Andy Kim gets doused at Delaney Hall
On Memorial Day, Senator Andy Kim stood between a line of federal agents and a crowd of protesters outside Delaney Hall, the privately-run ICE detention center in Newark where around 300 migrants are holding a hunger strike against the center’s conditions — spoiled food, denied medical care, a pregnant woman without OB-GYN access. He had just come from inside. He had his arms up. He got a face full of spray for it. Kim appeared on MS NOW, described being pelleted at the feet and sprayed in the eyes. The coughing, the stinging.
Let’s stop pretending pepper spray is just “spicy.” Its active ingredient, oleoresin capsicum, causes almost instantaneous irritative symptoms to the skin, eyes, and respiratory system — blepharospasm, conjunctivitis, peri-orbital edema, chemical burns, corneal damage. Capsaicinoids can damage and deplete biological redox systems in the epithelium lining vessels and within cells and mitochondria. This can permanently damage cellular processes. For people with asthma or COPD, the breathing effects can be severe. This is a chemical weapon banned in international warfare, deployed against U.S. civilians and a sitting senator on American soil.
And spare me the takes from a chunk of the online left scolding Kim for “collaborating” because he tried to broker a deal — agreeing to personally monitor exiting vehicles for detainees so ICE would pull back its tactical line. He was trying to keep people from being trampled by an armored vehicle. That’s not scabbing. That’s the job. Emotions are tangled right now. No matter your politics, it should give you significant pause, shock your senses, to watch a clip of a senator, in one scene calmly taking a water flush to the eyes after being doused with chemical warfare. In another, being scolded and shamed by constituents in his own party.
This is chaos.
