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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 17
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00:00...word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.
00:02Good evening, Rachel. We learned during your hour that Donald Trump is in retreat,
00:07especially with that news about Bovino being out. But I was really struck in your interview
00:12with Senator Klobuchar that the White House chief of staff texted her, contacted her earlier today
00:18to tell her what was coming. You add that to Donald Trump's social media post saying he's
00:24now having good phone calls with the governor and the mayor. And that's Donald Trump telling you
00:30he knows this is hurting him. That's right. This is a political fight. They want what they're doing
00:38to be outside of politics. They want what they're doing to be just physical force and intimidation
00:44and menace and weapons and violence, right? That's it. But this is still a country where there is a
00:50democracy and the political winds blowing against them have now blown them down. Not by violence,
00:56not by civil war, not by some sort of meeting guns with guns confrontation, but rather by politically,
01:04small d democratically, peacefully standing up to them. And they just got wiped out by this thing.
01:09They did the wrong thing in a way that activated too many different types of political democratic
01:15force against them. And now they've just crumbled. And, you know, let this be the first of many,
01:21honestly, if they're going to keep trying stuff like this.
01:23Rachel, in Minnesota, as you know, they don't call them district attorneys. They call them county
01:28attorneys. And we have our first guest tonight, county attorney Mary Moriarty, who has jurisdiction
01:35over murder cases in Minneapolis. She joined us last week and she said last week that she is going to
01:42be
01:43conducting investigations of these killings. And she believes that there is still a definite
01:50ability for the state of Minnesota, the county to actually bring charges in these cases, if that's
01:56what the evidence warrants when they examine it. Yeah. I mean, it seems like the federal government
02:01is doing their best to try to prevent the state crime of murder from being charged here or any related
02:09crimes to these, any crimes that may pertain to these killings. But they don't have the final word
02:14on that. The states do. If they want to charge it, they can. And if they feel like they can
02:18charge it,
02:19they can. That's going to be a fascinating conversation, Lawrence. Yeah. And Donald Trump can
02:23pardon every federal agent that he wants to and probably will pardon the entire ICE staff.
02:30But that's just for federal prosecutions. That does not protect them from a state prosecution
02:34in Minnesota. So we're going to get right to that. That's right. Good. Good. Good on you,
02:39Lawrence. See you soon. Thanks, Richard. Thank you. Well, Donald Trump is running scared tonight
02:46because we are all witnesses now. Donald Trump is posting on social media today and tonight that he had
02:53a good phone call with the governor of Minnesota, who Donald Trump has been demonizing until today.
03:01And he's not demonizing him anymore because we are all witnesses now.
03:06Tonight, Donald Trump posted that he had a good phone call with the mayor of Minneapolis,
03:10who Donald Trump has been calling a communist and attacking in the most unhinged Trumpian ways.
03:15But Donald Trump is making conciliatory public statements tonight about wanting to cooperate
03:20now with the governor of Minnesota and wanting to cooperate now with the mayor of Minneapolis because
03:28Donald Trump is running scared tonight. Donald Trump is in retreat tonight. And Donald Trump is running
03:35scared because we are all witnesses now. When we see the video, we become eyewitnesses. And if we watch
03:44all of the videos of what Donald Trump and his Border Patrol agents did to Alex Preddy,
03:50we then become better eyewitnesses than the people who would be allowed to testify at a murder trial
03:58as eyewitnesses because they were there on the scene. Some of those eyewitnesses were recording
04:04video at the same time, which actually distracts from what they can take in as eyewitnesses in that
04:10moment because they are also camera operators as well as eyewitnesses. Contrary to popular opinion
04:16and Hollywood portrayals, eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as factual circumstantial
04:23evidence is like ballistics reports and autopsies, which are often the most solid evidence in any murder
04:30case. Professor Elizabeth Loftus' groundbreaking work on eyewitness testimony, including the books she
04:37written about eyewitness testimony, have shown all of the human weaknesses that come with standard
04:43eyewitness testimony. An eyewitness might honestly believe someone was shot in the back and another
04:49eyewitness might not be so sure. But if the autopsy shows an entrance wound in the back, then that is
04:56not just evidence. That is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of being shot in the back. And the autopsy is
05:03technically circumstantial evidence, but it's better evidence often than eyewitness testimony.
