were a real tactic that is “happening nationwide.”
So, unless someone can produce actual evidence of an incident, this should be treated as an unsupported claim, not a factual account of ICE protests. The fact that Patton Oswalt is sarcastically asking people not to share it doesn’t magically make the underlying claim true either.
The entire point is that it’s fake. The point of spreading it, is that it causes paranoia within ICE. People will start suspecting each other if they see someone they don’t recognize. And because it’s entirely fake nobody (besides the ICE agents) is at risk.
What? No… Just the ice agents? What about the people that might actually try this?
It’s not unfeasible that someone may try this, but it’s a statement of what is “allegedly” happening and not a call to action. And Patton Oswald is not encouraging people to do it, but encouraging people to spread the rumor around.
I also hope, perhaps naively, that anybody that does have thoughts of actually trying this would do a little bit of research first, to find out where this is happening and try to see if there are any locals doing this that they can join. It would be much less effective for an individual to do this as opposed to a group who can fake legitimacy by vouching for each other if they’re called out. And also to avoid a situation similar to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer trying to sell to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug user. If you pretend to be ICE and start pointing fingers at other people who are also pretending to be ICE, it very quickly defeats the whole purpose and leads to impersonator infighting. And all of this to say, in looking into things further to attempt to effectively do what is being claimed here, they would discover that it is a fabrication.
And as we’ve seen, the right tend to take everything being said at face value as opposed to actually fact checking things. So they are more likely to be duped by these types of rumors.
They go to federal prison for a felony conviction of impersonation of a federal officer.
I apologize you’re a different person. Please disregard the comment that I left if you were still able to read it in your inbox.
I think you wanted to reply to the person that replied to me. But you replyed to me instead if that makes any sense.
Or maybe I am entirely mistaken and you are indeed replying to me to which I would simply say I am very confused.