Minnesota cops urge Walz, state leaders to let them assist ICE, say it could’ve stopped shootings
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: The head of a major Twin Cities police union has reportedly blamed Minnesota leaders for the anti-ICE violence that killed two US citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
St Paul Police Federation President Mark Ross claimed that if cooperation between local cops and ICE and Border Patrol agents had not been blocked, deaths would not have happened.
The chief told The New York Post, “Since the Republican National Convention was held in St Paul back in 2008, Minnesota law enforcement has undergone extensive training in mobile field force configurations and crowd management for major events. And because of that, I think we’re in the best position to deal with that.”
Police head slams Minnesota politicians for not allowing cops to handle protesters
“Unfortunately, our local politicians would not allow us to do that,” Mark Ross added, leaving everything on ICE and Border Patrol agents who have to deal with angry protestors on their own.
The head further noted that if they had “been allowed just a little bit of coordination – not in terms of what ICE is doing, but if they say, ‘Hey, we need to go to this place to serve a warrant, we’re going to be out there a couple hours. We’re nervous that crowds are going to form and give us trouble. Can you come out and help?’ That’s something we can easily coordinate with a little bit of notice, and sometimes with hardly any notice, we can get out there quickly.”
“I believe, had we been able to do that, that there would be no loss of life at this point,” he added.
Mark Ross explains ICE agents and Border Patrol agents are trained differently
Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, on January 7 after she allegedly drove her car towards him. Pretti’s death came weeks after. He was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent for allegedly interfering with ICE work.
Addressing the killings, Ross shared, “Border Patrol agents don’t usually work in an environment like this, in large urban communities with crowds like that. They have some of the tools, but I would venture to guess they don’t have the amount of mobile field force training and kind of leadership in those configurations that we have.”
The head of the cops also pointed out that they could have played an important role in keeping the peace, but they had been left “stuck in the middle”.
“Part of it is leadership, because the leadership in our cities doesn’t want us communicating with the federal folks. And that disconnect has created some problems for everybody, and we’re stuck in the middle of it, and public safety is everybody’s responsibility,” he said.
Mark Ross says local cops want to keep 'people safe'
Ross added, “We want to be out there. We want to be keeping people safe, and it’s been really tough. We really feel like we’re in the middle of this, obviously, not by choice.”
Continuing his argument, the police union head also noted that since Border Patrol agents have been trained in dealing with “violence” at the southern border, tackling people in Minnesota is not their speciality.
“They come up to Minnesota, where our people have been conditioned to really, really kind of push the envelope, and we’ve been trained to allow it to a point. And that’s part of the problem, too, the philosophies, where the Border Patrol guys aren’t going to allow people to push things.
“As soon as you start to intervene or interfere or repeat what they’re doing, they’re taking action, whereas we might say, ‘Hey, time out. Don’t do that. Take a step back. We’re going to warn you. This is the line, don’t cross it anymore,” Ross stated.
His comments came as Minnesota governor Tim Walz met White House border czar Tom Homan to discuss the tense situation in the state amid an ICE crackdown. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and his police chief, Brian O’Hara, also had a meeting with Homan.
