By the way (, All,) I think it’s worth citing this law. It’s hugely important to each of us making determinations of right and wrong in a case like this one.
We can talk all day long about morality, or other standards that involve far more subjectivity, but what should hold sway here is the objective legal standard to which the people involved should be held:
ETA: Let me go one step further, because the DoJ Memo doesn’t appear to call out Homeland Security directly:
WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced updates to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Use of Force Policy as required by President Biden’s Executive Order to Advance Effective, Accountable Policing and Strengthen Public Safety to meet or exceed the Department of Justice guidance on use of force. This policy was crafted as a result of discussions with stakeholders across the Department as well as major national labor organizations to ensure the safety of law enforcement personnel and the communities we serve. This is the first update of the Department’s Use of Force policies since 2018.
That’s not a law, it’s just a policy. Violating it is not a criminal offense. See the very last paragraph:
This policy is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or
procedural, enforceable at law or equity, against the United States, its departments,
agencies, or other entities, its officer or employees, or any other person.
IANAL, but I’m not sure that the updated Policy couldn’t be used as the basis for filing Federal Criminal Charges. What I am sure of, however, is that it would be up to the DoJ to do that, and in this case …
Federal Criminal Law: One way to regulate the behavior of federal law enforcement officers is through criminal law. The chief criminal law regulating federal, state, and local law enforcement officers is 18 U.S.C. § 242 (Section 242)—described in more depth in this Sidebar. In relevant part, that statute makes it a crime for a person “acting under the color of law” to deprive someone of their constitutionally protected rights. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), under the color of law means that an individual is acting “using power given to him or her by a governmental agency,” and it is irrelevant whether the actor is “exceeding his or her rightful power.” The Supreme Court has explained that to successfully prosecute an alleged offender—such as a police officer—under Section 242, DOJ must show that the defendant had “a specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right made definite by decision or other rule of law.” According to DOJ, which enforces Section 242, examples of misconduct prosecuted under the statute include “excessive force, sexual assault, intentional false arrests, theft, or the intentional fabrication of evidence resulting in a loss of liberty to another.” Section 242 has been used in recent years to investigate Border Patrol agents, U.S. Park Police, and FBI agents. Violations of Section 242 are punishable by fine and/or up to a year in prison or, if certain aggravating factors are present, up to life in prison or death.
I would think that the updated Policy memo helps establish the bar for Excessive Force.
ETA: BTW, that link goes a bit into Civil Remedies in matters like this, too.
The solution to this is to call a tow truck, not shoot her in the head.
Alternately, they could have let her leave as they ordered her to do instead of shooting her in the head.
They gave her contradictory commands and shot her in the head for not complying. Do you want law enforcement to be able to do that without consequence?
Yes, the officer is placing himself in life threatening danger when he stands in the middle of the road where his fellow officers are directing traffic. You would think he would know that.
The officer through his actions has also placed every cop in the US in life threatening danger. Now while I think this endangerment should certainly result in some level of administrative punishment for the trigger-happy officer, I would not advocate for shooting him in the head.
I just watched the NBC news to see if I could glean any more about what really happened. I’m as angry at the right’s rush to demonize this woman as a ‘domestic terrorist’ with little or no actual facts of what actually happened, as I am at the actual killing. Fucking Vance is calling her an arm or instrument of the lunatic left and saying anybody can clearly see in the video that she was trying to ram the ICE agent. I’ve heard everything from that and similar things Noem said, to that she was just driving home after dropping off her kid at school.
But whether she was actively trying to block ICE activities, or was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, Vance saying anyone can see she was trying to ram the ICE agent is bullshit. I’ve watched the video several times-- she was clearly trying to turn away from the ICE agents and get away from there. And the argument that ‘well, she should have complied with the order to stop and get out of the vehicle’ is specious at best. It’s not like she’s one of the FBI’s top 10 most wanted fleeing from a bank robbery. To say nothing of the extra two shots after the initial shot. This was, if not outright murder, it was reckless, criminal manslaughter committed by a hastily recruited, poorly trained, likely trigger-happy person ludicrously unfit for the job. Hired by a thuggish administration and sent to Minneapolis because of a ginned-up fictional Somali daycare scandal conspiracy theory.
Fucking great. There are early reports here in Portland OR that two people were shot about 2 hours ago by ICE agents. Both are reportedly in the hospital. No other details yet.
No.
She drove off to avoid the first officer who was reaching for the door handle.
If she was obeying the law, then why did she back up and then pull forward so quickly?
The woman went there to cause trouble and thus because of her actions, became the problem.
It’s a shame this happened, but you can’t act like that.
It solves nothing, but it can change your life and not for the better.
It was Border Patrol, and the two gunshot victims are believed to have survived their wounds so far at least.
While this is tangentially related, it’s worth pointing out that this is a new event unrelated to the Minneapolis shooting, and I’m not sure if this thread is the best one to discuss it.
The same is true for ICE though. They are not accomplishing anything. They have made their own mission much more difficult and put their fellow officers in danger across the country. None of this was necessary and they have gained nothing from it. How many immigrants were kicked out of America because of Agent Ross shooting a US citizen in the head? Have they succeeded by any metric they are using for their unnecessary mission?
Because there is a non zero probability that if you have an encounter like this with ICE that you will be arrested and held for days if not weeks with no, legitimate, justification by a government that has made clear that it desires to deport citizens.
The more you act like illegitimate, lawless marauders in masks, the more people are going to treat you like you are illegitimate, lawless marauders in masks.
“How many murders do we need to commit to convince people we are here to protect them?”
Bullshit. When someone is shot, and they never took any action that endangered anyone, the shooter is the one responsible. No one was in any danger, other than the driver, until she was shot. Once the agent shot her, everyone was in danger because the vehicle was no longer in control. The agent endangered everyone with his murderous stupidity. The driver endangered no one at all - she was just trying to leave, as the first officer instructed her to.
Just for general information, I tried three times to join the Indivisible zoom call on the event (which I had RSVP’d for) and wasn’t able to join due to the call being at capacity.