05:08Each eyewitness only has their individual angle on what they can see. But when we collect multiple
05:15videos of the same shooting of Alex Preddy, and we watch all of those videos, we become the best
05:23eyewitnesses to that shooting. We are all witnesses now. And eyewitnesses have a right to believe what they
05:32see. Eyewitnesses have a right to reach conclusions about what they see. And since we are all now
05:38eyewitnesses to two of Donald Trump's agents he sent to Minnesota firing 10 shots into a man face down on
05:45the pavement and killing that man in a matter of seconds, we can all look at the video and conclude
05:50beyond a reasonable doubt that every shot fired after the first shot is murder, not negligent homicide.
05:58That might be what the first shot is, because an analysis of the videos show that an agent in a
06:05gray jacket removed a handgun from Alex Preddy's right hip and rushed away with that handgun. And
06:10immediately after he removed that handgun and stepped away, the first shot was fired into Alex
06:17Preddy's back or the back of his head. And that first shot could have been because the man in the
06:22gray
06:22jacket said there's a gun. But the gun was already removed when that first shot was fired.
06:29So that first shot could have been a mistake within that space of interaction. And that shot fired less
06:38than three feet away from Alex Preddy very, very likely killed him, the autopsy will tell us.
06:43But what happens next on the video, as you will see in a moment, is that all of the agents,
06:49all of them, upon hearing that first shot, start backing away from the now lifeless body. They're walking
06:58backwards away from the body. And as they walk backwards away from the body, they fully reveal
07:07and are looking at a motionless body lying face down in front of them on the pavement with nothing else
07:15around that body. And they can all see absolutely no threat posed to anyone by that body, which is
07:24probably a dead body at that point. And that is when two and only two of those agents decide to
07:33continue
07:33to pump bullets into Alex Preddy's body. And that decision is murder. It is a decision, not a reflex.
07:42Each shot fired by law enforcement officer has to be a decision, not a reflex. Law enforcement officers
07:50are supposed to be trained to assess the situation after each shot fired to determine if another shot
07:58needs to be fired. There are several agents positioned around Alex Preddy's body, and most of
08:06them decide there is absolutely no reason to fire a gun while those other two agents are firing their
08:15guns. And the agents who didn't fire their guns, who knew there was absolutely no threat to their
08:21lives or anyone else's, those agents were right. And the killers of Alex Preddy were wrong.
08:26And that is what the facts before us right now prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
08:32We're going to show you now the 24-second video, a disturbing video shot from the angle that shows
08:39that the shots are still being fired as the officers have stepped backward, far into a safety zone.
08:50It is correct to step backward. That's where the safety is. And they have stepped backward
08:56into the safety zone, away from that man lying face down on the pavement. And two of them decide
09:03it's time to shoot him several more times.
09:10Here is that video.
09:14They're doing too much, man. And they keep pushing people, you know?
09:33Oh, sh**. What the sh**?
