When Law Enforcement Becomes Political

“I have a message for ICE. To ICE, get the f*** out of Minneapolis.”

That line was delivered publicly and deliberately by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. The language was bleeped. The message was not.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz followed with a statement insisting that federal involvement was unnecessary and that Minnesota would not allow itself to be used as “a prop in a national political fight.”

Whether enforcement is treated as legitimate or condemned as provocation now appears to depend entirely on who is doing the enforcing — and who is being inconvenienced by it.

That selective outrage isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s dangerous.

In the aftermath of a recent enforcement incident, Rep. Jasmine Crockett labeled the action a “state-sanctioned execution” — a charge untethered from law, training, and long-established use-of-force standards. Language like that doesn’t clarify the truth. It distorts it — and it puts lives at risk.

Here’s the reality politicians too often ignore: ICE agents are federal law-enforcement officers. They are not vigilantes. They are not political props. They enforce laws passed by Congress, signed by presidents of both parties, and upheld by the courts. You don’t get to applaud enforcement when it aligns with your ideology and demonize it when it doesn’t.

Understand this: a vehicle is a deadly weapon.

When someone drives a vehicle toward a law-enforcement officer — local, state, or federal — that vehicle becomes an imminent threat. Officers are trained to stop that threat immediately because hesitation gets people killed.

This is where the armchair experts reliably appear.

“Why didn’t they just shoot out the tires?”

Because that is not how police are trained. Shooting a moving tire is extraordinarily difficult and rarely neutralizes a threat. Miss, and the vehicle continues forward. Hit, and the car can still veer out of control, striking bystanders or other officers.

“Why didn’t they just shoot the person in the knee?”

Again — not how police are trained. A knee shot does not reliably incapacitate a threat. A wounded suspect can still stand, still act, still kill. Officers are trained to aim center mass because it is the only method proven to immediately stop a lethal threat.

This isn’t politics. It’s survival.

I say this not as a slogan, but as someone who understands the stakes. I am the daughter of a United States Army veteran who served in World War II. My father was a sharpshooter — not in mythology, but in reality. He was trained to make split-second decisions because hesitation in moments of danger doesn’t lead to debate or do-overs. It leads to death.

He was a hero — my hero — and one of millions who understood that duty sometimes demands action, not delay.

The same principle applies to law enforcement today.

When I earned my master’s degree in criminal justice, many of my classmates were police officers. There was a saying they all understood — one the public often mocks but officers live by:

I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.

Once you’re in a pine box, there are no more arguments. No press conferences. No outrage cycles. There is only silence — broken briefly by bagpipes, the measured steps of officers escorting a fallen colleague, and the quiet grief of families whose lives will never be the same.

Dead is dead.

And yet political rhetoric increasingly treats lethal force as if it exists in a vacuum — divorced from context, training, and the split-second realities officers face. Labeling lawful enforcement actions as “executions” may earn applause online, but it actively undermines public safety. It encourages resistance. It escalates encounters. And it places officers and civilians in greater danger.

Here is a truth adults understand: when a law-enforcement officer gives a lawful order, compliance matters. When you don’t comply, consequences follow. Accountability is not violence. Enforcement is not oppression.

ICE agents are doing the job politicians refuse to do. They enforce the law so communities don’t collapse under fentanyl trafficking, violent crime, and chaos. Demonizing them isn’t moral courage. It’s cowardice.

When politics becomes performance and outrage replaces responsibility, people die.

A society that demands law enforcement while vilifying those who enforce the law is a society at war with itself.

Accountability is not brutality. Enforcement is not oppression. And officers should never be forced to choose between doing their job and becoming political collateral.

America doesn’t need more outrage.

It needs courage — and leaders willing to stand behind the rule of law.

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Kelly Rae Robertson is a former criminal-justice investigator with a master’s degree in criminal justice and a licensed mental-health professional. She writes on public safety, law enforcement, and accountability.