MSNBC’s O’Leary: ICE Needs to Change Policies, Tactics or There’ll Be More Violence

Tur: “What about the politically motivated side of this? This is now the fourth shooting that we’ve seen in in just a little bit over a year where the suspect has allegedly written, on the casing — casings of bullets, some sort of politically motivated message.”
O’LEARY: “Yeah, so, I mean, terrorism is — is theater. It’s intended to influence an audience beyond it’s immediate victims.
It’s putting a message out. And terrorism falls in really three categories. It’s either religiously motivated, ideologically motivated, or, in this case, politically motivated. And the politically motivated ones, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens because conditions have been set that people start acting out against.”
Tur: “What are the conditions?”
O’LEARY: “So, distrust in institutions. That’s been building for quite some time. Attacks on institutions, the wealth gap, oppressive policies, at least this is what people perceive. And then the militarization of ICE and other federal law enforcement, the wearing of the masks, aggressive tactics. So the people who are starting to act out against this feel it’s their only recourse. Again, this is predictable. We see this happening throughout our history and in other places as well. So, you know, we can tone down the rhetoric and that that’s the right message, but you also have to start looking at what policies you’ve implemented, what tactics you’re using, because if you tone down the rhetoric but you leave those other pieces in place, nothing’s going to change.”