That’s the plenary “police power” you’re thinking of, and it has a lot more to do with the constitutionality of legislation than with actual police work. It doesn’t mean that federal officers can never engage in police-like activities.
We have seen federal agents acting as police and detaining and arresting individuals on the streets over objections from the Governor and Mayor.
If you are going to support these acts:
1. Cite any legal precedent where Federal government has policed and made arrests over state/local government objections?
2. Identify the Federal Criminal Statute any of the suspects violated authorizing these "arrests"? (presumably even if you believe the Federal government has the power to police over State/local objections, you hopefully agree they don't have the power to make arrests without probably cause a crime was committed, so what is are the federal criminal statutes?)
3. Now even supposing the Court did side with the Federal Government, finding that they have police powers they may unilaterally deploy over objections from local governments and that the arrests here were lawful, you would still tons of other Constitutional issues. For example: in all the arrests I have seen, I have not seen any miranda warnings, post arrest I have yet to find any confirmation the arrestees were afforded their constitutional rights to an attorney...seeing as the Federal agents to date have not had these traditional police powers I think it is fair to assume they haven't received this basic training, and for that reason alone even if the Fed had these powers they are still likely violating numerous constitutional rights in each arrest.
Before invoking the powers under the Act, 10 U.S.C. § 254 requires the President to first publish a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse. So if this is your precedent and there is no Presidential proclamation, then you would agree Trump has engaged in illegal acts?
>2. Attempting to burn down the federal courthouse would probably violate federal law, one would think.
There have been multiple "arrests" on video, and in the video the individuals were not attempting to burn anything down, much less a federal courthouse, in fact they weren't even near a federal courthouse and had no materials in their hands to suggest they could burn anything down.
>3. You’re just speculating. There’s no reason to think the arrestees aren’t being mirandized and given access to counsel.
There is video of some of these "arrests" including the prior to the interactions, the initial interactions, the detention, the "arrest" and placement into unmarked vans...in these videos there was no Miranda given. Since when is verifiable video evidence speculation?
But yes, my point is even if a court ruled the Federal Government has this power, there would still be many other Constitutional protections that apply, and based on what we have seen there seems to be those kinds of violations based on verifiable video evidence. I have also yet to see anyone who was arrested be bonded out nor make a public statement through any attorney...where are these arrestees held? Have they been afforded the right to an attorney? Have they appeared before a Judge for bail?
1. I don’t know if this is exactly what’s being relied on here. You asked for any example, and this is one.
2. It’s easy to trim videos to remove the incriminating parts. You can make anyone look like the bad guy with selective editing.
3. Maybe they mirandized them as soon as they were in the van? We have no idea. Anyway, failure to mirandize doesn’t make an arrest illegal—it just means that if the suspect says something incriminating before the Miranda warnings, it can’t be used against him later.
The fact that you haven’t seen anyone bonded out is meaningless.