There are a hundred points to make and a hundred arguments to have about the chaos in Minneapolis, but the most salient question in the national political debate is why armed agents of the federal government killed two protesters.

Yes, Gov. Tim Walz‘s (D-MN) leadership deserves criticism, as does Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s. The prudence of the late Alex Pretti and Renee Good can be discussed, along with the culpability of their companions and collaborators. Former President Joe Biden’s open-borders experiment created the base conditions for this, and Democratic state, county, and city leaders made everything more violent and dangerous by refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they arrested illegal immigrant criminal suspects.

But the men of ICE and the Border Patrol carry guns and have the power of arrest as the agents of the people, and thus they ought to be held to a supremely high standard. When they act, they act on our behalf.

Even more so, their civilian bosses — Greg Bovino of the Border Patrol, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and President Donald Trump — are accountable to all Americans for their actions and policies. Nowhere is that accountability more important than when these state actors are using their legal monopoly on lethal force.

In the media maelstrom, scrutiny of the officers who shot........

© Washington Examiner