Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner promised to criminally charge any federal agents who “unlawfully assault” or “kidnap” Black Lives Matter protesters in the City of Brotherly Love.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents operating under the direction of Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf have been accused of rounding up protesters and whisking them away in unmarked vans since at least July 12 in Portland, Oregon.
Critics of the White House and civil libertarians have responded to those detentions with widespread revulsion and have questioned the legal justification for the practice. Many observers have also raised constitutional concerns with social media images of unidentified and camouflaged federal agents effectively operating as a police force in cities that, at least publicly, say they don’t want them there.
Veteran national security attorney Kel McClanahan suggested those controversial detentions were a bit more than just legally dubious; he outright called them “kidnappings.”
Other legal experts have weighed in similarly while rhetoric has steadily ramped up to describe the state of affairs in the Pacific Northwest.
Krasner, for his part, is sticking with the kidnapping characterization and cast his office’s decision to potentially clash with federal agents as a necessary bulwark against “fascism.”
“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,” the district attorney said in a statement.
Source- Law & Crime
