Language is a tool of state violence, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the sanitized language following the recent killings by law enforcement in Minnesota and elsewhere. We read phrases like “vicious situation” (Donald Trump), “avoidable tragedy” (Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche), that a U.S. citizen was a victim of the “defensive shots” of federal agents (Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin) and that the killings were the result of an environment of “engineered chaos” (JD Vance) or “a very fluid and fast-moving situation” (White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt). These passive terms are designed to muddle individual agency and responsibility and to divert the public from the brutal reality of the acts. To truly understand the true nature of what is happening in the U.S. right now, it is essential we strip away any euphemisms used with regards to the recent violent actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota, or any other killing by security forces. We must use the language of human rights and of the precise, legal terminology that defines these acts under international law. These are extrajudicial killings; that is, unlawful killings. For many U.S. citizens, “extrajudicial killing” is a term reserved for authoritarian regimes abroad —death squads coming in the night or public purges of political dissidents. For many of us of a certain age, the term might bring to mind stories coming out of El Salvador or Guatemala in the 1980s. The vocabulary of physical integrity violations (e.g. torture, extrajudicial killing, disappearances, political imprisonment) is rarely applied in the U.S. to our own federal agencies. Yet, what defines a grave violation of human rights is based neither on geography nor national exceptionalism; it is based on facts. An extrajudicial killing is commonly defined as the killing of a person by government officials (or by those working with/for them) without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process. When ICE agents act as judge, jury, and executioner on the streets of Minnesota, bypassing the fundamental rights of due process, they fit this definition chillingly well. In a sadly ironic twist, the updated version of the original U.N. Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions is known as “The Minnesota Protocol.” And this document defines unlawful killings as not only those where a positive action has taken place, but also those where “The death may have been caused by … omissions of the State, its organs or agents, or may otherwise be attributable to the State, in violation of its duty to respect the right to life … This includes, for example, all deaths possibly caused by law enforcement personnel or other agents of the state…”. That an unlawful killing can be an omissive crime is a further indictment of the events in Minnesota, where medical care was not provided to the shooting victims. Indeed, a doctor at the scene of the Alex Pretti shooting says agents were “counting bullet holes rather than administering CPR.” What we call a killing is not purely a matter of semantics. It is a matter of legal obligation to our own standards. In 1992, the U.S. ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). As a party to this treaty, it pledged to the world that it would uphold the “inherent right to life” of every human being. Article 6 of the Covenant is unambiguous: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” It agreed that the deprivation of life by state actors must be strictly necessary and proportionate. International human rights standards —specifically the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials— dictate that lethal force is an extreme measure to be used only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. Yet, the events in Minnesota paint a picture of lethal force used as a tool of compliance and deterrence rather than a last resort for survival. When an ICE agent shoots someone who is not posing an imminent, lethal threat to that agent or others, that agent has executed a sentence of death without a trial. By definition, that is an extrajudicial killing, an unlawful killing. It is time to resist accepting the passive voice of the state and, instead, to hold our government to its human rights obligations by specifically invoking those obligations. We must look at the violence in Minnesota as what it is. These are extrajudicial killings, an egregious violation of our government’s most solemn responsibility: to protect life. David Richards lives in Deep River.   ...read more read less