U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez ruled Friday evening that ICE officers couldn’t arrest or pepper-spray protesters if they weren’t directly engaging in violence. She also ruled that the stalking of ICE vehicles and agents couldn’t warrant a response, nor could crowds forming around officers during operations.
The order will remain in place until the operation concludes or “conditions change such that it is no longer necessary,” she ruled.
“Plaintiffs allege they have been subject to a variety of retaliatory behavior by Defendants, including traffic stops, arrests, the indiscriminate use of chemical irritants, and pointing of firearms,” Menendez wrote. “These kinds of conduct are those that undoubtedly give rise to an objective chill of First Amendment rights.”
She waved off earlier concerns from Department of Homeland Security lawyers who said their agents faced “threats and violence.”
In their previous response, DHS lawyers outlined other grey areas that went beyond what they argued was protected speech, including “assaulting federal officers, damaging federal property, blocking officers from leaving a volatile scene where such assaults are occurring, [and] chasing a law enforcement vehicle.”
The judge disagreed with most of these examples not being protected speech, singling out the chasing of a law enforcement vehicle as not warranting a response. The other examples she disputed as having occurred.
TIM WALZ AND JACOB FREY UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION BY DOJ
Protests in the Twin Cities have routinely descended into violence over the past week, escalating after the death of Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer after hitting him with her car, according to the DHS’s account. Earlier this week, protesters broke into an FBI vehicle and stole a rifle. The thief, an alleged member of the Latin Kings gang, was later arrested.
The case that resulted in Friday’s order was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of six plaintiffs who alleged they were unjustifiably assaulted or arrested by ICE officers.
