By Tom Hicks | September 22, 2026
Editorial Note:
Off Script with Tom Hicks is independent commentary built on reported facts. The facts surrounding the ICE shooting in Austin are still developing, and some accounts of what happened conflict. Where they do, I’ve said so. My opinion about threatening the president requires considerably less ambiguity.
There is plenty to be angry about in Austin, and people have been making that anger known.
Protests began Sunday after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot 28-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in North Austin. The scene became heated enough that Austin police fired pepper-ball rounds after some demonstrators threw rocks and water bottles at officers. Protesters returned Monday, gathering at the Texas Capitol as demands grew for an explanation of the shooting and greater scrutiny of ICE operations in the city.
That second night matters. More than 100 people gathered at the Capitol, carrying signs and chanting against ICE before the demonstration dispersed peacefully around 9 p.m. Whatever you think of their politics or their demands, they demonstrated something worth remembering: outrage doesn’t require a death threat.
There are legitimate reasons to want a much clearer picture of what happened.
Garces Perez says he was working as a DoorDash driver when ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle began following him. He says the vehicle sideswiped his car twice before its emergency lights and siren came on, and that when he asked whether he could pull over somewhere safer than beneath the freeway, an agent refused. His version of the encounter differs significantly from the initial description provided by authorities.
DHS says Garces Perez was subject to a final removal order. His attorney says he entered the United States legally through the CBP One process in 2024, received authorization to work, and later missed an immigration hearing because notice was sent to an outdated address despite his having reported a change of address. Those competing accounts aren’t inconveniences to be brushed aside according to which political team you support. They’re precisely the kind of thing an investigation is supposed to sort out.
What happened after the shooting raises another set of concerns. Garces Perez was hospitalized and then transferred to an ICE detention facility in South Texas with the bullet still lodged in his body. His attorney says he was subsequently returned to a hospital after developing paralysis on his left side.
We learned something else Tuesday that makes a thorough investigation even more important. The ICE officer who fired the shot was not wearing a body camera, according to three DHS officials who spoke to The Atlantic, even though ICE officers making arrests are required to carry them. That doesn’t tell us whether the shooting was justified, but it removes a piece of evidence that might have helped answer the question.
That’s already enough for a serious story.
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Then somebody apparently decided protest wasn’t enough.
Near the shooting scene, graffiti appeared containing the words “Kill Donald Trump.” Other messages targeted ICE, but those three words inevitably drew attention because we’re no longer talking about somebody expressing disgust with government policy. We’re talking about language advocating the death of the president.
No.
Absolutely fucking not.
I Get Why You’re Pissed. You Still Don’t Get a Pass.
Anyone who regularly reads Off Script knows I’m not suddenly going to climb onto a table and defend Donald Trump’s immigration policies. I’ve criticized this administration repeatedly, and when its actions deserve another beating with the editorial stick, I’ll happily reach for it.
Nor am I going to pretend people in Austin are getting worked up over nothing. A federal immigration officer shot a man; significant details of the encounter remain contested, the officer wasn’t wearing a required body camera, and the wounded man was moved into detention before being returned to a hospital after his attorney reported partial paralysis. That’s more than enough to justify public scrutiny.
So march. Stand outside the Capitol. Call your representatives. Challenge the government’s version of events. Photograph what happens in public. Demand the evidence and make elected officials uncomfortable until somebody provides a credible account of what occurred.
That’s protest.
“Kill Donald Trump” isn’t.
It’s a threat.
And whoever wrote it didn’t advance the cause by one goddamn inch.
You Just Handed Them an Escape Hatch
Before those words appeared, the uncomfortable questions belonged to ICE and the federal government. The public had every reason to focus on the officer’s decision to fire, the conflicting descriptions of the encounter, the absence of body-camera footage, and the treatment Garces Perez received afterward.
Those are difficult questions, and protesters had already succeeded in keeping attention on them. People had been in the streets for two days. More than 100 showed up at the Capitol, local officials were pressing for scrutiny, and the circumstances of the shooting were attracting national attention.
Then somebody put a threat against Trump on a concrete pillar.
Now anyone looking for a distraction has one. The actions of a single person can be waved around as evidence against everyone protesting ICE, including the people who showed up peacefully Monday and had nothing whatsoever to do with the graffiti.
That’s what makes this more than morally indefensible.
It’s politically fucking stupid.
Whoever painted those words didn’t help Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. They made it easier for everyone who would prefer not to discuss him to talk about something else.
Your Principles Have to Survive Your Anger
There’s a larger problem here than lousy political strategy.
