Level Three of Five: State Terror Inside the United States

Level three: political murders, unpunished agents. Level four: every citizen who engages in politics becomes a target.

Scholars measure state terror through the Political Terror Scale, a five-level instrument maintained since 1984. Mark Gibney’s team at the University of North Carolina scores every country annually. Rankings rely on Amnesty International, State Department, and Human Rights Watch reports.

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Artwork credit: Félix Vallotton, The Charge (La Charge), 1893, woodcut. Vallotton transforms a police charge into a machinery of uniforms, batons, panic, and impunity. The image confronts what follows when armed authority abandons visibility, restraint, and public accountability.

“It happened, therefore it can happen again.” — Primo Levi, survivor of Auschwitz

On the Political Terror Scale, level one describes secure rule of law. Level three includes political murders, brutality, and unlimited detention. Level four extends the killing to everyone engaged in public affairs, and level five covers entire populations. The American evidence matches the third tier, and fourth-tier conduct has begun.

On Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine, a little girl cried on the sidewalk, still wearing her pink backpack. An ICE officer had shot and killed her father minutes earlier. Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was not the warrant’s target.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed that fact to Senator Angus King within hours. A neighbor heard roughly six shots. Participating agents lacked body cameras, and the department blamed government shutdowns for the missing equipment.

The shutdown excuse conflicts with the calendar and the budget. The cited shutdowns ended February 3 and April 30, former Secretary Kristi Noem pledged rapid nationwide camera deployment on February 2, and Congress appropriated $20 million for more than 5,000 cameras this fiscal year. Five months after that pledge, the officers in Houston and Biddeford still worked without cameras. ICE paused most vehicle stops Tuesday after Senator Susan Collins urged Mullin to cease all non-urgent stops.

Guerrero became the third person federal agents killed in a Democratic-led state within six months. Officers shot Renée Good dead on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24 in Minnesota. Both were U.S. citizens, and one strategy connects those deaths.

That strategy has a name: siege federalism. Under siege federalism, White House officials deploy federal money, agents, prosecutors, and troops to punish resistant states into submission. They select Democratic-led governments, direct coercive agencies, and protect participating personnel from local accountability.

Political-violence scholars support one designation for the result: state-sponsored federal terrorism. The term describes a governing strategy, and criminal courts must judge specific conduct separately. The evidence below meets that scholarly test.

Survivors and scholars draw one lesson from unpunished state terror: the killing accelerates until citizens or courts impose a cost. Guatemala’s terror began with dozens of deaths and ended with 200,000. America’s toll today resembles those early months.

The toll surpasses three killings. An off-duty ICE officer fatally shot Keith Porter Jr. outside his Los Angeles apartment on New Year’s Eve. Another agent killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston six days before Guerrero died.

Six more people died in ICE custody in January alone. At least 32 detainees perished in federal detention during 2025, the highest annual toll since 2004. Those losses occurred across the country, while federal officials concentrate the coercion campaign on resistant states.

The Test for State-Sponsored Federal Terrorism

Scholars locate command authority to distinguish sponsorship from state terrorism. Backers arm, finance, direct, or protect proxies, while terrorist regimes deploy public institutions against populations under national jurisdiction. Trump combines both models. Officials repress opponents through surveillance, detention, censorship, and force, pressure states through funding, regulation, investigations, and administrative control, and frighten civilians into political submission through those paired instruments.

Four findings support this designation: government direction, partisan selection, public fear, and sustained coordination. Aligned victims, timing, rhetoric, resources, and institutional protection establish orchestration. Residents reveal population-wide intimidation when they avoid schools, hospitals, workplaces, protests, and civic buildings. Unequal treatment of comparable Republican-led jurisdictions demonstrates political targeting.

After 2014, Russian leaders sponsored separatist operations in eastern Ukraine. Moscow officials armed, financed, protected, and politically directed separatists across Donetsk and Luhansk. European judges found that Russia controlled occupied territory beginning May 11, 2014. Proxy forces exploited civilian fear and institutional breakdown to seize and govern territory.

Russia supplied the Buk missile that destroyed Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. The missile killed all 298 passengers and crew members.

