Monday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said the people of Maine did not trust the federal government to fairly investigate the fatal shooting by an ICE agent in Biddeford, ME.
Host John King said, “Troubling day for your state, obviously. You said in your first conversation with the DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin, he used the phrase, ‘weaponized the vehicle.’ In the later official statement that was just released, DHS did not use that language. It said, quote, the vehicle attempted to flee the scene, and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon. Seems to me like an important distinction. What do you make of that? And do you have an updated understanding of what happened here?”
King said, “I think that is a very important distinction and there’s also a point that sort of glossed over in that statement. The person that was killed was not the person that they were seeking. They sort of made it unclear, but the person they were after was not the guy they ended up shooting. And then, as you say, the statement does not allege that the officer felt that he was he was in danger. There’s a lot of law, John, on police officers shooting at vehicles. And the bottom line is you have to either fear for your own safety or the safety of others. And, so far we haven’t seen evidence of that.”
He added, “The key here is an unvarnished, transparent investigation. And, John, here’s the problem. The people of Maine don’t trust the federal government to do that. And so what I’ve been pushing and what I talked to the secretary this morning, the Maine officials, the state police, other Maine officials that the attorney general’s office should be involved in this, in this investigation, if it’s going to have any credibility.”
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