Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) appealed to President Donald Trump to turn the temperature down on Thursday, as thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers find and deport illegal immigrants in his state. But until Walz and his fellow Democrats admit the truth about the game they are playing with federal law enforcement, the “chaos” Walz pretends not to want will continue.
In a longer speech Wednesday night, Walz did nothing but turn the heat up, accusing ICE of conducting a “campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota.” Not only did he call the mere presence of federal law enforcement officials an “occupation,” but he called on his fellow Minnesotans to “resist.”
He went on to say that Minnesotans should protest “loudly, urgently, and also peacefully,” but this was only a pro forma endorsement of reasonable and legal protest, for he also praised Renee Good, the woman who was shot dead after hitting a federal officer with her car, adding, “We’ve all watched the video. We all have seen what happened.”
Therein lies the problem. Good was not just loudly, urgently, peacefully protesting. Nor was she peacefully filming ICE officers, as Walz later calls on Minnesotans to do. As the video clearly shows, Good intentionally placed her car across a street, blocking the passage of marked law enforcement vehicles while letting other vehicles go around her. She was, in a very literal sense, obstructing enforcement of the law.
Belying the claim that she was “just trying to leave,” Good continued to block law enforcement officers with her car for over three minutes, her hand blaring the car horn the entire time, until her vehicle is finally approached by federal law officers. It is not until her wife tells her, “drive, baby drive,” that Good attempts to escape the scene of her crime in defiance of the officer’s clear order for her to get out of the car and hits a federal officer with her car, before the federal officer shoots and kills her.
If Walz really wanted to turn the temperature down, if he actually sought safe streets instead of chaos, he would acknowledge that Good’s decision was intentionally to interfere criminally and prevent federal law enforcement and that if she had not done so, she would still be alive. She created the flashpoint in which she was killed. That is not to say that her killing was necessary, but it is to say what is plainly true. Walz could praise her intentions to protest ICE but admit that her actions crossed the line from peaceful protest to obstruction, that it is illegal and unsafe to do so, and that, to make sure there is no further violence, Minnesotans should be sure not to follow her example.
TRUMP SHOULD HONOR HIS PROMISE ON IRAN WITH ACTION
But Walz hasn’t said that and won’t because Democrats do not want to turn the temperature down against ICE. They want to turn the temperature up. Democrats know that video of Good’s shooting, almost always out of context, has been a political boon. The sad reality is that Democrats such as Walz benefit when law enforcement officers take action against militant or obstructive protesters, especially when just the reaction, and not the obstruction, is what goes viral on social media.
If Walz wanted to reestablish law and order in Minnesota, he would tone down his anti-ICE rhetoric and instruct state and local law enforcement to honor ICE detainers for illegal immigrants. Instead, he lionizes Good as a martyr, which will encourage other activists to put themselves in dangerous situations and perhaps pay the fatal cost of doing so.