Guatemala’s military government used state terror during Efraín Ríos Montt’s 1982–1983 rule. The army targeted Maya regions, burned villages, displaced residents, and organized civilian patrols. A national truth commission attributed 93 percent of documented violations to government forces and paramilitary allies. Investigators estimated that soldiers and allied militias killed or forcibly disappeared more than 200,000 people. Indigenous people comprised 83 percent of fully identified victims.

These governments used selection, coercion, protection, and fear at vastly different scales. Trump deploys federal institutions instead of separatist armies or civilian patrols. Federal agents, prosecutors, military units, investigators, and funding offices carry out his strategy.

Trump launched Operation Metro Surge on December 1, 2025, and deployed nearly 3,000 additional personnel by late January. Human Rights Watch documented arbitrary detention, racial profiling, excessive force, and retaliatory surveillance, and residents avoided schools, workplaces, healthcare facilities, and public spaces. Federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renée Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24, and another officer wounded Julio Sosa-Celis on January 14.

Prosecutors charged the shooting agent with four second-degree assault counts and falsely reporting a crime. Federal attorneys dismissed the case against Sosa-Celis after new evidence contradicted a sworn affidavit, and ICE investigated two officers for lying under oath. Minnesota officials sued national agencies March 24 after department officials claimed broad immunity and refused release for months. Prosecutors received body-camera footage, digital records, and Good’s damaged vehicle July 13.

The Justice Department subpoenaed Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Keith Ellison, and three government offices, alleging obstruction. The three leaders called the inquiry political intimidation and retaliation. Judge Patrick Schiltz quashed the demands June 17, finding harassment, coercion, revenge, and insufficient evidence.

Federal officials target your state when your governor rejects a presidential demand.

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An ICE officer killed Guerrero after nearly seventeen months of conflict between Trump officials and Maine. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said he held work authorization and a Social Security number. Mullin disputed that, telling King Guerrero had received removal orders. DHS said Guerrero tried to flee and the officer fired to protect public safety. Video showed federal vehicles blocking his sedan; witnesses heard Guerrero say he tried to stop.

ICE placed the officer on leave and withheld his name. The DHS inspector general's Boston office, which reports to the department employing him, assumed control of the investigation, and the FBI joined. Five months after DHS pledged rapid body cameras, the Biddeford agents recorded nothing. The agency that shielded the shooter now investigates the shooting. On February 21, 2025, Trump threatened Maine's funding after Governor Janet Mills resisted his transgender-sports order, and Mills pledged to follow existing law and challenge him in court.

USDA froze University of Maine payments March 11, restored them March 19, then cut school funding April 2. Maine sued; Judge John Woodcock blocked the cutoff April 11. Agriculture officials settled May 2 under limits on future cutoffs. The Justice Department sued over athletics April 16 as Trump officials escalated after each resistance.

DHS launched Operation Catch of the Day statewide January 21, 2026, with more than 100 agents. Community leaders reported school disruptions, business losses, and widespread fear in migrant neighborhoods. Within six months, a federal agent killed Guerrero amid increased ICE activity across Biddeford.

Trump federalized California National Guard units over Governor Gavin Newsom’s objection on June 7, 2025. He then sent 700 Marines and roughly 4,000 Guard members into Los Angeles. On June 9, Trump endorsed Newsom’s possible arrest after the governor challenged the intervention.

Judge Charles Breyer ruled the mobilization unlawful June 12, though an appeals court paused his decision. On September 2, Breyer found that officials willfully violated the Posse Comitatus Act by using troops for crowd control and raids. He barred further law-enforcement missions, but the Ninth Circuit stayed that order during appeal.

Federal personnel also used lethal force beyond the military deployment. On New Year’s Eve, an off-duty ICE officer fatally shot Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old Black father of two, outside their Northridge complex. DHS called Porter an active shooter, while relatives said he fired celebratory rounds skyward. Family attorney Jamal Tooson described the killing as a possible hate crime. Six months later, investigators have released no video or filed criminal charges.

California adds the armed-forces element to siege federalism. National leaders displaced state control, deployed troops, threatened and received two judicial findings of unlawful conduct.

Trump officials escalated pressure whenever Democratic governors resisted presidential demands. They punished Maine financially and intervened militarily in California. Minnesotans faced force, deaths, suppressed evidence, and prosecution.

