SACRAMENTO — We relearned something from the killings of two law-abiding citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis: There’s a limit to how many government lies the public will tolerate.
When government officials arrogantly persist in blatantly lying, the public just might turn angrily against the prevaricators.
Or maybe they’re not lying technically. They simply might not care whether they’re telling the truth, or what it is. Their only intent is to spew a tale that fits a political agenda. Regardless, the citizenry can stomach only so much.
Another thing we relearned is that when a government keeps acting against the public’s wishes, the public tends to rise up and smack its leader, altering the leader’s direction.
That’s the sign of a functional democracy when enough people get riled up and elbow their way into leading the government themselves.
In the process, they’re very likely to prod various other governments — state and local — into acting on their behalf.
We’ve been seeing this play out in the aftermath of the Minneapolis killings.
But, in fact, the public rebellion has been building during a yearlong nightmare of unjustified, inhumane, un-American violence by federal immigration agents. Their targets have been people with brown skin suspected of living in the country illegally. Never mind that many not only are documented, they’re U.S. citizens.
Such has been the slipshod and authoritarian way President Trump’s promised mass deportation program has been carried out.
Polls have consistently shown that voters strongly support the president’s goals of protecting the border and also deporting the “worst of the worst” undocumented criminals. But people have increasingly objected to his roughhouse methods, including masked federal agents slapping around and pepper-spraying legal protesters.
It’s not clear whether the two Minnesota citizens victimized by quick-draw federal agents were protesting. You can’t believe the Trump administration.
And that’s the danger in habitually lying: People can become so cynical that most disregard whatever they’re told by their so-called leaders. And that cripples what’s necessary for an ongoing healthy democracy: a cooperative relationship based on trust between citizens and those they’ve chosen to govern.
Some things we do know about the slain Minnesota citizens.
Alex Pretti, 37, was an intensive care nurse in a VA hospital. He was shooting video with his cellphone of agents and protesters when he was pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by several agents as his legally carried handgun was removed. Then he was shot in the back several times.
He was not a “domestic terrorist” and “assassin” who wanted to “massacre law enforcement,” as Trump sycophants immediately lied on TV before backing off, after most of America saw videos of the killing and the president got nervous.
Renee Good, 37, was a mother and poet who appeared merely to be trying to drive through protest chaos when an agent shot her three times through the windshield. She did not try to run down the agent, as the administration claimed.
Good was not “obviously a professional agitator” who “violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer,” as Trump wrote on social media.
Public outrage at the lying and the brutish immigration enforcement has pressured elected officials into action all around the country.
Sure, you can call it political grandstanding and, of course, much of it is. But good politics and sound democracy involve listening to the public and acting on its desires.
In Sacramento, the state Senate held an emotional two-hour debate over a bill aimed at permitting people to sue federal law enforcement when their constitutional rights are violated. Rights such as the ability to peacefully protest and to be protected against excessive force. Lawsuits already are allowed against state and local officers. But federal agents are practically untouchable.
Senate Bill 747 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) passed on a 30-10 party-line vote — Democrats for and Republicans against. The measure moved to the Assembly.
The vote was yet another sorry sign of today’s unhealthy political polarization. Not one Republican could break out of the Trump web and vote to hold illegally operating federal agents accountable in civil courts. But neither could one Democrat detect enough fault in the bill to vote against it.
Some law enforcement groups oppose the legislation because they fear it would spur additional suing against local cops. Look for an amendment in the Assembly.
The heated Senate debate reflected Democratic lawmakers’ frustration with Trump — and many of their constituents’ fears.
“The level of anxiety and anger is higher than I’ve ever seen in my 13 years in the Legislature,” Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) told me.
“People are coming into our offices fearful for relatives or friends who are hiding out, afraid to go to doctors’ appointments and their kids are staying away from schools.”
During the debate, several senators mentioned two young protesters who were each permanently blinded in one eye by rubber bullets shot by Homeland Security officers in Santa Ana. Lawmakers also railed against “kidnappings” off the street of people simply because of their skin colors, accents and dress.
“California is not going to let these thugs get away with it,” Wiener vowed.
“There’s a lot of hyperbole on this floor,” Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) asserted. He called for repeal of California’s “sanctuary” laws that greatly restrict cooperation by state and local officers with federal immigration agents.
Easing those laws is probably a good idea. But more important, we’ve got to restrain undisciplined federal agents from shooting unarmed people in the back.
Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who revealed that she has been packing a firearm for 30 years, said that Pretti should never have brought his gun to a protest even if it was legal — which it isn’t in California.
And she’s right. But he never brandished the weapon and shouldn’t have paid with his life.
Neither should Pretti have been immediately attacked as a bad guy by lying federal officials. They’re now paying a political price.
What else you should be reading
The must-read: Planned Parenthood, reproductive healthcare could receive $90 million in new state funding
The TK: Healthcare experts warn “people will die” unless state steps up amid federal cuts
The L.A. Times Special: Meet the un-Gavin. Kentucky’s governor sees a different way to the White House
Until next week,
George Skelton
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