09:41the next video you're about to see and take the time if you care to to go online and watch
09:48these
09:48videos again yourself we're only showing them once they go by in seconds they're very quick
09:52the action's very quick you might want to watch it more than once to understand what you're seeing
09:56or see the new york times analysis of the videos that's available online but this next video shows
10:03alex preddy trying to be helpful not to donald trump's federal agents but to the people in the
10:09area cars trying to pass through alex preddy is directing traffic to those cars trying to help
10:15out those motorists and then alex preddy tries to be helpful to a woman with an orange backpack
10:20who is assaulted by donald trump's border patrol agents that agent committed the crime of assault
10:28and battery the agent you will see committing the crime of assault and battery against that woman
10:33because that's what it is beyond a reasonable doubt on that video that is assault and battery that agent
10:40is one of the killers of alex preddy keep that in mind as you watch this video it begins with
10:47the
10:47crime of assault and battery committed by an agent who then goes on to commit murder alex preddy you
10:54will see commits no crime alex preddy tries to help the woman who has been assaulted and then alex preddy
11:04gets
11:04assaulted and alex preddy and the woman both fall to the ground and that woman is alive today only
11:13because as you will see on this video when she's on the ground being assaulted by donald trump's border patrol
11:21agents
11:21she does everything she possibly can to crawl away from the agent who is assaulting her and trying to
11:28hold her in place and because she was successful and crawling as far away as she did from alex preddy
11:36and from that agent she is alive tonight
11:43those 10 bullets would have been used to probably murder her too those nine bullets fired at alex preddy
11:54after the first shot had probably already killed him
11:58those nine bullets would have found her in that kind of shooting spree if she hadn't done everything she possibly
12:05could
12:06to get away from donald trump's federal agents who's trying to hold her in place
12:13so watch alex preddy directing traffic trying to be helpful watch the woman with the orange backpack get assaulted
12:19illegally assaulted by that agent watch her fall to the ground watch alex preddy fall to the ground
12:28this will only go this will go by in seconds that action it's very disturbing to watch here is that
12:35video
12:54what the f*** what the f*** is wrong with you
13:13what the f*** is wrong with you honestly
13:26what the f*** is wrong with you honestly
13:32what the f*** is wrong with you
13:34what the f*** did you just do
13:38what the f***
13:41what the f***
13:43what the f***
13:44oh my god
13:46oh my god
13:48oh my god
13:51oh my god
13:53oh my god
13:55The f*** did you just do? The f*** did you just do?
14:04Somebody call the ambulance. Somebody call the ambulance.
14:09Somebody needs to call the ambulance. Somebody call 911.
14:15I can't believe they just did that. Holy s***. Holy s***.
14:23Hey, come on. Come on.
14:28Hey, go, go, go.
14:31Oh, my God. You f***ing people, man. You're f***ing killing us.
14:36Why would you do that?
14:41Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I can't believe I'm seeing this.
14:45I can't believe I'm seeing this.
14:46Oh, my God. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come here. Come on.
14:52Come here.
14:55It is.
15:10That blurring was inserted in the video by the network to block the actual sight of Alex Preddy's body lying
15:19on the pavement there.
15:21And when you watch that video in the aftermath of the murder, the question becomes, why didn't
15:27they kill them all? Why didn't they kill them all? There were other brave people on that street
15:35who continued to record on video what those agents had done and what they were doing.
15:43You can see a woman in that video getting up very close, very close to where the shooting
15:49occurred after the shooting. Why didn't they kill her? Alex Preddy didn't do anything more
15:57than what she was doing. Instead, those agents, after they've killed someone, after that, they've
16:04cooled down enough not to kill everyone in sight. After they've killed one, that's what it takes
16:11to get them to decide, oh, this is not a situation in which we have to kill anyone, including this
16:18woman who's coming up very close to us now with her camera. And in the end, you see her
16:22bending over in agony at what she has witnessed. Why wasn't she killed? If it was legitimate
16:28to kill Alex Preddy. Remember, the presumption of innocence is only a theory, a legal theory.
16:36It is a legal theory designed to structure criminal prosecutions. The structure of a criminal
16:45prosecution is based on that theory of presumption of innocence. That's the way the process is
16:52constructed. And that, for example, is why there's no requirement in American law that the defendant
16:57must testify. In other countries, defendants do have to testify, but not here because of the
17:02presumption of innocence, which binds absolutely no one, no one other than a jury. The only people who
17:10are charged with observing the presumption of innocence at the outset of a criminal trial
17:17are the jury. The prosecutor doesn't presume innocence. That's why the prosecutor is there.
17:23The prosecutor presumes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in that room and makes that case in that room.
17:31No one in the general public is required to presume innocence of criminal defendants or potential
17:36criminal defendants. No one in the news media is required by any judicial principle to presume
17:41innocence. But the news media, cowered by the phrase presumption of innocence and failing to
17:46comprehend it, ends up often softening language and coverage of what we can all see because
17:55we are all witnesses now. Donald Trump's dangerously buffoonish FBI director, who was chosen
18:02as an insult to the FBI, said this. You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country
18:12without any repercussions. You do not get to do that in Minnesota, L.A., or anywhere else.
18:18Oh, yes, you do. These people got to do that. And they got to do that because they were doing
18:26it
18:26for Donald Trump. They were attacking police officers for Donald Trump. And they did it without
18:32any repercussions because they did it for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump pardoned every single one of
18:40them because they attacked police officers and tried to beat them to death for Donald Trump.
