Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal sent a blunt warning to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thursday, vowing to prosecute any federal officers who commit crimes in the city.
“If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide, nobody will whisk you off,” Bilal said during a press conference. “You don’t want this smoke because we will bring it to you.”
Philadelphia police officers will enforce District Attorney Larry Krasner’s directive to detain ICE agents who “provoke illegal actions” or endanger the public, Bilal said. “The criminal in the White House will not be able to keep you from going to jail,” she added, referring to President Donald Trump.
The sheriff’s broadside marked another escalation in the conflict between the Trump administration and Democrat-led cities after ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
“This should not have happened,” Bilal said of the shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump officials have portrayed the encounter as an act of self-defense and depicted Good as an aggressor who used her vehicle against the officer. They have labeled her conduct “domestic terrorism” and insisted the agent was justified in firing as she began to drive away.
“An officer of ours acted quickly, and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him,” Noem said.
State and local leaders, however, have rejected that account.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said video of the encounter does not support the administration’s version of events, calling the self-defense argument “garbage” and accusing federal authorities of spinning the narrative. The New York Times analyzed videos from the incident and concluded that Good “appeared to be turning away from” Ross as he opened fire.
Policing experts told the Associated Press that some of the choices Ross made in that moment “defy practices nearly every law enforcement agency have followed for decades.”
Bilal expressed similar concerns with ICE’s tactics while addressing the shooting.
“Law enforcement professionals do not shoot at moving vehicles. Law enforcement professionals do not stand in front of moving vehicles invoking an action that is illegal,” Bilal said. “No law enforcement professional wears a mask. None.”
“What they do is against not only the legal law, but the moral law,” she added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.