The FBI Is Already Obstructing the ICE Shooting Investigation. It Might Not Matter.

Copy Link Share Share Comment

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office has seen him unleash heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents in Democratic-leaning cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis in what clearly appears to be a campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at punishing those cities for their citizens’ political views. These officers’ behavior has been violent enough that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently established a commission to look into charging federal agents in state court for their actions. So far, however, despite a growing list of violent and threatening acts by ICE and CBP, no local prosecutor in any city that ICE and CBP has “blitzed” has filed charges against any federal officers.

That may now change. On Wednesday, an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old widowed mother of a now-orphaned 6-year-old child, whose car was blocking theirs. While the Department of Homeland Security quickly claimed the officer was acting in self-defense—DHS Secretary Kristi Noem hyperbolically said the officer was defending himself against “domestic terrorism”—cellphone videos taken by people on the scene tell a much different story. The officers aggressively approached the car, and none of the officers involved appear to be in much risk of harm before one opens fire at almost point-blank range, firing multiple shots through the window of the car, striking Good in the head and killing her. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has already said the state will “ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.” And the Minneapolis police chief has likewise called for an investigation in a statement that put Good’s life, not the officer’s safety, in the foreground. All this certainly seems to suggest there is a real chance that local officials are open to arresting the still-unnamed ICE officer and charging him with homicide.

Which, to be clear, they legally can do. Back in October, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of state for policy who is the driving force behind the current militaristic deployment of ICE and CBP, publicly........

© Slate

visit website