MS NOW anchor Chris Hayes stopped by “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Wednesday, where he discussed the “incredibly fraught jurisdictional territory” Minnesota state officials have found themselves in this week.
At the center of Colbert and Hayes’ discussion was the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis earlier that day. Members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, have accused the victim of committing domestic terrorism by trying to run over an ICE agent in front of her car. That angle has, however, been widely refuted by Minnesota state officials and by those who have viewed video of the incident online.
Hayes called the tragedy the latest in a growing string of violent interactions between ICE agents and U.S. citizens. “This is the ninth ICE shooting this year. ICE shot a woman multiple times in Chicago,” he explained. “They claim that she shot them. They apprehended, arrested her and were going to press charges except guess what? They had to drop the charges because they were lying about what happened in the incident.”
“So there is now a clear record. It’s happened in Los Angeles. It’s happened in Chicago. It’s happened in Washington, D.C.,” Hayes continued. “They have consistently on the record been caught flat-out lying about the circumstances of their interactions with the public in courts, in venue after venue after venue.”
In response to Hayes’ remarks, Colbert asked if there was any way for Minnesota state officials to “effectively” investigate the incident themselves. “We are in incredibly fraught jurisdictional territory here,” Hayes responded. “All law enforcement officers have under U.S. jurisprudence what’s called Qualified Immunity, which makes it difficult for them to face accountability either civilly or criminally for the use of force.”
He then noted that it has happened before, notably in the wake of the disastrous 1992 raid of Ruby Ridge during Bill Clinton’s presidential administration, but said that Minnesota state officials will have to clear a “very high bar” to hold the ICE agent in question accountable. Nonetheless, he said that seems to be the plan of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison.
“I think there’s going to be tremendous pressure for some sort of judicial accountability for what looks to many people who have viewed the videotape as a cold-blooded murder,” Hayes added. He went on to call out the Trump administration for holding itself to a different standard than other governments.
“There was a headline from yesterday that came across my feed that [said] the President of the United States was threatening the Iranian government with military action if they killed peaceful protesters, and I think we all understand that killing peaceful protesters is a sign of something horribly wrong with the government,” Hayes said, pivoting back to the incident in Minneapolis. “This is a 37-year-old mother with her partner and dog in the car sitting in a street recording what ICE is doing. Now, they want to call her a domestic terrorist.”
“Everyone can decide whether a 37-year-old mom with her kids’ [stuffed animals] shoved in the dashboard of her car is a domestic terrorist or not,” the MS NOW anchor continued. “To my mind, she looks like a peaceful protester — and she is dead.”
Hayes ultimately concluded, “The people running the country are only operating on one principle and one principle only: What can we get away with? And everything else is backfill.”
