Mayes said, “I put [“officers”] in air quotes because I don’t think they are real law enforcement.” These are real law enforcement officers under federal law, enforcing federal law. Period. The effort by Walz, Mayes, and others to question their status or treat them as impostors is clearly designed to inflame citizens and encourage greater confrontations.

It is a dangerous form of demagoguery. It is sending citizens into harm’s way, encouraging them to impede federal operations involving the arrest of criminal suspects.

Mayes’s comments could justify many putting “attorney general” in air quotes since she is not only misleading citizens about the status of these officers but also enabling the very rage that is causing the injury and death of individuals.

Again, repeating Walz’s talking points, she referred to these officers as “poorly trained.” She obviously has no idea about the training of these officers. The officer involved in the Alex Pretti shooting was an experienced officer with the Border Patrol. The officer involved in the prior Renée Good shooting was also an experienced officer.

While mischaracterizing the officers, figures like Walz are sending demonstrably “untrained” citizens into highly dangerous situations. Walz specifically called out citizens into the streets to record these operations, which is precisely what Pretti was trying to do before his fatal confrontation with officers.

Mayes, however, was not looking for a tie in that race to the bottom. She told citizens that Arizona’s “Stand Your Ground” law might be cited as grounds for the use of lethal force against officers. She declared:

“You have these masked, federal officers with very little identification — sometimes no identification — wearing plain clothes and masks and we have a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law that says if you reasonably believe your life is in danger and you’re in your house or in your car or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.”

She later added, “It’s a fact that we have a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law and, in other states, un-uniformed, masked people who can’t be identified as police officers.”

It was a reckless statement of the law.

These laws only protect “reasonable” uses of self-defense. However, they have an express exemption for using force “to resist an arrest that the person knows or should know is being made by a peace officer or by a person acting in a peace officer’s presence and at his direction, whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, unless the physical force used by the peace officer exceeds that allowed by law.”

Walz has demonstrated politics of the lowest kind, stoking anger as citizens and officers alike are injured. Walz is pledging to go to court to stop further operations—a lawsuit that would be another frivolous filing. Previously, the state, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, filed to prevent the federal government from increasing forces to investigate fraud and immigration violations.

Walz, Mayes, and others are following a long line of demagogues who sought to use social unrest to advance their political careers. For Walz, sending people into the streets has the benefit of not having them at home watching and reading about the growing fraud scandal in his state.

It is not a defense of democracy, but mobocracy in Minnesota.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mobocracy-democratic-politicians-compete-race-bottom-over-ice-shooting