Shortly after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday, city leaders began looking into whether the officer had violated state criminal law.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “We collectively are going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of this, to get justice, and to make sure that there is an investigation that is conducted in full.” Police Chief Brian O’Hara followed up by saying that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is “investigat[ing] whether any state laws within the state of Minnesota have been violated.”
If they conclude that state law has been violated, the question is: What next? Contrary to recent assertions from some federal officials, states can prosecute federal officers for violating state criminal laws, and there is precedent for that.
The FBI is taking over the case and as such MN state prosecutors cannot access any evidence. I don’t know if they can prosecute a case based on just the videos taken from bystanders, but typically there’s a lot more to a legal case.
If the FBI takes over the investigation it will land on the desks of podcasters and grifters who have already gone all-in to protect their bosses from being investigated for raping children, so I don’t think we’re going to see anything satisfying happen here.
I don’t know how many innocent people have to die or what skin color they need to have before people will broadly start to seriously think about regime change on our terms.