MINNEAPOLIS — The head of a major Twin Cities police union slammed local officials for blocking cooperation between local cops and ICE and Border Patrol agents – saying if they had been involved, “there would be no loss of life.”
It comes as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz agreed to have his top cop work with President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan after he rushed to Minneapolis Monday — after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was sidelined.
St. Paul Police Federation President Mark Ross blamed state and local officials for the anti-ICE protest violence — saying that if highly trained cops were allowed to work with the feds, it likely would have prevented the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“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.
As a result ICE and Border Patrol agents — who are not trained to deal with civilian protests in the same way — have been all on their own to deal with angry locals.
He said that such cooperation didn’t even require changing Minnesota’s sanctuary laws — or helping ICE make immigration arrests.
“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.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the shooting of a 37-year-old anti-ICE protester in Minneapolis
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Good, a mother of three and anti-ICE activist, was shot in the head by an ICE agent after she drove her car toward him. Pretti, an armed ICU nurse, was killed after he confronted Border Patrol agents who tried to disperse a crowd of protesters.
The feds are investigating whether Pretti’s gun went off accidentally after a Border agent grabbed it — leading the other agents to believe they were under fire.
“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,” Ross said.
Instead of helping to keep the peace, Ross said local cops had been left “stuck in the middle” of a street war between local politicians, federal agents and protesters.
“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.
His words echo those from a source, who told The Post Monday that Pretti and Good’s deaths were “avoidable” tragedies.
“All of this is avoidable. None of this should be happening. These agents are not trained for this. They are overworked. They are exhausted, and the agency will have to double down because the White House will want to double down,” the source said.
“These agents are overworked; they’re tired. They have very mixed feelings internally about what’s going on, and they do not want to, nor are they prepared to do both protest, enforcement, and management, plus street-level enforcement like this,” they added.
It comes as Gov. Walz’s office announced that he had met with the President’s border czar, Tom Homan, for talks, describing how the pair had agreed on the need for an “ongoing dialogue,” which Trump had also called for on Monday.
“Impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota,” were described by Walz’s office as his priorities for the talks.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also said he had met with Homan on Tuesday along with his police chief, Brian O’Hara.
“I appreciated the conversation the Chief and I had with Border Czar Homan. During our meeting, I reiterated that my main ask is for Operation Metro Surge to come to an end as quickly as possible. Public safety works best when it’s built on community trust – not tactics that create fear or division,” Frey said.
He also insisted that his city “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws,” appearing to stand by Minneapolis’s sanctuary status.
President Trump told reporters on the South Lawn on Tuesday that he believes Homan is doing a good job since his deployment to Minnesota on Monday.
“I hear that’s going very well,” he said of Homan’s meetings with Gov. Walz ahead of boarding Air Force One.
Police union head Ross also suggested the issue came from Border Patrol agents used to dealing with “violence” at the southern border being redeployed to Minnesota, where they weren’t familiar with the local landscape.
“There’s traditionally a lot of violence down there [at the southern border], and they’re not used to giving people tons of leeway because it might cost them their lives, because they’re getting shot at by cartel members and human traffickers and everything else. It’s just a totally different environment,” Ross said.
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“So now 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,” he added.
“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 explained.
President Trump ordered hard-charging Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino back home, along with many of his agents, on Monday, following growing disquiet among Republicans about the heavy use of force in Minnesota.
Along with dispatching Homan to defuse the situation on the ground, President Trump also offered his support to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has also faced criticism from some for her handling of immigration raids in Minnesota.
Asked whether he thought Sec. Noem would resign, the President told reporters Tuesday, “no,” before adding, “I think she’s doing a very good job.”
