Governor AnakinT0ast orders reforming of the Mayflower Bureau of Investigation

Last week, just days into his term, Governor AnakinT0ast announced Executive Order 120802, which includes the reformation of the Mayflower Bureau of Investigation in an effort to restore local investigative authority.

In his announcement, he stated, “For almost six months, investigative authority across law enforcement has been over-centralized – with all criminal investigation cases sent to the MBI & SBI, taking away from local departments and their ability to conduct basic investigations.” This executive order isn’t much of a surprise, seeing how throughout the governor’s campaign, one of his primary plans was this reformation. This executive order also comes after multiple allegations of misconduct, among other things, from MBI Agents, with one agent being accused of Assault with a Deadly weapon for an incident that happened just a few days ago. You may read the affidavit of probable cause for that event here, as well as the Plaintiff Information.

Notable sections from this Executive Order include Section 2, which repeals Executive Order 61802, thereby reinstating the ability of all municipal and county law enforcement agencies to conduct criminal investigations within their jurisdictions. On top of this, Section 2 subsection B clearly states, “Any policies or directives issued following Executive Order 61802 shall be considered null and void to the degree of which they conflict with the provisions of this Order,” avoiding any chance of confusion or bypassing of the order. Essentially, this order only gives MBI jurisdiction over matters assigned to the agency by law (3 M.S.C. 1 § 8604(a) through 8604(e)).

Section 4 subsection b goes further in depth on this, stating “All investigative agencies must coordinate with the Attorney General when conducting investigations that may fall under the primary jurisdiction of the Mayflower Bureau of Investigation, including, but not limited to, misconduct, corruption, organized crime, criminal street gangs, domestic terrorism, and aviation-related crimes”. Section 3 of the executive order goes over jurisdiction and case allocation in full if you were wondering.

Now, what does this mean for regular, everyday civilians? Well, if you were wondering about the Department of Justice’s Criminal tipline, that will stay open, only following a new system which is outlined in Section 5, subsection A, clauses a and b, of the executive order. While this executive order doesn’t impact civilian life all that much, for local law enforcement agencies, this order finally allows their investigative bodies to do what they are meant to do, and that is to investigate crime within their respective jurisdiction.