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ICE kills blind man by dropping him off 5 miles from his house after being forced to release him
(www.investigativepost.org)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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There may have been a time when calling the police would be reasonable, but with innumerable ways to translate speech today, a person's first reaction shouldn't be calling the boys in blue anymore.
Not to say it's her fault, obviously the police are incompetent, but it's not like calling the police is the only option for when someone turns up on your doorstep.
Who else would you call in that instance? Not a fan of the police but i just can't think of anyone else i would have thought to call at the moment. I mean, if i had any context as to how he wound up there--i would try to find non-LE help, but again--who would one call? I can't exactly blame the lady, she likely was also unfamiliar with the situation.
My first thought wouldn't be to call anyone.
If translation doesn't pan out, I suppose trying if any neighbours recognize the language would be the next step. Failing at direct communication, take a vague guess at nationality and call ethnic restaurants to see if anyone has a better idea what the language might be? Better yet, community groups would more than likely understand the urgency of the situation and try to help out.
While the man might have been agitated at being lost and not understood, I seriously doubt he'd have been acting in a threatening manner. Just giving him a bottle of water or a snack might have brought him some comfort and made the situation easier to resolve.
How many neighbors do you know speak Rohingya? How many Rohingya restaurants are in your city?
It's an obscure language even in his native country of Burma. The original incident that resulted in his arrest happened on Feb 15th of 2025. It was below freezing outside. While you are screwing around calling restaurants, he would have died of exposure- just like happened after he was dropped off at a Tim Horton's without notifying his family.
You pointed out yourself when he was on the doorstep it wasn't a medical emergency. But even so, try to bring him inside, hand him a blanket, get out the space heater, any number of things. I'm suggesting treating a person like a person, not like a problem.
The obscurity of the language isn't exactly relevant as I wouldn't know it was obscure if I didn't speak it. It could have been Polish, but if I'd never heard a Slavic dialect before, it would've been just as uncommon as this man's spoken tongue.
Standing outside isn't a medical emergency that would cause an ambulance to show up. If you called they'd transfer you to the police.
Standing outside for hours becomes a medical emergency. You would watch him die rather than call the police.
He's waving a shower rod at you. He's blind and confused.
If he was capable of following directions he would have walked into the police cruiser and been driven home.
It's relevant to your claim that you could have found someone to translate for you.
It is not the woman's fault for contacting the appropriate authorities. Fix your police.
Why would calling a few places and trying something take hours? What argument is being made with these statements?
I saw no indication of that in the article, if you have an alternative source to share, please do so. I wrote previously that I seriously doubted this would've been the case. I think this because unless this man was suffering a cognitive impairment or felt he was in danger, he wouldn't be waving his impromptu cane around. Besides, don't you think would have been reported in the article if he had been 'waving' anything at the woman or her dog?
Now you're just taking the piss. He didn't speak the language the police were saying to him, and in case it's been forgotten - he couldn't even see who was yelling at him. Let me take a page from your book of disingenuous arguments, "How many [police] do you know [that] speak Rohingya?"
I'm sorry to be rude but I've not got an idea why you have interpreted what I've written to indicate I'd watch a person die in the cold rather than make a phone call. Equally as perplexing is why you've now repeated yourself that it's not the woman's fault for calling the police - I specifically wrote in the comment you initially replied to that I didn't think it was her fault.
It's tiring to argue semantics. You and I are, I assume, on the same page in that we wish this man wouldn't have died. I'm not some villain because I wouldn't tried to communicate with man before putting him in a situation with modern day police.
That you are making excuses for not doing what is done in a normal society: You call the police. That you can't call the police means you need to fix your police.
It's like you own a dog that you let off the leash every day and when it bites somebody, you blame the dog. It's YOUR dog.
Sorry about that. I'm being dogpiled in replies and not replying to the correct ones.
He was confused, blind and didn't speak English. It wasn't a fire and wasn't a medical emergency so neither would respond. Social workers are not first responders- they don't show up on call. What would you have done?
Fix your police. Don't blame the woman.
Right, I read the article. I also wrote what I would have done in this very thread. Here's a link to that comment. The tldr is a community approach, not calling a social worker.
Additionally, it's now popped into my head that when needing to communicate over a significant language barrier, you could probably just start listing countries and infer by the reaction which country the person is from and have a better bet on determining language.