If you’re going to argue that government power needs limits, then those limits can’t depend on whether you’re furious at the people exercising it. If you’re going to insist that federal agents don’t get unlimited authority because they believe they’re pursuing someone who broke the law, your own rage doesn’t suddenly give you unlimited moral permission either.
That’s what principles are for. They’re remarkably easy to maintain when nothing important is happening, and everybody is behaving themselves. They become considerably more useful when you’re pissed off.
Donald Trump can be criticized mercilessly. His policies can be challenged in court, his administration investigated, his decisions protested and his statements mocked until the ink runs dry. Americans have enormous latitude to tell a president exactly what they think of him.
Calling for his death crosses the line.
That standard doesn’t change depending on whose name gets spray-painted on the wall.
We Should Know Better by Now
This country has had more than enough experience with political violence to understand where this road can lead.
Trump himself survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. A bullet struck his ear, one person in the crowd was killed, and two others were wounded. Whatever anybody’s politics, that afternoon should have settled one proposition permanently: disagreement with a political figure doesn’t come with a murder exemption.
Yet violent language keeps becoming part of the background noise. People see it, decide somebody is probably blowing off steam, and move along. Eventually we risk reaching the point where rhetoric that once would have stopped us cold becomes another ugly thing we’re accustomed to seeing.
I’m not interested in finding out how far down that road we can travel before somebody decides the words are instructions.
Keep the Story Where It Belongs
Donald Trump wasn’t the person shot in Austin.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was.
This was a story about a wounded immigrant, conflicting descriptions of an ICE operation, missing body-camera footage, questions surrounding federal use of force, and a growing public demand to know what actually happened. None of those questions became less important because somebody reached for a can of paint.
If you believe Garces Perez was wronged, keep the focus there. If you believe the officer used unjustified force, insist on the evidence and follow it wherever it goes. If that evidence establishes misconduct, hold the responsible people accountable.
And if the evidence ultimately tells a different story than the one you expected, have enough integrity to accept that too.
That’s accountability.
Spray-painting a death threat on a concrete pillar is vandalism with delusions of grandeur.
THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
760,000 PEOPLE JUST GOT AN OBAMACARE SURPRISE
CLAIM: The Trump administration says it has uncovered massive fraud in Affordable Care Act enrollment and is removing more than 760,000 people from coverage.
BULLSHIT: Maybe there’s fraud. That doesn’t mean 760,000 cases have individually been proven fraudulent.
WHY: CMS says it canceled roughly 315,000 enrollments covering more than 760,000 people and expects to save about $2.2 billion in subsidies. The administration says the cases involve unauthorized enrollments, ineligible people or nonexistent “phantom” enrollees. Those are serious allegations, but the administration’s announcement is the beginning of the accountability question, not evidence that every affected person personally committed fraud.
NOW THEY WANT POLITICAL APPOINTEES LOOKING OVER NIH’S SHOULDER
CLAIM: A proposed White House commission reviewing NIH research grants would simply add another layer of oversight.
BULLSHIT: Scientists already have oversight. What we’re talking about here is political oversight.
WHY: Members of Congress from both parties are pushing back against a proposal to create a commission of political appointees that could review NIH grants. Republican Sen. Susan Collins said the White House budget office shouldn’t be involved in deciding grant awards, while Democratic Sen. Patty Murray warned against putting medical research under political control. Peer review isn’t perfect, but replacing scientific judgment with a White House loyalty checkpoint isn’t fixing science. It’s politicizing it.
WAIT. WE’RE INVESTIGATING BOTH PRESIDENTIAL SONS?
CLAIM: Questions about presidential relatives cashing in are only worth investigating when the other party’s guy is involved.
BULLSHIT: Somebody in Washington apparently misplaced the memo.
WHY: Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah is asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena both Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden as part of an investigation into whether presidential family relationships have been used for private financial benefit or preferential access. Curtis specifically cited questions involving foreign relationships, gifts and business dealings. If Congress wants a rule for presidential families, applying the same rule to both families would be a surprisingly good place to start.
The Line Isn’t Complicated
What happened in Austin deserves scrutiny, and the people demanding it shouldn’t be smeared because somebody else decided to scrawl a threat on a wall. Protesters have every right to keep pressing federal and local authorities until the evidence provides a credible account of what happened.
Use the courts. Use the streets. Use the ballot box. Use journalism, public records, cameras, lawyers, and every lawful mechanism available to hold powerful people accountable.
But put down the fucking spray can.
Political violence doesn’t become acceptable because you’ve convinced yourself the target deserves it.
And if your goal was justice for the man who got shot, making the president the story was one hell of a way to lose sight of him.
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One Question Before You Go
Off Script with Tom Hicks would like your perspective:
Can political anger ever excuse violent rhetoric, or is that a line that shouldn’t move?
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