Did Minn. “Cowboy” CBP Officer Create “Justice by Cop”?

Justice must be blind to be Just

“I must stand with anybody that stands Right, and stand with him while he is Right, and part with him when he goes wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln

Unlike the MAGA Media and Cabinet appointees who have been lightning quick to excuse and protect one of their own – like JD Vance, I am not an “armchair quarterback” opining on something I’ve never experienced first hand.

I have been in that CBP officer’s exact situation – as a CBP officer, civilian cop and armed citizen – and on more than one occasion.

I retired from the Douglas, AZ Port of Entry as a CBP Officer in 2007 (see: 10 Years on the Line: My War on the Border, Amazonbooks.com). I fumed for years watching illegals stampede over armed American soldiers while both Parties of Congress tolerated Biden’s treason on the border that I worked my ass off on and where I risked my life more than once

It’s what motivated me to run for Congress in 2019 until I realized I was too conservative on the border issue for the GOP to support me (like the AZ District 2 GOP candidate in 2008  that caused the GOP to fund the DNC candidate)

I was – and continue to be – euphoric watching agents round up the alien maggots being zip tied and perp walked to jail.

But I also noticed a concerning, very “liberal” use of nonlethal tools by “highly motivated” agents of various departments in confrontations not really requiring their use.

I have been in the Minn. CBP Officer’s shoes. From confronting hundreds of disruptive L.A. gang members, to a fleeing drug smuggler aiming his truck at me ramming through the Port of Entry, to Hispanic gang bangers attacking my young sons with steel baseball bats in my front yard, I know how it feels to replay those situations in your mind for months asking yourself “what if?”

DHS Secretary Noem calling a Minnesota protestor a “domestic terrorist” is as inflammatory and dangerous to American civil liberties as the Biden administration targeting the Tea Party, Pro-Life Catholics and  (real) Conservatives in general – and calling them “domestic terrorists.” Two peas in a pod.

It is as inflammatory as the Left calling (real) conservatives “Hitler” – like I was by several Hispanic fellow CBP officers on the border for (according the IG, fairly executing the law).

“High stress situation!” – Brian Kilmead. BULLSHIT! Kilmead wouldn’t know a real “high stress situation” if it bit him on his ass. ANGER on the part of the CBP officers at not being able to detain a protestor well-trained in NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE does not even measure on the scale of real “high stress situations” – in my experience.

Neither does artificially escalating the rhetoric by DHS or DOJ.

Some hard questions are demanded in this shooting incident in order to 1. get the Truth out to the public, and 2. if needed, get a “Cowboy Cop” who might have a habit of needlessly escalating low-intensity situations into full-fledged crises off the street.

