This is the headline Posse Comitatus was written to prevent, and the Trump deployment was engineered precisely to sit in the statute loophole: soldiers under nominal state status, executing a federally convened and federally funded policing mission, with a governor’s signature. We were told Republicans would never allow it, and here we see the exact opposite. MAGA are the ones erasing the blue line, using the Army like it’s “America First” soldiers in 1919 Elaine, Arkansas again.

Authorities said the soldiers in Memphis were responding with local police to reports of gunshots around 4 a.m. when they began pursuing an armed man fleeing on foot. The guardsmen opened fire after the man turned toward them with his weapon, according to the city’s police department.

The victim is Tyrin Johnson, 20, shot twice in the chest according to his family, a construction worker taking university classes who had his first child earlier this year.

Nobody will say whether this was the first time deployed soldiers fired on a civilian since the operation began. TBI data records at least four officer-involved shootings tied to the task force, although the two in May involved no military weapons discharge. When reporters asked whether Sunday marked the first Guard discharge, and how many shots were fired, both TBI and the Guard went silent.