One former leader of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is now saying that the federal immigration agents who shot and killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday disregarded basic training protocol.
During a Wednesday interview on CNN, Gil Kerlikowske – who was CBP commissioner during former President Barack Obama's second term – said that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who killed 37 year-old Renee Nicole Good ignored training that is drilled into every employee of federal law enforcement agencies. He argued that immigration agents in President Donald Trump's administration "have used tactics that nolegitimate law enforcementagency would use."
"You don't stand in frontof a vehicle. You don't placeyourself in danger," he said. The Supreme Court just recently ruled onthis. And this is calledsomething like self-imposedjeopardy. So you're supposed toget out of the way. You're notsupposed to try the door handle."
"These are agentsthat work in rural areas on theborder, often by themselves. Andthis is clearly the wrong skillset," he continued. "As former [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Tom Ridge has mentioned, former Secretary Michael Chertoff andmyself, this is clearly thewrong skill set to be putting them in an urban environment, and that's been shown across the country."
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem maintained in a Wednesday press conference that the ICE agent who shot Good acted in accordance with his training, and that Good "weaponized" her vehicle in an intent to cause harm. Her remarks were immediately criticized by former ICE Director John Sandweg, who led the agency during the Obama administration.
"here's already a credibility gap forming between DHS and ICE and the public, and that impacts ICE effectiveness," Sandweg told CNN. "It impacts its ability to have partnerships with state and local law enforcement. It impacts its ability to develop relationships in the community that can be critical in terms of providing information that leads to law enforcement operations. But at the end of the day, this is not one where truth is likely to be [quickly] known."
Watch the video of Kerlikowske's remarks below: