Letters to the Editor: ICE’s presence on California’s streets isn’t making this reader feel any safer

To the editor: Am I safer because street vendors are being taken off the street? Or landscapers? Or restaurant workers? Or car wash workers? Am I safer when armed men in masks roam Los Angeles with impunity; who feel they have the right to use excessive force against a woman who ended up in their path, and who are seemingly threatened by bystanders filming their cruelty? How many more cases must the Los Angeles Times document (“‘You gonna let him die?’ Agents pile on protester, who convulses and struggles to breathe,” June 27)? Please see every Times issue this week for similar stories.

How long before these thugs in face masks cause grievous harm to innocent bystanders with their mass arrest tactics? Immigration and Customs Enforcement has operated in Los Angeles for decades without this brand of violence. And that’s the point — it is a brand. A Donald Trump/Stephen Miller brand designed to emphasize cruelty for our consumption. I’m not safer, but I am ashamed that this is happening in our city, our state and our country.

Fred Burgess, Camarillo