THE JANUARY 24th ICE SHOOTING

 I have just viewed, re-viewed, and viewed again in slow motion the latest ICE shooting of the detainee in Minnesota. I feel that I am qualified to critique the video because of my 30 years as a prosecutor, during which time I investigated many police shooting.

What I saw was at least four officers forcing the detainee to the ground. As he is belly down on the ground, three officers hold him down and struggle with him while a fourth repeatedly strikes the man with an object which I could not identify. There were enough officers on top of the man to restrain him without the use of deadly force. Get his hands under control, handcuff him, and cart him off. That they appeared to be unwilling or unable to use non-lethal force to subdue him suggests at best inadequate training. As the officers crowd around the man, a shot rings out, and the officers scatter from the man as he rolls onto his back. I plainly see him lying flat on his back while two officers draw their weapons and fire multiple shots into his unmoving body. It didn't look like any of the officers in the group were carrying tasers. With officers in a scrum like the one I saw, it bespeaks poor judgment for one of them to fire a shot in such close quarters. The fellow officers appear to have agreed with me, because they scattered at the first gunshot. Now the officers are standing around the man, who is lying unmoving on his back. Two officers produce firearms, point them at the prostrate body, and fire multiple shots. It is claimed that the man was armed with a 9 mm handgun. If so, it was concealed, should have been unavailable to him with three officers on top of him and him on his stomach, and I never saw it. The first shot fired is hard to justify. The follow up multiple shots do not look justifiable, but the man was probably dead at that time, and it isn't a violation of a corpse's civil rights to fire bullets into his dead body.

Suggestions: Since the video raises many questions about the propriety of the shooting, (1) The officers who fired their weapons should be immediately suspended pending a full and fair investigation by an independent agency conducted in tandem with state agencies. (2). Moving forward, ICE officers should be (a). equipped with tasers or some other form of non-lethal weaponry, (b). equipped with bodycams. (c). trained in proper techniques for handcuffing resisting arrestees who are on their bellies on the ground. (3). Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and anyone else in the Federal Government should refrain from making judgmental comments about the incident until the investigation is complete and the results are in. (4). The Federal Government should immediately take steps to de-escalate the situation in Minneapolis, not double down on ICE tactics.

I welcome contrasting, well-informed, courteous views that don't accuse me of being a libtard or a sufferer from TDS.