When California paramedic Michael Sprinkles was killed on his way home from work by immigration criminal Juan Bibinz, it was a preventable accident. Bibinz, you see, had been arrested several times before by the LAPD and has been convicted of multiple felonies. He was even deported once – but that was insufficient to get LAPD to hold him and turn him over to immigration officials. Why not? A little something called Special Order 40.

How can an illegal alien be arrested again and again, yet sent home only once? Maybe because it’s official L.A.P.D. policy that officers can’t ask about a suspect’s citizenship. “Special Order 40, enacted in 1979, bars police from enforcing federal immigration laws,” is how the ACLU put it in a 2001 news release. And, it noted, “the Police Commission’s own Independent Review Panel noted how critical the Order is to ensure public safety.” Tell that to Michael Sprinkles.

The ACLU claims that Special Order 40 is “essential.” But a better word for it would be “illegal.” The state’s penal code reads, “Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.” Not much ambiguity there.

Special Order 40 is useful, though. It explains why the United States is facing an illegal immigration crisis: We don’t take illegal immigration seriously.

So because Los Angeles police won’t follow state law and help enforce federal law, a good man died.

Nice going, Los Angeles – here is hoping that Sprinkle’s family ends up owning your city by the time litigation is finished, and that several city officials end up in jail. After all, city officials acted illegally in order to aid a known criminal, resulting in Sprinkle’s death. That is more than mere negligence.