For many, the recent overly-aggressive enforcement actions employed by ICE personnel can best be described as reprehensible.  But as we recoil in revulsion at the actions of misbehaving individual agents, it is important to understand that this sort of irresponsible behavior could not be taking place without the knowledge and endorsement of organizational leadership.

This state of affairs is not without historical precedent.

In the 1990’s, for example, a special commission chaired by Judge Milton Mollen was charged with investigating and reporting on widespread corruption and criminality in the ranks of the New York Police Department (NYPD).  The result of their work was shocking … drug-related corruption and brutality were rampant within the organization, including some cases where officers not only stole and then sold drugs, but sometimes went so far as to shoot the dealers they robbed. 

In their final report in 1994, the Mollen Commission articulated department-wide corruption, characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority, and active police criminality. This report also coined a phrase … willful blindness … suggesting that this level of wrongdoing could not have prevailed but for department leaders who chose to ignore it.  As evidence, Mollen identified at least 40 corruption cases involving senior officers that had been “buried” by Internal Affairs, going on to assert that several police commissioners had been more interested in containing corruption scandals than containing corruption

While, thankfully, not widespread, the phenomenon of “Willful Blindness” is not confined to the ranks of any one agency.  In those places where leaders have abdicated their responsibilities, though, we have sometimes witnessed the emergence of police “gangs” that consider themselves guardians of that razor-thin line between civilization and anarchy.  And not surprisingly, members of those groups feel justified in using extraordinary means to carry out what they see as their righteous duties.

Needless to say, for this climate to exist and endure department leaders must look away.  When they do so, they justify their willful blindness by asserting that these groups of rogue officers are keeping the “bad guys” in line … and, in cases like that, well, the ends are seen to justify the means.

In the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, for example, officers in a police gang known as “The Executioners” sport a calf tattoo of a helmet-wearing skeleton gripping a rifle,  Members of this band, who cannot be black or female, are reportedly drawn from the ranks of deputies at the Compton station who have engaged in past acts of violence against community members.

In the NYPD, the Street Crime Unit (disbanded in 2002) was known to have rallied around the mantra “We Own the Night.”  One especially egregious incident involving that group was their shooting of an unarmed Guinean student in February, 1999.  In that encounter, four NYPD officers fired 41 rounds, striking the victim 19 times.  

Incidentally, some members of the latter group had been known to wear t-shirts bearing a quote from Ernest Hemingway:

Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.  

Need a current example of how “willfully blind” leaders permit and even encourage irresponsible behavior?

On the morning of October 4, 2025, during Operation Midway Blitz, Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum shot a 30 year-old Chicago woman five times after a traffic confrontation.  That woman, an  American citizen and school teacher named Marimar Martinez, survived, was subsequently arrested for a range of charges, and labelled a “domestic terrorist.” 

In a crystalline example of leadership failure, Exum’s supervisor … at 3:11pm on the afternoon of the shooting … sent him an email offering to extend his retirement beyond age 57, going on to applaud his “excellent service in Chicago,” adding “you have much left to do!!”  This communication, it is important to note, took place BEFORE any investigation into the circumstances of the shooting, and while the wounded citizen was still fighting for her life.

Notably, Exum joked about the shooting in a text chat where he noted: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes.  Put that in your book, boys.”  Based on his actions, he was labelled “a legend” by a fellow agent, with another participant telling him: “Good job brother.”  The injured citizen, incidentally, survived, and though all  criminal charges against her were dismissed, the government continues to refer to her as a “domestic terrorist.”

As evidence emerged in the Martinez shooting, it became clear that the actions of ICE personnel … both at the scene of the shooting and afterwards … were inexcusable.  That evidence also shed light on the actions of later operations in Minneapolis where residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in incidents eerily similar to Martinez’s.

When an agency like ICE is in a leadership and operational free-fall my inclination, as a retired police officer and law enforcement educator, is to look at training.  As it turned out, my  search for information about academic and practical deficiencies did not take long; on February 23, 2026, a former ICE attorney and trainer testified before a Congressional forum that the agency had reduced training hours for new recruits, and was instructing them to violate the Constitution.

In his testimony, Ryan Schwank described the academy where he trained recruits as “… deficient, defective and broken.”  As one example, he identified a 584 hour curriculum that had been reduced by 240 hours, including classes on the fundamentals of the Constitution and officers’ duties.  The training was shortened, he suggested, as part of an effort to turn out new officers to join the crackdown on immigration, without ensuring they could exercise their authority in a safe and lawful fashion. 

When inadequate training is coupled with deficient leadership, we should not be surprised at the outcome … heavily armed, masked and unaccountable federal agents running roughshod over civil liberties and constitutional rights.

Considering the number of flatly unqualified federal cabinet secretaries we see before us, one can only wonder which one of her ludicrous decisions might have been the one that resulted in the firing of the recently-departed head of Homeland Security.  Not to fear, though, for it looks like the leading candidate to replace her will bring a similar resume to the job … a former mixed martial artist … without even a Bachelor’s Degree … backer of the current inhumane immigration efforts … and defender of the killings of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis.  

The duties assigned to ICE employees are difficult, dangerous and absolutely necessary.  That being so, it is essential that the leaders placed above them clearly define what is expected of them, as well as how that work is to be performed.  As the vetting process for the next Secretary of Homeland Security unfolds, we should listen for the candidate to articulate a clear understanding of the seriousness of the duties of that agency, along with the importance of acting as an ethical role model for those at every level of the organization.  If someone were to be appointed to this position absent that vision … well, let’s call it what it would be:

Willful Blindness