18:46Trumpism means believing that if you don't support Donald Trump, the United States Constitution does
18:52not support you. You have no rights granted under the Constitution if you don't support Donald Trump.
18:58Rights are granted by Donald Trump to Trump supporters. That is Trumpism, as perfectly articulated just then
19:06by his buffoonish FBI director. Donald Trump is removing Greg Bovino as the commander of his invasion
19:15forces in Minneapolis and replacing him with who could it be? Tom Homan, who was recorded on an FBI video
19:23accepting $50,000 in cash during the last Trump presidential campaign from FBI undercover agents.
19:32Donald Trump's Justice Department closed down that investigation of Donald Trump's friend Tom Homan.
19:38But that investigation can be reopened three years from now when a Democrat is president.
19:44And we will eventually see that video of Tom Homan accepting the $50,000 from the FBI undercover agents.
19:53Alex Preddy was an intensive care unit nurse at a veterans hospital. Donald Trump, of course,
20:02doesn't care about veterans at all, but he pretends to as a politician and as a campaigner. Alex Preddy
20:07devoted his life to veterans, devoted his life to saving their lives. And he did. I, for one,
20:15didn't understand that nurses are the greatest heroes who walk among us until I was hospitalized for the
20:20first time in 2014 after being injured in the backseat of a taxi cab in a head-on collision. That's
20:26when I
20:26became, for the first time, fully dependent on nurses for months. I was in awe of their quiet competence and
20:33heroism and devotion. I loved my nurses and still do. We can never thank our nurses enough. And the
20:41one thing I know about Alex Preddy's life is that he was never thanked enough, no matter how hard people
20:46tried to thank him, because we, the patients, can never find the words big enough to express our gratitude
20:53gratitude and love to our nurses. Alex Preddy's last words were, words he said thousands upon thousands of
21:03times in his life as a nurse, in his work as a nurse. Alex Preddy's last words were, are you
21:12okay? That's what he
21:14asked the woman with the orange backpack, who he was trying to help, he was trying to protect, are you
21:21okay? That's what he was
21:23worried about, not himself. Are you okay? Jessica Hauser posted this on social media. I was Alex
21:32Preddy's final nursing student. He was my friend and my nursing mentor. For the past four months, I stood
21:40shoulder to shoulder with him during my capstone preceptorship at the Minneapolis VA Hospital. There,
21:47he trained me to care for the sickest of the sick as an ICU nurse. He taught me how to
21:51care for
21:52arterial and central lines, the intricacies of managing multiple IVs filled with life-saving solutions,
22:00and how to watch over every heartbeat, every breath, and every flicker of life, ready to act the
22:08moment they wavered, techniques intended to heal. Alex carried patience, compassion, and calm
22:16as a steady light within him. Even at the very end, that light was there. I recognized
22:21his familiar stillness and signature calm composure shining through during those unbearable final
22:28moments captured on camera. It does not surprise me that his final words were, are you okay?
22:35Caring for people was at the core of who he was. He was incapable of causing harm. He lived a
22:42life of
22:43healing, and he lived it well. I am a better nurse because of the wisdom and skills he instilled in
22:48me.
22:49I carry his light with me into every room, letting it guide and steady my hands as I heal and
22:56care for
22:56those in need. Take one step, no matter how small, to help heal our world. Through these acts,
23:04carry his light forward in his name. Let his legacy continue to heal.
23:14The nation's largest union of registered nurses issued a statement saying that they, quote,
23:21seek justice for the murder by federal immigration agents of fellow registered nurse Alex Preddy.
23:29We nurses are forever patient advocates, and that means we will fight to protect you at the bedside,
23:36and we will fight to protect you in the streets, just as Alex was doing when he was executed in
23:41cold blood
23:43by border patrol. Imagine being the parents of a 37-year-old life-saving nurse in perfect health.
23:51Imagine being the parents of any 37-year-old to discover on Saturday morning that your 37-year-old
23:56son who woke up in perfect health in Minneapolis is now dead. Dead from any cause. A car accident,
24:04maybe. Imagine that. I, for one, cannot imagine how parents can ever manage to cope with the grief
24:10of the death of their child at any age. We parents are supposed to go first, not our children.
