cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/54786961
In almost every instance, President Donald Trump’s administration blamed the injured and dead for the shooting within hours of the incident, raising questions about whether federal officials can fairly and objectively investigate their own. Legal experts and advocates for immigrants say this apparent lack of accountability demands that local authorities step up and exercise their power to investigate and prosecute federal agents who break state laws — from battery to murder.
“Local police and the state have gotten a free pass,” said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the co-founder and director of its Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “Residents have every right and should be demanding that, ‘Hey, state authorities, police, local police: Protect us. Arrest people who kill us, who batter us, who point guns at us and threaten and assault us without legal cause to do so.’”
Legal experts said they were not aware of recent examples of Illinois law enforcement agencies investigating an on-duty federal agent, though last month a suburban police department obtained misdemeanor charges against an off-duty ICE agent accused of attacking an activist who was filming him while the agent was pumping gas.
Illinois State Police officials said they would investigate federal agents who were accused of breaking the law if they are asked to do so.
Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called on a state accountability commission to examine the roles of key Trump officials in the escalation of aggressive tactics during a monthslong immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago and its suburbs late last year. Pritzker had previously established the commission to gather videos and testimonies about federal agents’ conduct, and to create a public record of what happened. The commission lacks subpoena power but can refer information about potential violations of state law to law enforcement agencies or prosecutors.
“Just imagine if the agents who shot Mr. Villegas González back on Sept. 12 had been publicly disciplined,” Rubén Castillo, a retired federal judge who chairs the commission, said at a hearing Friday. “Maybe, just maybe, the Minnesota shootings would not have occurred, and two people would be alive who are now dead.”
He added: “We will have conversations with those in local law enforcement to suggest prosecutions that should be occurring even as we speak.”
Even when local officials open their own investigations into federal agents, there’s no guarantee they can bring the cases to court. Federal agents can claim immunity in response to state charges, legal experts said, and can move their cases to federal court.
That immunity stems from a Supreme Court ruling more than a century ago. During the Civil Rights Movement, that immunity was used when the federal government wanted to protect its law enforcement officers tasked with enforcing then-controversial efforts like desegregation in hostile states.
Now local officials face the opposite challenge: protecting their constituents’ constitutional rights from what they believe is excessive force at the hands of federal officers.