I get it, I absolutely agree that people shouldn't be in fear of having their immigration questioned by local cops when they call 911. You want to build trust. In that vein, this is a good policy for local departments. However, checking a person for warrants is not a status check and this guy wasn't even a 911 caller. Police had reason to run him....he was under arrest and being investigated as a suspect in an unrelated crime. If joe-blow-illegal happens to call 911, the cops probably are not going to even check him for warrants...and I guarantee those cops could care less about whether he's an illegal or not. But if joe-blow-illegal is picked up for a criminal act, and happens to have a warrant, with extradition, the cops hands are sort of tied.

It's nice to know not everyone hates cops for doing their jobs properly. Guy had an immigration warrant. Those are usually signed by a federal judge, I'd like to see how a judge responds to an agency's administration when said judge finds out an entire department is going to start ignoring arrest warrants issued by a federal court. We're not talking about a constitutionally protected sheriff. This is a municipal police agency falling under the executive branch of government. Thus, they receive a TON of federal funding. You start playing this game often with the feds, it would be a great way for them to lose grant dollars, interagency data sharing privileges, accreditation, etc. Feds have a lot of power when it comes to municipal agencies. Look at Newark New Jersey for instance. Crime was so bad and the agency was in such disarray, the feds stepped in, shut the department down and handed policing to the county. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

This story seems spun by the guy's attorney and now the agency is doing damage control and an IA investigation solely because there is an allegation of misconduct. In reality, IA will most likely find that the officers checked the suspect for warrants, as is standard operating procedure when dealing with a SUSPECT, that he had a warrant, and the issuing agency was notified. It's only circumstantial that the warrant was issued as a result of an ICE investigation. Checking him for warrants is different than calling ICE and saying "hey, we're going to send an illegal out the door if you want to catch him in the country illegally, tee hee".