Philadelphia's top prosecutor prepared to arrest Federal agents

By Brentin Mock
July 22, 2020, 5:00 AM EDT

... “My dad volunteered and served in World War II to fight fascism, like most of my uncles, so we would not have an American president brutalizing and kidnapping Americans for exercising their constitutional rights and trying to make America a better place, which is what patriots do,” said Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in a statement. “Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office” ...

What is your understanding of the legality of the Trump administration deploying officers in any city in this context?

There are certain areas of shared jurisdiction between federal and local authorities, and frankly, there’s a frequent collaboration between federal and local law enforcement on certain types of cases. Often it’s cases involving drugs and guns or explosives, for example. So there’s nothing unusual about feds being involved in law enforcement in the city. And there’s nothing unusual about collaborations between local and federal authorities. They’re going on right now in my office.

What’s unusual here is the fluffy rhetoric about taking over cities. What’s unusual is the politicization of a normal relationship between federal law enforcement and local law enforcement. And what is really unusual is the apparently illegal stormtrooper tactics that have been used by federal law enforcement in Portland.

It is not OK to fracture skulls with what they like to call non-lethal rubber bullets or tear gas canisters. It is not OK when there is no probable cause to jump out of a rental van and just requisition people off the street. That looks like a dictatorship. That looks like a kidnapping. That looks like a crime. So there’s nothing unusual about federal law enforcement doing law enforcement work, where it may follow the law and where they have jurisdiction to do so. That’s not what we’re dealing with here, though. We’re dealing with a shiny object that the president is waving around to distract from his outrageous failures in many other areas. And to try to use his usual tactics of neo-fascist division, hate, and racism to improve his almost deceased campaign ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/philly-d-a-threatens-to-arrest-federal-agents