The New York Post ran this yesterday morning as an "exclusive." It's so exclusive that few if any media outlets bothered to note this accusation from St. Paul Police Federation president Mark Ross.
The issue isn't sanctuary city policy per se, Ross tells the Post. Local police don't need to conduct immigration raids, as Jacob Frey and Tim Walz have declared. However, both the governor and the mayor, as well as commanders in the police departments, have ordered these departments to provide no cooperation with ICE and Border Patrol, even just for crowd control – and that has proven to be a deadly choice:
“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,” Ross said.
“Unfortunately, our local politicians would not allow us to do that,” he added. ...
“Had we 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,” Ross said.
“I believe, had we been able to do that, that there would be no loss of life at this point,” he said.
Ross told the Post that the rank and file wanted to be part of the solution. Instead, their commanders and elected officials forced them to stand by and watch as chaos erupted into violence that could easily have been prevented:
“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.
“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,” Ross added.
This is true on two levels. Had police been allowed to coordinate with ICE on crowd control, the demonstrations would still have been loud and noisy, but there would likely have been no obstruction. It would only have taken a few arrests and dismissals of unlawful demonstrations to provide disincentives for the obstruction that the protests generated as they went unchecked. On another, more specific level, enforcement up front might have prevented at least one of the escalations that turned deadly. Alex Pretti had already escalated into obstruction and attacks on federal law enforcement officers several days ahead of his death. Had local police been on hand to arrest and charge him in that incident, it might have given Pretti some reason to back off.
Without that coordination, Ross explains, the federal agents didn't have enough people on the ground to protect themselves, and the chaos agents within these demonstrations grew more and more emboldened. All of this started when Walz, Frey, and leaders in the police forces refused to cooperate at all, and now two people are dead. So far.
What did local media have to say about Ross' remarks? Well, as Scott Johnson writes at Power Line, a funny thing happened on the way to the Strib. Or, more accurately, didn't happen:
The Post headlines this story “Minnesota cops beg Walz, pols to let them work with ICE, say they could have prevented shootings.” I’d say that’s newsworthy. For some reason, however, I can’t find any mention of Ross or any reference to his observations in the Star Tribune.
Scott knows the reason. We all know the reason. The Strib has been the mouthpiece and narrative minder for the DFL in the Twin Cities for decades, rather than a newspaper that informs its readership responsibly. Even when blood literally runs in the streets due to the incompetence and malice of the DFL elites, the Strib can be counted upon to help cover up DFL failures.
Editor's note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight.
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