The European Commission declined this week to comment on the two recent fatal shooting incidents in Minneapolis that have upset the US and resulted in a blame game between the Trump administration and the city about the facts.
Federal agents from the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were involved in both cases. The agents had been sent to the pro-Democratic city against its will to uphold order and arrest illegal immigrants.
Disturbing videos taken by bystanders show a group of agents at the scene. The incidents got quickly out of hand and resulted in fatal shootings where the victims did not seem to pose any threat to them. The federal authorities claimed that the agents acted in self-defence and blamed the victims.
President Trump claimed that Democrats were to blame for the killings. Stephen Miller, his homeland security advisor, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, called the second victim, Alex Pretti a “domestic terrorist”. 37-old Pretti, who worked as intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, was filming the agents and apparently interfered in an arrest.
When asked to comment on the latest incident, Commission spokespersons replied that they deplored any loss of lives, innocent or not, but could not comment on internal matters in the US. “It’s not for us to judge what happened but for the US justice system to establish the facts.”
The European Commission does usually not comment on issues that are not linked to EU policies but has been more vocal in the past about police violence in the US. In May 2020, it commented on the death of George Floyd, a black man who suffocated to death after a police arrest in Minneapolis.
A Commission spokesperson described the incident as a tragedy, expressed EU condolences to the victim’s family and called on the authorities to take serious action to prevent such tragedies and to ensure justice is done when they do occur.
The incident then took place during the first Trump administration. The President threatened on Twitter to deploy the national guard and use violence to quell the looting in the city. But the death was caused by local police and not federal agents sent to Minneapolis to implement the administration’s policy.
The local police officers were found guilty and convicted. Today the situation is different with the Trump administration interfering in the judicial process with its statements and unwilling to charge the agents with any criminal offence.