• Standing in front of any suspect’s vehicle is not only not good tactics it is just plain STUPID. Any law enforcement officer who thinks that’s good tactics needs another Psyche exam.
• The CBP officer was allegedly dragged “100 feet” requiring “300 stitches” in a previous incident. If that is actually true, it only shows the CBP officer is either a slow learner or he was intent on proving a point by replicating the injurious behavior. He wasn’t going to let another maggot drag him down the street without consequences.
• I’ve felt the same myself a few times.
• I’d like to see the scars and the medical records before I believe a Noem DHS or Bondi DOJ.
• “Cowboy Cops” are just what the  term sounds like. They’re also called “heavy badge” cops for enforcing the letter of the law to nth degree with a sledgehammer. In other venues, they’re called “loose cannons.”
• I’ve worked with a few Cowboy Cops on the border and was illegally arrested by a few in Imperial County, Calif. January 2016 for three “California” weapons felonies that didn’t go into effect until that June – and subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. When I told them I was a retired federal law enforcement and was entitled to carry my weapon interstate, they replied “We don’t acknowledge federal law.” The County Attorney called me two days later, apologized profusely and immediately dismissed the charges “with prejudice.”
• It’s cops like those that turn law enforcement-supporting citizens into visceral cop haters – and make it dangerous for other cops who face the lethal repercussions of behavior they were not responsible for.
• I avoided working with Cowboy Cops because they sought every opportunity to escalate minor situations into unnecessary, real high risk confrontations.
• I am proud to have been partly responsible for getting a rookie CBP Officer fired for repeatedly reaching for his duty weapon while provoking a drunk for throwing a half filled water bottle at us from twenty yards away.
• I am grateful that the majority of law enforcement I worked with were not “Cowboys“
• The majority of law enforcement nationwide are not.
• I didn’t care what agency they worked for. If they needed back up I was there right beside them. (see: 10 Years on the Line:)
• The CBP officer did not join the other two officers at the side by the driver’s door or attempt to open the passenger door on the other side.
• He didn’t attempt to arrest or detain the driver’s partner who was taunting him.
• He went straight to the front of the vehicle.
• He intentionally stood in a position at the front of the vehicle where he could control the amount of his exposure – ensure enough contact to make deadly force seem justified but not to the degree of serious injury.
• Odd behavior for an officer who had been dragged a hundred feet just weeks before.
• I would be interested to ask the officer who backed away from the car door if he warned the “cowboy” officer of the vehicle’s impending departure – and the cowboy intentionally waited for symbolic impact to create a “justice by cop” incident.
• Forensics would be able to tell from the trajectory of the bullet hole in the windshield to the driver’s face the position of the weapon in the CBP officer’s hand in relation to the vehicle;  whether it would have to have been resting on top of the fender to have been that low on the windshield – not in front or near the front of the vehicle.   The front of the vehicle would have already passed the CBP officer and not been a threat to him when he fired his weapon. 
• I’ve been face-to-face with a drug smuggler behind a speeding truck aimed directly at me. All I could see was the front sight blade of my Barretta Brigadier 96, .40 caliber, fully jacketed, hollow-point pistol aimed right between his eyes.
• He had deadly intent in his eyes.
• This wasn’t that.
• That brain-dead (pardon the pun!) bitch was a major pain in the ass. Her and her kind are oxygen thieves and deserve jail time.
• But she wasn’t a lethal threat. Every officer there knew she was leaving.
• By letting her go on her way, she would have simply removed herself from an intentional, pre=planned inconvenience to the CBP officers. She had made her point and she was leaving.
• “Cowboy Cop” decided to get a little “payback.”
• If I were him I’d still be pissed I didn’t kill the bastard that dragged me a hundred yards weeks before – if that really happened (or if it’s DHS’s version of DOD’s “no troops were injured in the Venezuela operation – a Lie like Pat Tilman dying by intense hostile fire.
• Being dragged by a vehicle for any length of time or distance is lethal – and terrifying – fully justifying lethal force to stop it.
• But this wasn’t that.
• DHS’ recruiting drive for 2,000 more agents is bound to attract a percentage of pent up “patriots” Hell-bent on getting some overdue payback.
• Safe in the knowledge their chain of command is as partisan about equal justice under the law as their predecessors (see: Epstein Files)
• “Tempting and taunting” is not lethal behavior. It’s excruciating to put up with day after day hours upon hours. But it is not lethal.
• She was smiling as she was SLOWLY turning AWAY from the CBP officer.
• Did he move into her line of flight? Forensics will show whether he did or not and whether there was sufficient space between the CBP officer’s camera and the front of her car as she, smiling, turned and drove slowly and deliberately away.
• Did the movement of the camera away from line of sight with the windshield indicate a lateral body movement into the path of the vehicle or to the right to get out of the way?
• From the CBP officer’s camera angle – before he turned the camera way – could she have cleared him?
• Did he have plenty of time to get out of the way and let her leave?
• He wasn’t caught on her bumper.
• Was there plenty of time and space to maneuver out of her way or was there even a necessity of moving with the distance between the front of her car and him when she was turning and leaving? 
• The slow speed at which she was maneuvering her vehicle indicates she was being careful NOT to hit him – much less with any force to injure him.
• She was NOT accelerating with the intent of causing him grievous bodily harm or her rear wheels would have been AUDIBLY AND VISUALLY spinning on the icy road. In fact, she was studiously avoiding spinning her wheels.
• Was he just pissed because she was leaving – laughing with impunity in his face –  without complying?
• To Cowboy Cops that is unacceptable.
• One of the mantra’s of Cowboy Cops is “How can you break the law if you are the law?” I’ve heard that from several of them.
• If he was foolishly using his body to try stopping her from leaving, he was acting “outside the color of law.”
• No law enforcement academy in the world teaches that as an approved tactic to detain anyone.
• Did he turn the camera away to hide his moving into the path of her vehicle?
• If she was a direct threat, Training and Instinct would dictate bringing the phone into the gun hand like the Palmer Method for aimed shooting with a flashlight -if he were aiming instead of looking how to move into her line of flight.
• He wouldn’t have needed to move the camera to see where to move in the opposite direction of her travel – to the right out of her way.
• I hope I’m wrong. I have backed up fellow officers from various agencies many times with weapons drawn on and off-duty. As an armed retired federal law enforcement officer I will continue to do so.
• But the hard questions have to be asked.
• The MAGA cabal of cabinet members and Media should be ashamed of themselves for doing the same thing they accused Obama and the Left Media of doing during the legitimate shooting of George Floyd.
• Subverting the legal process is nothing new within the Trump administration (see: Trump’s Pardons, wikipedia).
• TRUMP refusing to follow standard legal procedure – AND THE LAW by stopping the investigation into the shooting, confiscating the evidence and refusing to cooperate with State and Local agencies in the investigation is only throwing Hi-Octane fuel on the fire.
• Added to the Epstein File debacle, it will only further estrange Independent voters in the mid-terms.

MAGA mewling law enforcement pundits citing previous Supreme Court cases are irrelevant. The only standard is the legal standard: the totality of the circumstances in this specific case. Those need to be heard by a jury.

Like Homan said, Let the legal process run its course  – request a change of venue and pray for a sympathetic jury.

“Peace if possible. But Truth always!” – Martin Luther

*Synonyms: degenerate, deviate, pervert.