24:16Michael and Susan Preddy were hit with that devastating, knee-buckling grief.
24:22And then they were hit with Donald Trump's lies and Donald Trump's homeland security secretary's
24:29even worse lies about their son. And then they were hit on Sunday morning with more lies on TV
24:37from the always-lying Greg Bovino, the leader of Donald Trump's invasion forces in Minnesota.
24:43And even Donald Trump's treasury secretary of all people could not resist lying about Michael and
24:50Susan Preddy's son on Sunday morning TV. Imagine, with all they had to bear, Alex Preddy's parents
24:56had to compose and put out a written statement. I would not be able to compose a single sentence
25:03under those circumstances. But through it all, through the pain, the grief, the unrelenting
25:10agony, the weight of all of that, Michael and Susan Preddy composed themselves enough to say this.
25:23We are heartbroken, but also very angry. Alex was a kind-hearted soul who cared deeply for his family
25:29and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for.
25:36As an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, Alex wanted to make a difference in this world.
25:41Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly.
25:49However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. These sickening lies told about our son
25:55by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked
26:02by Trump's murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand
26:10is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.
26:19Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.
26:29Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who has prosecutorial jurisdiction over murder cases
26:35in Minneapolis, will join us next.
26:41A Trump Justice Spartan lawyer told a federal judge in Minneapolis today, this whole event
26:46rose out of a federal immigration matter, was conducted by federal officers doing their federal
26:51duty, and the aftermath, whatever happened, is a federal matter. Joining us now is Hennepin County
26:59Attorney Mary Moriarty, who has jurisdiction over homicide investigations in Minneapolis.
27:05Are you conducting a homicide investigation of the killing of Alex Preddy?
27:11Yes. We are doing that in conjunction with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
27:16Can I say though, before that, I saw the Preddy statement and our victim witness people were going
27:23to reach out to the parents and I asked them to convey that I would make every effort on every
27:28interview I did to talk about who Michael or Alex Preddy really was and not let the lies about him
27:34go.
27:35on challenge. So thank you so much for talking about who he really was.
27:40Well, in a situation like this and an investigation like this, to what extent is the is the case
27:48informed by who Alex Preddy actually is? How relevant is his behavior in life leading up to this moment?
27:57Well, most of the investigation is about what actually happened there.
28:01I think if his motivations were challenged or we had to look into why he was there,
28:07who he was might make more of a difference there. But we're pretty focused on what happened there
28:12at the scene, what he did, what the ICE agents did. And we, you know, some of the videos you've
28:19showed,
28:19we've got those and many, many more. We've synced them into, you know, so you can see every angle of
28:24it.
28:25And we've watched those many, many, many times. We're also interviewing witnesses and just trying to gather
28:32all of the information that we can so we have a full picture. Now, as you know, not only do
28:38we have
28:39to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an agent or agent shot and killed him, we have to be able
28:44to
28:45disprove a defense that law enforcement has that what they did was not objectively reasonable.
28:52And then you add on to this, the idea that if we do charge, they are going to try to
28:57remove it to
28:57federal court. There are some different challenges here than you would see in ordinary prosecutions
29:04of homicide cases. You told us last week that if it does, if a case like this is removed to
29:10federal
29:10court, you, the local prosecutors, would still be the prosecutors on the case. Yes, which is very
29:18unusual. So we would expect if we did charge that they would attempt to remove the case to federal
29:25court. We would challenge that. But ultimately, we don't really have a choice in that. But if it did go
29:32to federal court, we would still be the prosecutors. It would not be the U.S. attorney's office. And
29:37most importantly, probably state law still applies. So if somebody were to be convicted in federal court
29:44on our case, Trump could not pardon that person. And as you go forward, this is this the same
29:54approach you're taking in the Renee Good case? Yes. Unfortunately, we've had to take that approach.
30:03In both of those cases, but also the third shooting where a man was shot in the leg last week.
30:09We are
30:10also investigating that in conjunction with the BCA. So you're in complete disagreement with the Trump
30:18Justice Department lawyer who said in federal court today that the aftermath, whatever happened,
30:23is a federal matter. Not at all. Two people that were residents in our community were shot and killed.
