ICE SHOOTING IN NEW YORK SPARKS CONTROVERY

Another shooting by ICE agents in New York City this past week has caused NYC officials to criticize the Trump Administration.  This shooting in particular inadvertently involved a five year old boy who was the son of the aggressor attempting to attack ICE agents.  Official DOJ statements say that the agents had no idea that this five year old boy was in the vehicle at the time of the shooting.  Much like the famous ICE shooting out of Minneapolis where a mother was shot for attempting to run over ICE agents during an operation, this shooting also involved a vehicle charging at ICE.  

In the wake of all these shootings, I think it is important to break down the legal framework at play.  Use of force scenarios involving law enforcement are highly nuanced. Something that can take half a second to start, play out, and conclude involves a plethora of case law landmark decisions, local law, federal law, and training considerations.  Allow me to walk us through the details of this shooting, and the laws at play.  In a world where shootings like this are used simply as a political tool, It is important to understand exactly what is occurring in a legal sense.

So, let us begin with the shooting itself. The victim, a 28 year old Dominican national named Oscar Bergal, sustained “non life threatening injuries” after a gunshot wound to the neck.  Mr. Bergal was medically treated and is now in jail awaiting his trial for potential deportation.  

Why did the shooting happen?

• ICE agents were tracking Bergal due to his previous criminal history and illegal status in the United States.  
• ICE agents found Bergal and approached his vehicle with weapons drawn.  They ordered Bergal to exit his vehicle and comply.  
• Bergal did the opposite.  He drove his vehicle into 2 separate government vehicles used by agents, and attempted to strike the ICE agents with his vehicle.  
• ICE agents opened fire due to the deadly threat on their lives, and the lives of the surrounding public due to his actions.
• ICE agents did not know that Bergal’s 5 year old son was in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle in question.
• Bergal sustained one gunshot wound to the neck, which doctors found to be non life threatening.  He was taken into custody.

According to Bergal’s lawyer:

• “You’re not supposed to get shot in your car with your child sitting in the back. Period,”

Mayor Zohran Mamdami added this as commentary after the shooting:

• “New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the agency is “sowing chaos and terror” across the country, undermining public safety and should be abolished…”

Obviously nobody is arguing that it is a good thing to get shot with your child in the back seat of your vehicle.  The left is spinning this instance to seem like Trump’s “secret police” is terrorizing the public with no regard for anyone’s safety.  However, when we break down the legality of this situation, we can plainly see why agents took the actions they did.

So what are the laws in play during a use of force situation like this?  First and foremost, we must cover the “objective reasonableness standard” out of the case law: Graham V. Connor.  Here is how the law reads:

“A claim of excessive force by law enforcement during an arrest, stop, or other seizure of an individual is subject to the objective reasonableness standard of the Fourth Amendment, rather than a substantive due process standard under the Fourteenth Amendment. In other words, the facts and circumstances related to the use of force should drive the analysis, rather than any improper intent or motivation by the officer who used force.”

In plain terms, this says that the actions of an officer during a use of force scenario must be judged on the objective facts of the use of force.  The standard of “objective reasonableness” states that the actions must be deemed “reasonable” from the perspective of another trained law enforcement officer.

This is the most important law at play during any use of force scenario.  Allow me to ask you, the reader, despite most likely not being in law enforcement, if the following description seems reasonable to you or not?  

• A criminal illegal alien is stopped by ICE for a lawful reason. 
• ICE attempts to detain the criminal illegal alien. 
• The criminal illegal alien, instead of following orders, attempts to seriously injure or kill the ICE agents with his vehicle.   
• In response, in defense of their own lives and the lives of others, they fire at the criminal illegal alien.  

Following the standard of Graham V Connor, this falls right in line with how law enforcement should be judged on these actions.  At the time of the shooting, they knew their lives were in danger.  In response, they fired.  Also, they had no knowledge of the 5 year old son in the car.  Due to this, at the moment, they cannot be judged on that fact retroactively.  Effectively, they cannot be Monday morning quarterbacked over something they had no knowledge of at the moment of the shooting.

When the leftists like Zohran attempt to paint this as a secret military police that is oppressing the minority population of America, you should know he is acting purely as a propagandist.  This is because, objectively and inherently, he is contradicting the case law agreed on by the supreme court of the United States of America.  Remember, whenever a shooting like this comes out in the news, think of Graham V Connor.  Not only because it is the correct standard to hold law enforcement to, but because that is what the court will be doing as well.  

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