Immigration and Local Police: Still Stuck on Stupid
Posted by Matt O'Brien | May 22, 2017
Minneapolis artist, and political agitator, Ricardo Levins Morales shot a cell phone video of a brief, polite interaction between a Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Transit Police officer and a passenger on the Twin Cities airport light rail system. The video went viral and provoked total outrage. Citizens voiced concern that the police were engaging in abusive policing tactics. What images caused such shock and outrage? The unpardonable sin committed by the officer: asking a passenger whether he was in the United States illegally.
The unnamed officer also showed remarkable restraint when Levins Morales advised him to drop that line of questioning because it was “touchy legal territory.” It is unclear why Levins Morales felt it necessary to intervene during a peaceful engagement between a police officer and a member of the public. Although, Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican nationalist with self-admitted ties to the violent Black Panthers and Young Lords terror groups. Both organizations were notoriously anti-law enforcement. Thus he may simply have been trolling for a controversy.
http://immigrationreform.com/2017/05/22/immigration-and-local-police-still-stuck-on-stupid/
