Minneapolis’ top cop told residents to hit 911 if they see anyone in a mask detaining people, an explosive warning delivered as local leaders fan fears that President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown will zero in on Somali immigrants.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara made the eyebrow-raising plea Tuesday during a press conference with Mayor Jacob Frey and other city officials, railing that Trump’s use of unmarked officers to arrest illegal immigrants had created panic in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.
Asked how the city could keep federal agents in check if locals believe they’re breaking the law, O’Hara pointed to reports of residents calling 911 after seeing masked figures detaining people and not knowing whether they were cops or criminals.
“We have experienced reports in this city … where people call to say that there’s folks that are masked, that they’re not sure if they’re law enforcement, that they may be kidnapping people. We have had those reports,” he said. “I want to be clear to the community — the community should know that if you see something like that, that that is legitimate, that you don’t know if someone is law enforcement, you should call 911, and you should provide as much information as possible.”
O’Hara leaned on a grisly recent case to justify the alarm, citing the June assassinations of state lawmakers allegedly carried out by Vance Boelter, who wore a silicon mask and a fake police uniform.
“So please, that’s something everyone should report and that we will immediately respond to and we will document — whether it’s somebody’s not sure if there’s a kidnapping happening, somebody’s not sure if there’s law enforcement present or not,” he said. “That is additional policy requirements that we are implementing — we will document and report these types of things anytime that we hear it and remind our officers of their duty to intervene.”
He went further, insisting officers must step in if they believe someone’s rights are being violated.
“So if there is anything that is, you know, a violation of someone’s human rights or civil rights, excessive force or anything like that, they absolutely have a duty to intervene as police officers,” O’Hara said.
Frey, for his part, cast federal immigration enforcement as error-prone, warning it was “inevitable” that ICE would scoop up American citizens.
“I feel that it will be a practical inevitability that when people are arrested by federal immigration agents, they’re going to get the wrong people,” Frey said. “They’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to screw it up so badly that they’re not just violating habeas corpus, but they are taking away the rights of American citizens.”
Trump has recently trained his attention on illegal Somali immigrants after a City Journal investigation alleged rampant fraud inside the Somali community, including government funds being diverted to the terror group Al Shabaab.
“And when you look at what he’s done with Somalia, with Somalia, which is barely a country, you know … they have nothing. They just run around killing each other. There’s no structure,” Trump said at a Tuesday Cabinet meeting. “And when I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don’t know at all, but I always watch her. For years, I’ve watched her complain about our Constitution.”
News at 11. Arrest tomorrow; hopefully.