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.
That’s not what he claimed at the time. A big part of every cop-killer story is the allegation that the person they murdered prompted the killing. Chauvin insisted through his entire defense that Floyd lashed out at him in his final moments, right before he spontaneously died of a drug induced heart attack.
We’ve got video clear as day of the ICE agent casually walking up to the car and plugging the woman in the face. This was a mother who’d just dropped her child off at daycare, not some marauding vehicular anti-ICE assassin. She was given seconds to respond to a command and butchered for failing to act fast enough.