CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

On Saturday, January 17, 2026, a second incident occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where federal agents shot and killed a protester whom they thought was interfering with their efforts to enforce federal immigration laws. This time around, the protester was armed with a handgun when he approached the agents to help other protestors who were engaged in loud whistleblowing activity in their presence. From the whistle-blowing protesters’ perspective, the federal agents were investigating potentially criminal conduct by means of random detentions of non-citizens who wanted to continue residing in Minneapolis. That kind of immigration investigation would typically begin with the random, but coercive questioning of a large number of ethnic Latin Americans who were concentrated in a small area. The protesting whistle blowers were apparently trying to warn any random targets of that investigation to leave the area before they got arrested. The courts of the United States have yet to decide the contested legal issue of whether those investigatory tactics by immigration officers violate the basic guarantees of the federal Constitution’s Bill of Rights. See Stay of Proceedings in Noem v. Perdomo, U.S. Sup.Ct. Order of September 8, 2025, Docket No. 25A169.

Random, indiscriminate searches for potential, unnamed suspects are indeed violations of the Bill of Rights. Within that part of the federal Constitution, the Fourth Amendment says the following:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Fifth Amendment says the following:

No person shall be . . . compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .

U.S. Const., Amendments IV and V.

Like everything else in the Constitution, these provisions should be read, understood, and applied in the context of their purposes, see Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1, 189 (1824). Those purposes explicitly include the needs “to . . . establish Justice, [and to] insure domestic Tranquility . . . .” U.S. Const., Preamble.

Instead of pursuing those goals after this second incident, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem immediately described the shooting victim as a “domestic terrorist” who had been intent on killing a lot of federal agents with his handgun. The video evidence of the incident, however, demonstrated that the protestor’s handgun was out of his reach, and never drawn by him, when he was shot. Indeed, he was apparently shot in the back while trying to help a non-threatening woman get back on her feet.

Under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Secretary Noem’s job in response to a killing by federal agents operating under her control was to order and obtain a detailed report of the shooting based upon a careful review of all of the available evidence of that incident, including videos, witness statements, and the shooters’ own statements. Only such an investigation and review of all of the available evidence could justify a legal conclusion, one way or another of whether the agents’ “seizure” of a criminal suspect by killing him was “reasonable” or not, and in compliance with “due process of law.”  By declaring the deceased protester guilty of terrorism immediately after the incident, Secretary Noem grossly failed to live up to her Constitutional responsibilities to pursue “justice” for everyone concerned, and to follow the “due process of law” in doing so. Her “hang-em now” approach to justice will only exacerbate the hard feelings and violence already enveloping Minneapolis, instead of reducing them. On January 17, Secretary Noem was the law violator, not the protestor, whether he was armed with a holstered gun, or not. Secretary Noem should be fired. If she is not, her boss, President Trump should be impeached and convicted of the “high crime and misdemeanor,” see U.S. Const., Art. II, §4, of violating his own solemn oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” U.S. Const., Art. II, §1.

/s/ Dan D. Rhea