Faced with intense pressure from their activist base to “do something” in response to the recent federal law enforcement shootings in Minnesota, Senate Democrats are coalescing around a number of proposals, including a demand that the Department of Homeland Security cooperate with state investigations of the deaths.
Considering Minnesota’s complete inability to police massive welfare fraud in its own jurisdiction, the refusal of state law enforcement agencies to cooperate with immigration agencies, and the obvious bias of the state’s top law enforcement official, such a state-led investigation is an obvious nonstarter.
People across the country, not just in Minnesota, nevertheless deserve a full account of what happened. Such an investigation should examine more than the brief few seconds in which the shooting occurred, and should explain how Renee Good and Alex Pretti came face to face with federal immigration law enforcement officers.
Did Good and Pretti encounter them randomly while going about their daily routine and then suddenly decide to intervene? Of course not. Were they, rather, part of larger groups that have been tracking, following, and actively interfering with federal law enforcement? What are the goals of these groups? What are their tactics?
The public deserves to know.
Minnesota’s state officials have proven themselves incapable of honest answers. Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) published an op-ed this week claiming that Minnesota law enforcement agencies cooperate with immigration law enforcement writing, “The Minnesota Department of Corrections honors all federal and local detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a person committed to its custody isn’t a U.S. citizen.” It is true that when an illegal immigrant convicted of a crime finishes serving his sentence, Minnesota does notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allows the criminal to be picked up.
But this is a small fraction of the illegal immigrants Minnesota law enforcement officers encounter. If Minneapolis arrests someone for a DUI, for example, and when they are booked, their fingerprints show they are an illegal immigrant, Minneapolis police do not notify ICE of the arrest or hold the illegal immigrant for ICE to detain and deport. This goes for those who have been arrested for violent and property crimes as well. Instead, these illegal immigrants are released into the public to commit more crimes.
Minnesota’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Keith Ellison, called federal immigration law enforcement efforts “unlawful” and an “invasion,” and he took the side of radical activists who invaded and disrupted a church service and then mocked the Christians who had their First Amendment rights violated.
Just as former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department painstakingly reconstructed the events that led up to the shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri, the same should be done with the Good and Pretti deaths. The Brown investigation revealed that everything Democrats said about the shooting was false. Michael Brown never raised his hands or said, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” He was not racially profiled. Instead, he had just robbed a convenience store, the officer stopped him because he matched the description of the robber, Brown resisted arrest, reached for the officer’s gun, and was shot dead.
The investigation of Brown’s death did not prove Brown deserved to die. Resisting arrest is not a capital crime and Brown received no trial. But it did show that the officer acted reasonably. Investigations of the Good and Pretti shootings would most likely do the same. Just as the Brown shooting shed much-needed light on the events leading up to the altercation with law enforcement officers, investigations of Good and Pretti would do the same.
A WELCOME COURSE CORRECTION IN MINNESOTA
Unfortunately, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department does not have the credibility to conduct an investigation of the shootings on its own. An independent party could be appointed within the Justice Department to lead the investigations, a person approved by Democratic and Republican senators.
Trump has recognized the damage done to his law and order credentials by false statements people in his administration made about the Pretti shooting. An independent investigation would go a long way to restoring Trump’s credibility and may very well shed needed light on well-funded, highly organized entities that are operating to stop federal immigration law enforcement entirely.