I don’t think “authority” necessarily means “legal authority” here, rather than just “we can’t make them”. Local EMS personnel can’t actually force (in the literal sense) federal agents to do anything and, at least to me, the tone of this memo implies that the person writing it is not happy about the state of affairs. The option to record that a federal agent refused patient transport seems like it is designed with the intent of recording whom to blame on the assumption that someone will get blamed eventually once the political situation changes. (I assume the name being obtained is the name of the agent.)
I understand, and I don’t blame the Fire Department for sending the bulletin. Probably the best thing they could do in the situation.
What is fucking ridiculous, is:
•The fact that this administration has created a task force (in the name of safety, of course) that is clearly putting individuals at risk.
•That they have thrown together a bizarre hodgepodge of what appears to be every federal agency they could possibly think of when they were writing the memo for the task force, and then unleashed them alongside armed agents to live out their cop fantasies in an American city like they’re in some fucked up IRL Westworld scenario.
•That this is clearly the first step in escalating and expanding what ICE has been doing this entire time to include every American that doesn’t fall in line.
•That they have chosen one of the poorest areas of the country (where I was born, and where the federal government had to be deployed to enforce civil rights just one generation before me), to use as a testing ground for their fucked up authoritarian experiment bulldozing civil rights, and they chose it because they thought nobody would notice or care enough if they did notice.
Good luck to the EMTs, the masked and badgeless ICE agents refuse to give their names to anyone as we’ve all seen.
Fucking KKKestapo
Federal Agencies currently occupying Memphis, TN as part of Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force:
National Guard
Department of Defense,
Department of Treasury
Department of Justice
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban development
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Transportation
U.S. Marshalls
FBI
ATF
DEA
Homeland Security Investigations
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of TN.
As well as the following local and state agencies being asked to comply and join the task force:
Memphis Police Department, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Memphis Area Transit Authority, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, the Tennessee Alcohol Beverage Commission, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the Tennessee State Probation and Parole Office, the Tennessee Department of Corrections, the Arkansas State Police, the Mississippi State Police, the Shelby County Attorney’s Office, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, the Memphis City Prosecutor’s Office, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, Shelby County Pretrial Services, the Shelby County Probation Section, and other Federal, State, and local officials as appropriate.
Memphis activists stage Downtown march to protest xAI, National Guard deployment
Look how small that government is
So much savings!
It’s not like the EMS can fight the feds to take away the patient when they refuse. To me this text doesn’t really sound like Chief Angie Sullivan is okay with it either. I think on the contrary, having this record could be very valuable to at least keep the feds accountable after the fact when they fuck up the care of arrested people.
So the people in charge of safety are the least trained with an overriding fuck you mentality. What could possibly go wrong!
Everybody on that stage looks so fucking uncomfortable and worried except ole Bill Lee.
The vibe of this picture looks like a press conference is being held to discuss a disturbing high profile murder, not to discuss how this is willing collaboration that everyone is on board with.
Vibes of being forced into painfully uncomfortable silence as a scary authoritarian makes themselves at home.
I don’t even know who this guy is. I assume National Guard, but even he seems like he might be having something of an “Are we the baddies?” moment of existential crisis?
Would be interesting to be a fly on the wall during the uncomfortable conversation that preceded that clearly uncomfortable press conference.
Sure, I’ll ask the Fed their name. Then I’ll write John Doe, just like they said.
