By CHRIS POWELL
Seven years ago a Wethersfield police officer shot and killed a motorist who drove straight at him after evading a traffic stop. While police video of the incident indicated that the officer could have gotten out of the way in time and didn’t have to stand his ground, the state’s attorney concluded that the shooting was justified because the officer reasonably feared for his life.
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If those who already have decided that the immigration agent who last week shot and killed a woman at an enforcement scene in Minneapolis was wrong — among them Mayor Jacob Frey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William Tong, and most other Democratic officials — and those who already have decided that the agent was right — among them President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and most Republican officials — will drop their partisan hysteria and let the issue be decided through regular legal procedure, it likely will hinge on the standard in the Wethersfield case.
That is, did the agent reasonably fear for his life?
Video of the Minneapolis incident suggests that the driver, leaving the scene, was trying to turn enough to avoid striking the agent, but her car may have touched him. It was close. The agent might or might not have had time to jump aside, but he might not have been obliged to.
The video also shows that the driver had parked her car sideways across both lanes of the street, blocking traffic; that she refused an order to get out of the car; and that she was trying to avoid apprehension — just like the driver shot and killed in Wethersfield seven years ago.
The driver in Minneapolis and many others on the scene seem to have been trying to obstruct immigration law enforcement. The New York Post reports that the driver was a member of a group that does just that. If she was looking for trouble, she found it.
As for the immigration agent, if he was too fast on the draw, in a previous enforcement action he had been dragged and injured by the car of another fleeing motorist. Of course this might have affected his judgment of what constitutes reasonable self-defense, and in turn might affect a jury’s judgment, though as a “sanctuary city” Minneapolis might not be able to supply an impartial jury.
Sad as the Minneapolis incident is, it shouldn’t distract from the big underlying issues — whether federal immigration law is to be enforced, whether the country is to have open borders again as under the previous national administration, and whether states can nullify federal law. Until recently the latter issue had been thought settled since Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in 1865 and again since the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and ’60s.
Mayor Frey and the immigration law enforcement protesters in Minneapolis, Connecticut, and elsewhere explicitly favor nullification. Their signs call for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and prohibiting deportations, and they even carry the flags of other countries. Making himself even more vulgar than the president he detests, the mayor used an obscenity on national television as he proclaimed that he wanted ICE to get out of his city, as if it could secede.
Connecticut’s Democratic officials are barely more subtle. The General Assembly and governor keep enacting laws to hinder immigration law enforcement in the state.
Responding to the Minneapolis incident, Connecticut U.S. Rep. John B. Larson said he would introduce legislation “allowing states to prevent ICE from operating in their borders without full coordination with state and local law enforcement agencies.”
“Full coordination”? Connecticut law prohibits it, and officials in the state’s “sanctuary cities” surely would betray ICE enforcement actions to local illegals. The nullifiers would love that.
Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants to provide all illegal immigrants with a “path to citizenship” — a euphemism for another mass amnesty.
It’s crazy but maybe anything can happen politically now that the cause of open borders has gained a martyr.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 