Minneapolis presses feds for answers on ongoing operation (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mack is from Richfield, Minnesota. Alex Preddy took care of his dad, Terrence Lee Randolph, when he was dying at the VA. He was his hospice nurse, essentially. And Alex honored his dad in this video. I just want to play that for our viewers.

[00:00:15] Speaker 2: Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served, so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom.

[00:00:31] Speaker 1: Mack, welcome. What's your question?

[00:00:34] Speaker 3: Is there any transparency from feds on a timeline when their operation would be satisfied and they would conclude? Or is this just the new reality?

[00:00:45] Speaker 4: Mack, first, thank you for being here. It's gotta be a pretty emotional thing, having someone that took such good care and had such deep respect for your dad get shot and killed in Alex Preddy. The question is, do we have some form of transparency in this investigation? How do we know that it will be conducted fully and fairly?

[00:01:09] Speaker 3: No, actually, it's whether there's a timeline on the operation from the feds. Is there any transparency on when maybe they would be satisfied and conclude this overall operation? Or are they just saying this will just be ongoing for indefinitely?

[00:01:26] Speaker 4: Look, we don't have a timeline as to when and how it will be drawn down. And I know that's as frustrating and as concerning to me as it is so many other people in our country, because look, Mack, you know this as well as I do, this is not about safety. If this were about safety, there would be so many important mechanisms where we could, in fact, partner. We have partnered extensively. We've partnered with the federal government, with the DEA, the FBI, the ATF, to successfully drive down crime. For instance, on the north side of Minneapolis, shootings are at a record low. Crime is down in virtually every category in every neighborhood. But that's not what this is about. And so do I have a timeline as to when it's gonna end? No, that would be a better question for the federal government, but we're gonna do everything possible that we can to advocate, to push, and to stand up for the neighbors who we love so dearly.

[00:02:23] Speaker 5: What do you have to say to those who are arguably the majority, who feel that harsh words and public statements are not enough to address this crisis?

[00:02:31] Speaker 4: I would say that they are exactly right. Words alone are not gonna do anything. And that's why, in the city of Minneapolis, we are taking clear action to change this. And the battlefield that we operate on is the battlefield of the law. We are right, legally. The actions that have taken place in our street are unconstitutional. You can't randomly yank off the street a person because they happen to look Somali or they happen to look Latino. You can't detain United States citizens, rip them away from their family, and they don't even know where they went. And so we have the law on our side. We are preemptively and responsibly suing. We hope to get a ruling on that lawsuit in the next several days, because, to Mac's point, Sophia, to your point, we can't just allow this to continue. But that's not the only work that's happening. People in this city, and God bless them, are standing up. Tens of thousands of people, they're the heroes in this story, peacefully protesting, standing up for their neighbor, delivering food for people that are afraid to go outside, taking a watch at a daycare to make sure that their friends, their neighbors, our family, we are a collective family, that they're safe. And if there's inspiration to take, take it from them. Take it from the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Minneapolis and Minnesotans that are standing up saying, you know what, we are better united, we are better together. And that, if nothing else, has been ridiculously powerful. I've never been prouder to be from Minneapolis.

[00:04:10] Speaker 6: Minneapolis has taken a lot of criticism from the Trump administration for being a sanctuary city. Mayor Frey, can you explain what it means to be a sanctuary city, why Minneapolis is a sanctuary city, and why you believe being a sanctuary city makes Minneapolis a safer place?

[00:04:32] Speaker 4: There's a lot of terminology about what is or what isn't a sanctuary city. But in Minneapolis, we have something called a separation ordinance. And what that ordinance states is that we do not work on immigration enforcement, we do not cooperate with federal agencies around immigration enforcement. We do work extensively with federal agencies to protect people and keep them safe. As I mentioned, we've had a number of incidents, many different administrations where we've worked with the federal administration to help. But it's not on federal immigration law. Why? Again, because I want our police spending time protecting the residents of our city, stopping homicides and carjackings, making sure that violent offenders are investigated and held accountable. What the separation ordinance also says is that we won't ask the question as to whether an individual is documented or not. And here's why. We want people that are undocumented to have the confidence to call 911 without the fear that they'll get deported in doing so. That is a safety strategy. That's not an immigration strategy, that is a safety strategy. By the way, this is a strategy that has been implemented and supported not just by Minneapolis and my administration. This goes back even to Rudy Giuliani, the radical leftist who said himself, who said himself that we want people to call 911 and not to have a fear in doing so.

[00:06:09] Speaker 7: Mayor Frey, what material commitments are you making to community members, our community members, who have been harmed, detained, or have had their loved ones brutalized? As the mayor of the city, what concrete actions will you and the city of Minneapolis take, such as providing financial support, coordinating resources, or pursuing legal action?

[00:06:29] Speaker 4: All of the above, providing financial support, coordinating legal resources, and of course, pursuing action. These are actions that are underway and we need to bolster them even further. So first, we are proactively and responsibly suing, suing based on the unconstitutional conduct that is happening in our streets. Second, we are working with a number of victims of these unconstitutional actions to try to hook them up with organizations where they can themselves have standing to sue. Third, we have a task force that is set up so that we've got communication channels that are in line so that we get through this most difficult of situations. And finally, look, our entire city enterprise has been operating over the last several weeks, if not months, to do everything possible that we can to keep our residents safe and to have an emergency response to what's presently taking place. And that includes things like having our community service officers deliver food. These are soon-to-be police officers deliver food for people that would otherwise be afraid to go out of their homes. This is everything that's happening through Offices of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to make sure that they have legal supports in place if and when they need them. You know, and here's the other truth. Is it enough? And this is real. No, no, and I'm sorry. Never in a million years would I have imagined that this kind of thing would happen in America, that the Department of Justice would be weaponized against local people and elected officials, that we'd have this broad invasion of thousands of agents, not to keep people safe, but causing chaos in our street. And so I'm sorry to you, to your community and to your soon-to-be profession as a lawyer. And if I could just add one more thing, we need more people just like you because you're the one that's gonna stand up for these constitutional rights going forward. You're the one that is going to ensure the endurance of our republic, which quite literally depends on people speaking out in favor of our country, in favor of America.

[00:08:53] Speaker 8: When your officers are prevented from inspecting crime scenes that exist in your jurisdiction by ICE agents, how does that change your mentality going forward when dealing with ICE? And can Minnesota residents expect police to be more direct if placed in similar scenarios now knowing ICE may try to prevent them from doing their jobs?

[00:09:10] Speaker 9: So I do feel like we are in a better place today than we were at in the beginning of the week. I think the situation had increasingly been spiraling in a place we have never been before. We work literally every single day with members of federal law enforcement and all of these different agencies. A lot of our officers, myself included, have personal relationships with a lot of these different federal agencies. And so at least when these shootings that have happened in the city have occurred, each time I have requested the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to respond. That is the agency that we have in this state that independently conducts use-of-force investigations that involve police. The problem that we've had, particularly the last time, is that while we were present on the scene and trying to preserve the scene, the BCA was not allowed into the scene, not once but twice. And including in the second time, they took the unusual step of getting a court-authorized search warrant to process a public space at a crime scene.