The past week has been marked by unsettling headlines. In Dallas, Texas, an armed man fired on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, killing one detainee and wounding others before ending his own life. In New York City, an undercover NYPD officer was violently shoved onto the subway tracks, barely escaping with his life, and days later, a pair of off-duty officers were assaulted and robbed at Penn Station. These events have been met with shock, anger, and no small amount of commentary—some horrified, some gleeful, and some resigned.
What troubles me most is not just the violence itself but the reaction to it. I’ve seen comments online celebrating the ICE shooting as if it were some kind of victory against a cruel institution. I’ve seen others snicker at cops being attacked, as though the humanity of those officers doesn’t matter because of the uniforms they wear. And while I understand the pain and anger behind those reactions—ICE has destroyed lives, police brutality is real and ongoing—I also believe that celebrating violence against individuals dehumanizes us all.
This is where I return to what I call radical empathy and what I’ve elsewhere referred to as anarcho compassionism. It’s the idea that empathy and compassion should extend beyond the comfortable boundaries of family, friends, allies, or even those we consider “innocent.” It means extending empathy even toward those we dislike, even toward people embedded in systems we oppose, even toward oppressors. It means refusing to dehumanize anyone.
The System Versus the Individual
Let’s be honest: ICE is a cruel institution. Its policies have ripped families apart, detained people in brutal conditions, and fueled xenophobic politics. Policing as an institution in America has an ugly record of racial profiling, abuse of power, and systemic violence against marginalized communities. These criticisms are valid, necessary, and urgent.
But here’s the mistake we so often make: equating the cruelty of the institution with the humanity of the individual. To say “ICE is bad” or “the police system is corrupt” does not mean every ICE employee or every police officer is a monster. People enter these systems for complex reasons—economic necessity, family tradition, a genuine (even if misguided) desire to serve. They are, in the end, human beings shaped by structures much larger than themselves.
It is the system that is corrupt. It is the system that normalizes cruelty. It is the system that forces people into roles where harm is inevitable. And while individuals do bear responsibility for their choices, we cannot lose sight of the distinction between systems of power and the people caught inside them.
Radical Empathy and the ICE Shooting
The Dallas attack has been described as politically motivated: the shooter left writings condemning ICE, and shell casings marked “ANTI-ICE” were found at the scene. It was clearly framed as an assault on the institution itself. Yet who bore the brunt of this violence? Not ICE agents, but detainees—people already imprisoned by the system. People without power. People already suffering.
Celebrating this act as some kind of strike against oppression misses the mark entirely. The victims were not oppressors but the oppressed. And even if ICE staff had been injured or killed, celebrating their deaths would still run counter to radical empathy. The shooter himself, a young man radicalized into hatred, also deserves empathy—not absolution, but understanding. What pain, what despair, what distorted logic led him to that rooftop? How can we prevent others from following the same path? These are the questions radical empathy demands we ask.
Radical Empathy and the NYPD Attacks
The New York stories—an undercover officer shoved onto the subway tracks and a police couple assaulted at Penn Station—have likewise triggered polarized reactions. For some, these incidents are seen as poetic justice, a taste of vulnerability for people who usually wield authority. But again, if we look deeper, we see human beings.
The officer shoved into the tracks was a 24-year-old man. He could have died in seconds. The assailant who pushed him was likely struggling with rage, instability, or some form of alienation. The police couple at Penn Station were just two people waiting for a train. They were punched and threatened. One pulled a weapon in fear and fired. The attacker, too, survived but left wounded.
Empathy here requires us to see everyone involved. To see the officers not as faceless “cops” but as people, as vulnerable as any of us in a crowded train station or underground platform. To see their attackers not as irredeemable monsters but as human beings who, for reasons we must try to understand, turned to violence.
Why Empathy Matters in These Moments
You might ask: Why should we care? Why empathize with ICE agents or police officers, when these institutions cause so much harm? Isn’t empathy misplaced here?
The answer lies in what happens when we don’t. Dehumanization is a contagious disease. When we begin to justify violence against “the enemy,” when we laugh at their suffering, when we reduce them to caricatures of evil, we mirror the very logic of oppression. We become what we despise.
Empathy breaks that cycle. Radical empathy does not excuse harm, but it prevents us from slipping into hatred. It reminds us that the goal is not to replace one group’s suffering with another’s, but to build a society where suffering itself is lessened. It teaches us to hold people accountable with compassion, to fight systems without vilifying individuals, and to resist the temptation of vengeance masquerading as justice.
Accountability With Compassion
This doesn’t mean letting anyone off the hook. An ICE agent who abuses detainees should be investigated and prosecuted. A cop who brutalizes a protester should face consequences. The attackers in Dallas and New York must be held accountable for their violence. Compassion does not erase accountability.
But accountability pursued with empathy looks different than accountability pursued with hate. It seeks to transform, not merely to punish. It asks how someone became who they are, how systems enabled their actions, and how we can prevent recurrence. It asks whether there are ways to repair harm, to heal communities, and to break cycles of violence.
Systems Change, People Change
Ultimately, if our fight is with systems, then our focus must stay there. Individuals are always more complicated than the institutions they serve. Some police officers quit when they realize the harm they are doing. Some ICE employees become whistleblowers. Some people inside these systems are capable of transformation—just as all of us are.
To treat every cop, every ICE agent, every guard as irredeemable is to deny the possibility of change. Radical empathy insists that change is always possible. It insists that humanity is never fully erased by a uniform, a badge, or even a history of mistakes.
What Radical Empathy Looks Like in Practice
So how do we apply radical empathy in moments like this?
Reject celebration of harm. When violence occurs, refuse the easy satisfaction of cheering it on, even if the victim is part of an oppressive system.
Hold the system accountable. Direct outrage at the institutions, policies, and structures that perpetuate harm.
See the individuals as human. Recognize that police officers, ICE agents, and even attackers are people with families, fears, hopes, and flaws.
Balance empathy with boundaries. Compassion does not mean enabling harm. It means advocating for accountability in ways that do not dehumanize.
Imagine alternatives. Use empathy to fuel visions of justice beyond punishment, where cycles of violence are broken rather than fed.
Conclusion: Beyond Hate, Toward Compassion
The past week’s news has tested our resolve. It is easy—so easy—to slip into hatred, to see these attacks as karma or cosmic balance. But easy is not the same as right. If we are truly committed to building a better world, one rooted in justice and liberation, then we cannot afford to dehumanize anyone.
Radical empathy challenges us to feel compassion even for those we oppose. It challenges us to separate the cruelty of systems from the complexity of people. It asks us to imagine a future where accountability and compassion are not opposites but partners.
In Dallas, in New York, and across the country, violence is escalating. The temptation to answer it with more hate is strong. But if we surrender to that, we build nothing. Radical empathy offers another path—harder, slower, but ultimately the only one that breaks the cycle.
We don’t need to love cops or ICE agents. We don’t need to excuse their institutions. But we do need to see their humanity. Because once we stop seeing the humanity in others, we begin to lose our own.