For over twenty years, I’ve fought for a justice system that actually acts like it believes in justice.
Of all the work I’ve done, helping elect Larry Krasner as the District Attorney of Philadelphia stands as one of the achievements I’m most proud of.
I wasn’t a casual supporter. I was the largest fundraiser in that fight. I campaigned for Larry on the ground all over Philadelphia. I believed in him then. I believe in him now.
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Above I embedded a video of Larry saying something that is already ricocheting across the country. It’s one of the strongest, clearest lines a major American prosecutor has said about criminal federal agents in my lifetime.
According to reporting by Ellie Rushing at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Larry is forming a coalition of progressive prosecutors committed to charging federal agents who violate state laws. The coalition is expected to include prosecutors from multiple cities—reportedly including Minneapolis DA Mary Moriarty—and is being announced as the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach. The reported acronym is FAFO, a nod to a phrase Larry has used often: “F— around and find out.”
And family, this isn’t branding. This is a warning.
Because what’s happening in Minneapolis—and what’s spreading across the country—is not normal enforcement. It’s a new posture of federal power: armed agents acting like the Constitution is optional, like state law doesn’t apply to them, like they can do whatever they want and then hide behind a badge.
That posture has already left blood in the streets.
We can argue politics all day. But nobody should have to argue the baseline: if an agent commits a crime, that agent can be charged.
That’s what “rule of law” means.
And Larry Krasner is saying it out loud.
The Inquirer reports that Krasner called these killings criminal and vowed to charge federal agents if they committed similar acts in Philadelphia. Then he said the line that I want every federal agent who thinks they’re untouchable to hear in their bones:
“If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice, and we will do so under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.”
“There are state prosecutors coming together right now to make sure that people understand there will be accountability. There will be accountability now. There will be accountability in the future. There will be accountability after [Trump] is out of office,” he said.
That’s not a threat of lawlessness. That’s a promise of lawfulness.
And the fact that a district attorney has to say it at all tells you how far we’ve slid: federal agents have been acting with such arrogance, such impunity, such disrespect for basic rights that local prosecutors are now organizing across state lines to do what should already be happening automatically—enforce the law when the law is broken.
Let me say something plainly.
People are acting like the great danger here is “local prosecutors standing up to ICE.”
No. The danger is federal agents acting like they are above the law.
Because once a country accepts that a certain class of armed men can violate rights without consequence, that country stops being a democracy in any meaningful sense. It becomes a system where power protects itself, and everyone else learns to keep their head down.
And that is exactly what authoritarianism feeds on: silence.
What I respect about Larry is that he is refusing the ritual of silence. He is saying: the badge is not immunity. The uniform is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. The federal government is not a license to terrorize communities.
I’ve known Larry a long time. I’ve watched him take heat for doing the right thing. I’ve watched him get smeared for refusing to worship at the altar of “mass incarceration solves everything.” I’ve watched him insist that the Constitution is not a prop.
So when I see him standing alongside other prosecutors to say, in essence, “We are going to do our jobs,” I’m not surprised.
I’m grateful.
Because the only way this gets stopped is if people in positions of actual power—prosecutors, judges, elected officials, community leaders—refuse to cooperate with impunity.
And to be clear: this isn’t about “abolish” slogans. It’s about accountability. It’s about criminal law applying to everyone, including federal agents. It’s about the simple idea that you don’t get to kill people, maim people, intimidate people, and then hide behind federal authority.
If a federal agent commits assault, that’s a crime.
If a federal agent kills unlawfully, that’s a crime.
If a federal agent lies, obstructs, intimidates witnesses, violates rights—those are crimes.
That’s not radical. That’s the minimum standard for a society that wants to survive.
So I want you to watch the video I’m embedding. Then I want you to ask yourself: why does this feel so rare? Why does it feel revolutionary for a prosecutor to say the Constitution still applies?
And then I want you to understand the answer: because too many people have been trained to believe federal power is sacred.
It isn’t.
Only human life is sacred.
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Do you believe federal agents should ever be above state criminal law—yes or no?
Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun
