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.
Chauvin wasn’t assaulted with what’s legally considered a dangerous weapon. So this case would be much harder. Unprecedented, really.
Oh God, they’re trying the right-wing psyop campaign on Lemmy
Not an american but seems like US’ case law is very much precedented here. I don’t have a source at hand but there has been at least a dozen similar cases all sided with the victims. Even official training of ICE explicitly says “do not stand in front of the vehicle ever”.
If there’s no justice here then it’s entirely on lack of will rather than law.
Every case people cite are civil lawsuits for excessive force. And people usually don’t prevail, especially when an officer is actually in the process of being assaulted.
At most, her family could get a settlement for damages for excessive force. But criminal charges are what would be pretty unprecedented.
I think it’s moot to discuss this without bringing up the actual law cases and I’m not going to lie - I’m a bit too lazy and this is too depressing for me to sacrifice my time for.
My faith in US’ justice system is not great though so you might very well be right.
By the logic the government has tried to push on this murder, people should be able to shoot into the vehicles of ICE thugs when they try to drive through protest crowds. We’ve seen that on video plenty of times in the last year.
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.
I hope that you never find yourself opposite an asshole cop who doesn’t care whether you actually pose any danger to them.
He walked in front of her car after she backed up and turned her wheels away from the thugs to begin fleeing them.