‘That’s what inflames me’: Former King County sheriff blasts Trump’s leadership over fatal ICE shooting

Former King County Sheriff John Urquhart said he was “very disturbed” after seeing a video of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shooting and killing a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday.

He believes it was “a shooting that didn’t need to happen.”

“The officer put himself basically in harm’s way. He got in front of that car,” Urquhart told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “And when you do that, two things are going to happen: either you’re going to get run over, which is not good, or if you don’t move out of the way, you’re going to shoot the driver. And nine times out of 10, or more, that’s a bad thing to happen as well. And clearly that’s what happened in this case — not good.”

ICE officer kills a Minneapolis driver

A woman was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the incident an “act of terrorism,” saying the woman rammed ICE officers with her vehicle, and that the officer was acting in self-defense.

“An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him,” Noem said, according to The Associated Press.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Noem’s statement “garbage,” condemning the deployment of more than 2,000 ICE officers to the Twin Cities.

“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bull****,” Frey said, as reported by The Associated Press.

Is ICE trained for these situations?

Urquhart stated that ICE officers aren’t trained for local police work.

“ICE is not used to and has no experience, has no training, really, in how to do urban police work, and that’s what they’ve been asked to do now,” Urquhart said. “These ICE people are used to working in Texas and California, and Arizona, not in Minneapolis or Seattle or Portland, or New York.”

Asked how much fear or adrenaline drives an officer’s decisions, Urquhart said both play a role — but training should help officers recognize when fear is taking over and allow them to remove themselves from the situation. Still, he said, when mistakes happen, leadership bears responsibility.

“I really have always defended officers, even when they make bad decisions,” Urquhart shared. “It’s the fault of leadership, or at least that’s what we should look at, is how leadership responds to these situations. And right now, it’s terrible, and that’s what just inflames me right now, in how the leadership from the president on down has responded to this particular shooting, it’s beyond the pale, as far as I’m concerned.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.