The Badge versus the Badger: A Long-Time Law Enforcement Officer Ponders the Recent ICE Shooting

The ego killer and the killer ego…

I spent 13 years carrying a badge in a major city department and, for 2 years, was assigned to the FBI. I’ve been in situations where split-second decisions meant everything. So, when I say this Minnesota ICE shooting was unjustified, I’m not saying it from the sidelines.

Cops should be held to a higher standard. This should not be considered a controversial opinion; it’s the deal they make when they pin on that badge. Preachers are held to a higher standard. Teachers are held to a higher standard. And cops? They carry guns. They have the authority to take someone’s freedom… or their life. If that doesn’t demand a higher standard, I don’t know what does.

This ICE officer shot and killed a woman who, in a realistic world, posed no lethal threat. A vehicle was moving. He could have stepped aside. Instead, he fired. And now she’s dead.

I’ve heard the defense: the officer had been dragged by a vehicle in a prior incident. Maybe that left him with PTSD. Maybe it shaped how he perceived the threat in that moment. I’m not unsympathetic to that. Trauma is real. But if a traumatic event makes one unable to respond proportionally, if it causes one to see a lethal threat where there isn’t one, then they are unfit for the job. Full stop. It doesn’t matter how they got there. If a surgeon develops a tremor, we don’t let him keep cutting just because he used to be steady, even if we feel sorry for him. The standard is the standard.

What I suspect happened is something uglier. This part comes with a caveat. I am not pretending to know this as fact. It is simply a theory based on my experiences: I think his ego got bruised, and that he was operating from an old-school mentality that too many officers still carry: the idea that a vehicle coming “at you” is a blank check to use deadly force. That’s outdated thinking. Worse, I think there’s still a culture in some corners of law enforcement where taking a life is treated like earning a star on your uniform. Something to wear with pride. That’s a sickness, and we need to call it what it is.

I’ve worked alongside cops like this. Officers who have a knack for getting into things but lack the tactical aptitude to get out of them without pulling a trigger. They constantly place themselves in positions that force a solution requiring lethal force. And guess who the ones are with the most on-the-job shootings? Yep. Know that there are amazingly tactical and tactful officers out there… Great ones. But many of the cops with multiple shootings outside SWAT Teams are the ones who put themselves in these situations over and over, or capitalize on what looks like “justification” on paper, all while knowing the killing could have been avoided.

Now, here’s where I’ll lose some people.

I also think this woman made an irresponsible decision. Absolutely not a decision that justified her death, but a decision that put her (and her children) in harm’s way… unnecessarily. There’s a mentality out there right now that says berating officers, interfering with their operations, putting yourself physically in the middle of a law enforcement action is some kind of noble political statement. It’s not. It’s reckless. She thought so little of the risk to herself and family that she chose confrontation over compliance. There are a hundred ways to fight for what you believe in that don’t involve stepping into the line of fire.

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That said, let me be absolutely clear: none of that justifies what happened to her. She didn’t deserve to die. The officer’s response was disproportionate, unjustified, and wrong…period.

Will he be held accountable? I doubt it. The system protects its own. And that’s the part that should bother all of us, because every time we excuse the inexcusable, we make the badge mean a little less.