A co-host of ABCs The View is using a tragic shooting in Minneapolis to accuse federal immigration authorities of unlawful killing, even before a full investigation has been completed.
According to Breitbart, Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor and one of the shows most reliably left-wing voices, used the incident to attack Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and to imply systemic misconduct by federal agents. She claimed that reduced training standards were partly to blame, declaring, They cut training for ICE agents and have it used to be about 13 weeks, and now its six weeks.
Hostin went on to say, And so, you know, when I looked at the video from several different angles, which is what lawyers are trained to do, I saw an unlawful killing. I think thats very clear.
Hostin urged viewers to trust her legal interpretation over official statements or due process, insisting, And I think we need to be at the point in this country that we call a thing a thing and stop, listening to propaganda and being Orwellian in terms of not believing what your eyes are seeing. She added a blunt directive to the audience: You must believe what your eyes see.
Invoking Supreme Court precedent, Hostin framed the shooting as a clear violation of constitutional standards governing the use of deadly force. I think its important for people to understand what the law is here, she said, citing the 1985 decision: In 1985, the Supreme Court in Tennessee versus Garner made it very clear that you cannot use deadly force to shoot at a moving vehicle with an unarmed person in it.
That is the law of the land. Or it was when I went to law school, Hostin continued, suggesting that current enforcement practices are out of step with long-established legal norms. She then turned to federal guidelines, asserting, The other thing I think you mentioned about DOJ policies, you cannot DOJ is own use of force policy, prohibits shooting at a moving car unless there is no other reasonable means of defense.
Hostin argued that the video evidence shows the ICE officer had other options and therefore acted unlawfully under both Supreme Court precedent and Department of Justice policy. Everyone should look at that video and understand that when that woman went in reverse and then moved away from the officers she went in reverse and then moved to the right away from the officers, all that officer needed to do was move out of the way, she said.
That is under DOJ own use of force policy, another reasonable means of defense, Hostin claimed, accusing the officer of choosing lethal force instead of simply stepping aside. Rather than doing that or and stepping from the vehicle he shot three times and then did not give aid, so that legally under Supreme Court precedent is an unlawful killing.
While Hostin and other media figures rush to condemn ICE, conservatives are likely to stress the importance of a thorough, fact-based investigation, respect for law enforcement operating in dangerous conditions, and resistance to politicized narratives that pre-judge officers before all the evidence is reviewed.
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