BLOOMINGTON, IN – A seemingly routine police training exercise occurring earlier in July in Indiana spawned online rumors across forums, with locals erroneously claiming the law enforcement gathering at a private property they were authorized to use was some kind of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation.
Jonathan Swift, the author behind Gulliver’s Travels, speculated back in 1710 while writing for The Examiner, “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it,” which has since become an adage more relevant today with the speed in which information travels online. Case in point, an innocuous police training exercise in Bloomington earlier in July was characterized as potential ICE activity, despite there being zero federal law enforcement presence during the law enforcement gathering.
Bloomington locals expressed alarm at a heavy police presence spotted on July 16th in the city’s north side near Lismore Drive, with one person taking to Reddit with a photo of several marked and unmarked police vehicles lined up at a property near their home.
The Reddit post reads in part, “yesterday there were a line of law enforcement vehicles in the field/ditch behind my house & my neighboring houses. They have returned this afternoon does anyone know why? I've heard they’re also on the hill? I’m also hearing rumors that it's ICE, despite not seeing any recent reports within the area.”
One commenter on the post replied, saying, “After some digging I found out that the property manager invited LEO from the area to practice tactics in our neighborhood,” while in response, the original poster of the photo claimed they’d spoken with their landlord and were told “they were searching for someone trespassing.”
Others flocked to the post to simply leave remarks like, “Acab means even your loser son/husband/uncle,” and other similar sentiments. However, at least one commenter presented what was actually occurring, writing in response, “It’s a police training- not ICE. Only local agencies.”
The fervor over a large police presence in Bloomington potentially being ICE managed to garner local news coverage in a bid to determine if the speculation was true, with news outlet The Bloomingtonian going so far as confirming “at the scene that the activity was a local police training exercise and that no federal agents were participating.”
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