Texas exposes the partisan difference. Governor Greg Abbott seized Eagle Pass parkland in January 2024, blocked Border Patrol access, and continued installing razor wire after losing at the Supreme Court. The Biden administration pursued litigation, preserved federal payments, issued no criminal subpoenas, and deployed no troops. Abbott faced lawsuits; Democratic governors face agents, subpoenas, and Marines.

Officials used separate legal rationales and divided responsibility among departments, prosecutors, commanders, and agents. Civilians absorbed the consequences through fear, disrupted services, and institutional instability.

State-sponsored federal terrorism functions as a geopolitical diagnosis. Political theorists connect separate violations into one governing strategy.

The First Amendment prohibits retaliation against protected political opposition. The Tenth Amendment limits national commandeering of state governments. The Spending Clause rejects financial conditions that become unconstitutionally coercive.

Due process restricts arbitrary deprivation and blocked accountability. The Administrative Procedure Act bars unlawful, capricious, or unauthorized agency action. The Posse Comitatus Act limits military participation in domestic law enforcement.

Officials distribute state terror across institutions and preserve deniability instead of announcing one directive. The administration selected political opponents, manufactured public fear, and sustained pressure, and national leaders now punish Democratic resistance with monetary, institutional, legal, and physical danger.

Federal leaders sustain siege federalism only while residents stay silent, stay home, and stay afraid. Defeat the doctrine through documentation, litigation support, and the ballot. Verify your voter registration today. Attend your county and municipal meetings this month, vote in the November 3, 2026 midterms, and bring three neighbors to the polls.

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” — Ida B. Wells

A little girl with a pink backpack deserves a country where federal agents answer to the law.

The work continues. Wendy

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Sources

1. The Political Terror Scale, Mark Gibney et al., University of North Carolina Asheville, defining the five levels and annual scoring methodology. https://www.politicalterrorscale.org/

2. European Court of Human Rights, Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia, documenting Russian control over separatist-held territory and responsibility for MH17. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=002-13989

3. Guatemala Commission for Historical Clarification, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, documenting casualties, state responsibility, and disproportionate violence against Maya communities. https://cja.org/where-we-work/guatemala/

4. Human Rights Watch, “A Manufactured Crisis,” documenting detention abuses, racial profiling, excessive force, killings, and population-wide fear. https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/06/18/a-manufactured-crisis/minnesota-communities-terrorized-by-the-federal-government

5. Reuters, Minnesota’s evidence lawsuit, July transfer, and Judge Schiltz’s findings concerning coercion and retaliation. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/minnesota-sues-us-agencies-access-evidence-killings-rene-good-alex-pretti-2026-03-24/

6. NBC News, “List: ICE and Border Patrol shootings,” documenting 14 people shot from September 2025 to February 2026, the criminal charges against the agent who shot Sosa-Celis, and the dismissed charges. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-shootings-list-border-patrol-trump-immigration-operations-rcna254202

7. American Immigration Council, “6 Deaths in ICE Custody and 2 Fatal Shootings,” documenting the January 2026 custody deaths and the record 2025 toll. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-deaths-shootings-2026/

8. LAist, coverage of Keith Porter Jr.’s killing, the identification of officer Brian Palacios, and attorney Jamal Tooson’s hate-crime allegation. https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/ice-new-year-eve-shooting-keith-porter-brian-palacios

9. Reuters, Trump’s confrontation with Mills, USDA’s funding actions, subsequent settlement, and the Justice Department lawsuit. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-maine-governor-clash-over-transgender-athletes-2025-02-21/

10. Portland Press Herald, live coverage of the Biddeford shooting, King’s warrant confirmation, and witness accounts. https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/13/shooting-reported-in-biddeford-2/

11. CNN, “Lack of body cameras on ICE agents fuels more uncertainty,” documenting the shutdown timeline, Noem’s February pledge, the $20 million appropriation, and the vehicle-stop pause. https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/us/body-cameras-ice-agents-shootings

12. CNN, live updates on the Maine and Houston shootings, the DHS shutdown explanation, Mullin’s removal-order claim, and surveillance footage of the stop. https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/us/live-news/ice-shootings-maine-houston

13. Reuters coverage of California’s troop deployment, Breyer’s rulings, the appellate pauses, and Trump’s arrest comments. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/marines-prepare-los-angeles-deployment-protests-spread-across-us-2025-06-12/

Editorial notice: I base factual claims on cited sources, distinguish them from analysis and opinion, and correct material errors promptly.