LISTEN: Bob Kroll’s conversation with The Flag’s Scott Hennen
MINNESOTA – Retired Minneapolis Police lieutenant and former president of the Minneapolis Police Union Bob Kroll said 80 of 87 counties in Minnesota don’t work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On The Flag, the 32-year law enforcement veteran said a person on an immigration hold in these areas are shielded from ICE rather than handed over to them to be deported.
“A lot of the people they’re after would not be here to begin with because they would have been safely removed. Instead, they chose to release them into the community where you encounter not just them, but all the people interfering and obstructing the legal process,” Kroll said.
Clay County Sheriff Mark Empting told Flag Family News his office doesn’t have a formal agreement with ICE.
“Individuals are released once local charges or court ordered conditions are met. We do not shield individuals from federal authorities, nor do we interfere with federal law enforcement actions,” Empting said.
Flag Family News reached out to Otter Tail County Sheriff Barry Fitzgibbons and Polk County Sheriff James Tadman to see if their offices work with ICE, but we haven’t heard back.
Over the weekend nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis after he tried to pick up a woman shoved by federal agents. Video shows an federal officer with a gun after Pretti was shot. Family members told the Associated Press he owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said he’s seen no evidence Pretti brandished a gun.
Kroll said if officers could arrest protestors interfering with agents, officer-involved shootings like this wouldn’t happen.
“You set that tone from the very beginning and none of these things continue day-after-day because they say ‘They’re not playing. They’re making arrests. I don’t need to go to jail,” Pretti said.
