As a former deputy prosecutor, I support law enforcement — from my local city and county officers and state troopers to the Capitol Police on Jan. 6, 2021. They are trained professionals who serve our community and help keep the people I love safe.

I do not support the violence perpetrated on city streets across America by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents who have no regard for the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth amendments and instead seek to force American citizens to capitulate to a “unified executive” and his regime.

These federal agents are not professionally trained public servants. Many are the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and the pardoned and deputized Jan. 6 insurrectionists who trust the president will pardon them again and again for as long as they continue to do his bidding.

They will assault and kill without remorse all those who dare exercise their First Amendment rights to assemble peaceably, protest and criticize this administration’s cruelty and injustice.

They are intentionally inciting violence and chaos as cover for the president’s desire to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the American military against its own citizens.

These masked federal gunmen have no regard for the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees all people the right to be secure in their homes. They are breaking and entering into the homes of U.S. citizens without a warrant and arresting them without probable cause.

They assault people peaceably assembled in public places and act as judge, jury and executioner without the due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

I prefer to withhold judgment on what, if any, crimes have occurred until we have all of the material facts. That is impossible to do with the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti because the federal government’s immediate response was to claim that the deceased citizens engaged in domestic terrorism and deserved to be shot multiple times and deprived of medical care when the videos recorded in real time tell a completely different story.

Instead of conducting full investigations and going where the evidence leads, our federal government rushes to spread outright lies and withholds evidence from local and state law enforcement who have jurisdiction to conduct their own investigations.

Instead of facts and transparency, we have federal leaders doubling down on propaganda and threatening anyone who challenges their lies.

The Trump administration immediately attacked Pretti after he was shot and killed in Minneapolis, falsely claiming he illegally brandished a gun. Videos show he never even reached for his weapon. Moreover, he had a permit to carry it, and federal agents disarmed him before shooting him 10 times.

The NRA and gun rights activists everywhere are pushing back on this duplicity. If the Second Amendment did not protect Pretti, then Americans have lost their right to bear arms.

Our original Articles of Confederation failed because we needed a stronger federal government. The framers of our Constitution cautiously increased the power of the federal government but limited it to those powers expressly granted in the Constitution and divided them among three co-equal branches with checks and balances designed to avoid the “unified executive power” laid out for this president in Project 2025.

Our forefathers never imagined a Supreme Court or Congress that would willingly surrender their power to someone like Donald Trump.

Our founders trusted state and local governments to protect their people. They did not trust the federal government. They added a Bill of Rights to preserve essential power and liberty for the people.

They made it clear in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments that the Bill of Rights is not an exhaustive list of rights for the people. Every power not specifically delegated to the federal government in the Constitution itself belongs to the states and the people.

We the People of the United States are standing up and speaking out against this administration’s escalating perversion of our Constitution and laws. A growing list of Republicans, including Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, is calling for a full investigation and accountability for ICE and Border Patrol actions in Minnesota.

Keep calling and writing to your senators and representatives. Keep attending peaceful protests. We the People will prevail.

Laurie Gray is an attorney in Fort Wayne.