30:32It does not matter who those people work for. They were shot and killed in Hennepin County.
30:36We have jurisdiction over this. Now, the federal government could have jurisdiction over it as
30:42well. But that does not preclude us from proceeding with a case should we think that that's appropriate.
30:48And you need only look at the Melissa Hortman assassination where we do have joint or dual
30:56prosecutions going forward. The feds are going first and we're waiting patiently until they finish with
31:02him. And then we'll go forward with our prosecution. That was not a law enforcement agent, but that is
31:07certainly how it should work. Hennepin County Prosecutor Mary Moriarty, thank you very much for
31:14joining us tonight. Of course. Thank you. And coming up, we'll be joined by two law enforcement experts to
31:20consider just how reasonable it was. Was it a reasonable practice to fire those shots at Alex
31:28Preddy? That's next. We just heard Hennepin County Prosecutor Mary Moriarty say that the question she
31:37will be focusing on in her homicide investigation of the killing of Alex Preddy is whether there was
31:43any reasonable justification for law enforcement to fire 10 shots at him. And joining us now to
31:50consider that question are Mark Claxton, director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance and a retired
31:55NYPD detective. Also with us, Kirk Burkhalter, professor of law at New York Law School, where he is the
32:01director of the 21st Century Policing Project. He is also a retired NYPD detective. Mark Claxton,
32:08what do you see when you put all these videos together? What I see are several violations of DOJ's own
32:17policies multiplied exponentially. And I think along with the use of force policies DOJ has adopted,
32:27which is kind of the national standard, imminent threat of serious physical harm or death to yourself
32:35or others. There was a violation of also their de-escalation requirement, along with the affirmative
32:44duty to intervene, which deals specifically with intervening on your partner's misconduct or some
32:53conduct on the street there. You can directly intervene. You're required to directly intervene. I
33:00didn't see any intervention to attempt to de-escalate or to eliminate this threat that was obviously posed by
33:10the ICE or Border Patrol agents themselves. And then also affirmative duty to render aid. I didn't see,
33:17and I don't know if you have seen any video about this, but I haven't seen any rendering of aid
33:24immediately
33:24following the shooting. What I saw was some retreat by these quote-unquote professional law enforcement
33:30individuals. So there are several different layers of policy violations along with the atrocity of this
33:37enforcement operation. Kirk Berkhalter, what do you see in the videos?
33:43What jumps out to me is the ramifications of law enforcement officers who are not trained for the
33:53mission that they were asked to do. The tactics appear to be poor. This is a classic example of
34:02contagious fire. They are gassing themselves when they're deploying tear gas. And they are, as you
34:09mentioned in your opening, committing assaults. If law enforcement, if you put your hands on someone,
34:17you push them down, that may be necessary force for arrest. But if there's no arrest, then that's a crime.
34:25So for me, the majority of this leads back to, as far as the officers are concerned, these agents
34:33not trained for this mission whatsoever. It's just taking a group of folks and throwing them out there
34:40and asking them to enforce the law. This is the result. I'm so glad you mentioned the contagious
34:46fire phenomenon because that was a point that I saw and wanted to include in our analysis. And Mark,
34:53that's the phenomenon we've seen it for, for as long as we've been studying these cases, that
34:57one officer in a group fires and that creates a contagion effect with someone else firing,
35:04thinking, not, not knowing where the threat was coming from necessarily. There's a lot of reasons
35:08for it, but that, that multiple shot situation from multiple shooters is always a fascinating thing to
35:16see, especially when most of the officers who have exactly the same opportunity see no reason to fire
35:22their weapons. Yeah. And that's, that's important to point out. And what it shows is that a professional
35:29law enforcement person understands quite clearly that each individual officer or agent is responsible
35:37for each trigger pull or discharge of that weapon. They have to make individual assessments about what
35:43is an imminent threat of serious physical harm or death to themselves. And they have to make those
35:49decisions, not part of group think, because that's when you get into these contagious situations,
35:56but they have to respond based on their own individual assessments, not necessarily influenced by
36:03their partners. So you have that situation. And you also have this other element of officer created
36:10jeopardy that oftentimes comes into play in these situations where it is the law enforcement
36:16professional who is initiating the actions that lead to a situation where there is a fatal confrontation.
