Ice And Police Must Use Non-Lethal Force
By Joel D. Joseph, author, Black Mondays: Worst Decisions of the Supreme Court
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said that two out of three Minneapolis January, 2026 homicides were committed by Federal Agents. These two civilian victims were American citizens who did not pose a threat to ICE officers. Alex Pretti and Renee Good, victims of the ICE violence in Minneapolis, were both 37 years old and in the prime of their lives. Pretti and Good were brutally murdered by ICE without any justification. Neither Pretti nor Good posed any threat to law enforcement officers.
The police and ICE have a problem with killing too many citizens. They kill far too many Black men. They also kill far too many white men and Hispanic men. And they kill too many women. Some cops may be racist, but most of them are just too quick to use deadly force, becoming judge, jury and executioner all at the same time.
According to the Police Violence Report, more than 1,200 civilians have been killed by police in the United States every year for the past four years. This averages more than three police-caused homicides per day every day for the past four years.
In 2025, by contrast, police killings in Europe remained significantly lower than those in the United States with about 80-90 fatalities across the entire European Union and the United Kingdom (Belgium, 5, Finland, 1, Germany 11, France, 37, Luxembourg, 1, Netherlands, 24, Norway, 1, Portugal, 1, U.K., 3, Poland, 2, Sweden, 1, Switzerland, 0). World Population Review, 2026. The population of Europe, excluding Russia and the Ukraine is more than 500 million, 50 percent more than the population of the United States.
Non-Lethal Weapons
Nonlethal or "less-lethal" force refers to weapons and tactics designed to incapacitate individuals or equipment while minimizing fatalities, permanent injuries, and property damage. These options, such as pepper spray, Tasers, and rubber bullets, are used by law enforcement to control suspects or crowds, offering an alternative to deadly force.
While intended to be non-deadly, improper use or underlying health issues can result in severe outcomes, including death. Nonlethal tools are part of a broader "intermediate force" capability aimed at providing options that are more than verbal commands but less than lethal force.
In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) encouraged the establishment of protocols "for the training and use of non-lethal weapons, bearing in mind that even less-lethal weapons can result in risk to life." (UNHRC, 2018, para. 15).
Principle 2 of the 1990 Basic Principles calls on governments and law enforcement agencies to "develop a range of means as broad as possible and equip law enforcement officials with various types of weapons and ammunition that would allow for a differentiated use of force and firearms."
Guns in the Hands of Civilians
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