Mark Wignall | Extreme aggression and death

My lawyer friend in Miami greets me from what he calls upside down America. “The flu is making the rounds here in Miami and it is not nice. You caught it recently and you definitely know that. I hope you are 100 per cent recovered.”

“I am certain that you have been following events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the last month or so. The Trump administration sent many Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) to do immigration sweeps and enforcement. What is not widely known is that it was not only ICE agents sent. It was also Border Patrol (BP) agents and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent.

“Those agents have been behaving very aggressively, and, very sadly, as you know, two US citizens have been shot dead by the agents. One of those killed was a Ms Good and the other was a Mr Pretti. The killing of Ms Good was awful, but she did fail to obey. Under current federal law, if the agent ‘reasonably’ believed his life or the life of other officers/agents was in danger, he could use deadly force.

“Ms Good did not obey the commands given and was driving away. But the big ‘but’ is that he should not have been positioned the way he was in my opinion. He stood in a very vulnerable position close to the moving vehicle of Ms Good. Did he deliberately do so to be able to shoot her? I do not think he will be charged criminally, but he should be punished. His tactical response was not proper.

“In Mr Pretti’s case, he was murdered, and there was no excuse. He was thrown to the ground, an agent removed the gun he had which he did not show or brandish before he was thrown to the ground, and after the gun was removed, he was shot multiple times.

“First, he had the right to have the gun. He was a licensed firearm holder. Second, he did not reach for or brandish the gun. Third, he was holding a phone and probably recording the agents, perfectly legal. Fourth, he has a constitutional right to peaceful protest.

“Only recently were we given the name of the agent who shot him. It may be that it was not an ICE agent but a BP agent. Back to my point of training. BP agents do apprehension at or near the border. ICE agents do enforcement operations all over the US. BP agents are not used to crowds, protests, being videotaped, and the like.

“The killing of Pretti was awful, and the video, to me, showed agents panicking and not exhibiting good training. The agents were also overly aggressive. It does not help that the Trump administration has been encouraging the agents to act aggressively. In fact, as early as in Trump’s 2016 campaign for president, he was openly demonstrating his fascination with and love of violence.

My friend, a highly trained and experienced attorney said that the US VP announced that the agents have absolutely immunity. “That is false. They have ‘qualified immunity.’ Vance knows better, he went to law school. He outright lied because he can – an important difference.

“Because Trump is devious, sleazy, a liar, manipulative, and immoral, I wonder if this is all planned so that he can declare an emergency that will impact the 2026 midterms. Elections have consequences, and re-electing Trump has turned America upside down. Jamaicans living and working in the US must immediately become aware of these masked agents.

JOYLAN SILVERA MYSTERY

If former MP Joylan Silvera had awakened that fateful morning and much later planned to plead guilty in the case of the murder of his wife, should he force all of us to remain in this state of puzzlement for such an unduly long time?

Not specifically to clarify, but still, let me put this to you. If I awakened one morning and find that I am not as sane that day as I was the day before, if I take a life sometime later when I am in the process of ‘manslaughtering’ my wife, could I use that reasoning as the direct cause of the inadequate possession of 100% of my sanity? And hence, my licence to embrace mental chaos and death.

In the first instance, Melissa Silvera at 42 years of age, was found dead at their home in 2023. Initial cause of death? Natural causes! You know, she accidentally broke her fingernails, bore the pain, travelled to Nepal, climbed Everest, damaged her toenails, and died. Yeah, natural causes.

A post-mortem exam weeks later discovered three bullet fragments in her body. The thing shifted to murder, and even though the murder scene was heavily interfered with (to ‘scrub’ the scene?), we were not given key further details of the post-mortem, that is, points of entry of the bullet fragments and possible points of egress.

The ex-MP has one of the best legal representatives available. He is in good hands. In fact, if Mr Silvera was seated with a Catholic priest in confession, there would be some who would say that he made a good choice and he is in good hands.

Mr Silvera needs the prayers of the pious and the faith healers. Those who dislike him will be around whether he wants them to or not. And, of course, he needs the closest there is to legal miracles. The non legal mind like mine would want to work backwards and ask, if Mr Silvera is 100% innocent and there was no aiding or abetting, who was it that committed the heinous deed?

Mr Silvera had post-death choices. He could have employed a brand new law school graduate and paid him a soft five figures in Jamaican dollars. Or he could have reached for the high-profile Peter Champagnie. With the first choice, his sanity at nights would be as solid as Vaseline. In the other he would expect the highest level of due process at its most miraculous.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.