36:24And then they come back to say, well, we were put in a position where there was an imminent threat
36:29to
36:29ourselves. Yeah. The first shooting of this kind that I ever studied, a shooting in Boston in 1975,
36:37was one officer started firing because the other officer started firing for, for exactly that reason.
36:41Kirk, as a lawyer, what do you see in terms of this case as a homicide investigation? A homicide is
36:48a
36:49legally neutral word. It just means a human being killed a human being, sometimes justified, sometimes
36:54not. But what do you see here as a lawyer in this case? Well, it will turn on reasonableness. The
37:02agents involved, whether they can articulate that their use of force was reasonable based on their
37:09experiences in the light of all circumstances. I will tell you, this is quite a hill for them to
37:15climb. We have video of the gun being removed prior to the shots were being fired. Did the officer that
37:25removed the weapon call out to the other officers that he had removed the weapon? This man was on the
37:33ground and multiple, multiple officers were trying to subdue him. Was it necessary to shoot him? We
37:42heard these reports that he brandished a weapon, never brandished a weapon. It's going to be difficult,
37:47but that reasonableness, right? That's what law enforcement officers must articulate when explaining
37:52the use of force in the face of criminal charges. Kirk Burkhalter and Mark Claxton,
37:59thank you both very much for joining us tonight. You're quite welcome. And coming up, Andrew Weissman
38:05will join us next. Today, Minnesota's Deputy Attorney General Brian Carter told a federal judge,
38:14quote, if this is not stopped right here, right now, I don't think anybody who is seriously looking at
38:20this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future. Joining us now
38:29is
38:29Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and an MS now legal analyst. Andrew, stark terms for this
38:36point in the American legal process. What's your assessment of where we are tonight?
38:44Well, I have a legal assessment and I have a sort of policy assessment, and it's really hard to start
38:50with a legal, even though I know that's that's why I'm here. I think that I'm going to start with
38:55a
38:55policy point of view, which is everything that's happening in Minnesota is not about the sort of
39:04agents on the ground and the, in my view, lawless, completely lawless behavior that we're seeing,
39:11because none of that happens without the impunity that has been afforded them by the White House.
39:18They're they're carrying out sort of the literal marching orders of the White House. So we may
39:24see that Kristi Noem is sort of now bypassed and and that Agent Bovino is moved away. That to me,
39:35to be very blunt, is lipstick on a pig. That doesn't make any difference whatsoever if the policy doesn't
39:42change. And on the legal front, there are challenges based on the 10th Amendment, the First Amendment,
39:48the Fourth Amendment. You have to remember the district judges here are in a very, very conservative
39:56and somewhat erratic circuit. And we've already seen one injunction be overturned by the Eighth Circuit,
40:05you know, just a few hours ago. And so I think the real answer here is going to be on
40:12the sort of
40:13the people being on the streets reacting to what's going on and the pressure that politicians, the news
40:18agencies put on the administration in terms of what's happening. As the local prosecutors look at this,
40:27these two homicides that we've seen there, knowing that they're on their own, that they are going to
40:36have to try to do this investigation on their own. Federal government could be withholding evidence.
40:41They could have a years long battle trying to get evidence from the federal government handed over to
40:47them. Isn't it a very possibly messy legal future here? That part is a messy legal future.
40:57They are doing all the right things. There is pending litigation to have a turnover of evidence,
41:04to have evidence preserved. I want to make sure people understand what the federal government has
41:09said today in court, that when federal agents go to Minneapolis, even if they commit a state crime,
41:17and not just any state crime, the state crime of murder, that the local police department has absolutely
41:26nothing to do about that. They have no jurisdiction that the federal government can come in, commit
41:34murder, and that the locals do not have the ability to act. That is the statement of the Trump
41:42administration today in court. That cannot be the law. And I really do not think that will be the law.
41:50Final point, the statute of limitations on murder is forever. And so this is something that this may
42:00be justice delayed, but it may not be justice denied. So glad you made the point about the statute of
42:06limitations. Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You're welcome.
42:12you
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