A Minnesota police chief used a church pulpit to denounce President Donald Trump’s immigration raids amid outrage over ICE agents dragging an apparently pregnant woman down a snowy street.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara gave the blistering speech from a church in Minnesota’s largest city on Tuesday, warning that the wave of “terrorizing” immigration sweeps had left businesses shuttered and entire neighborhoods afraid to step outside.
“The fear that people are experiencing is real,” O’Hara said.
His remarks came after a video showed armed federal agents kneeling on a woman and forcing her face into the snow during a traffic stop in south Minneapolis, ignoring onlookers’ screams that she was pregnant and dragging her by one arm across the icy road.
Grounding his criticism in his own faith, O’Hara added, “It’s especially personal to me, having been raised a Catholic, to be in a Christian church this morning, as we are approaching Christmas.
“And I cannot help but think of what is happening in our city today, and how that echoes with how outsiders have been treated for thousands of years—how Mary and Joseph themselves were considered outsiders and forced to stay in a barn.
“That’s what we’re getting ready to commemorate as Christians around the world, while all of this fear is happening in our town.”
The shocking incident at the heart of his speech, which took place on Monday, sparked a furious public outcry as footage circulated showing a bystander plead with federal immigration agents, “Please let her go! She’s pregnant!” Another screamed, “Get her off of her f—ing stomach.”
In response, one of the agents fired a Taser into the crowd. “Who wants more?” he said, according to WCCO.
The woman was then dragged by one arm, as bystanders threw snowballs and demanded she be let go, as ICE agents fired pepper spray into the crowd.
ICE called the Minneapolis Police Department for backup. Once they arrived, the officers determined there was “no violence occurring” against the agents.
O’Hara said he had been training his officers “for the last five years very, very intensely on de-escalation.” But, drawing a sharp line between the Minneapolis Police Department and federal teams, he added, “unfortunately, that is…often not what we are seeing from other agencies in the city.”
Minneapolis has been at the center of “Operation Metro Surge,” a Trump-ordered blitz that has seen more than 400 people from Somali, Latino, and Asian communities in the Twin Cities detained on deportation orders. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has said ICE agents pulled over her 20-year-old U.S.-citizen son and demanded his passport.
In a letter she wrote to the Department of Homeland Security, Omar, 43, accused ICE of “blatant racial profiling” and an “egregious level of unnecessary force” as part of the crackdown. DHS responded by accusing her of lying for a “PR stunt.”
Trump has fanned tensions with repeated attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community, calling some immigrants “garbage” and telling Omar and others to “go back” to where they came from, as documented by MS Now and the Daily Beast.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has defended the raids, saying O’Hara should decide whether he wants his officers “to intervene as our law enforcement arrests the convicted murderers, rapists, and gang members” on the city’s streets.
Tuesday’s sermon-like broadside by O’Hara was just his latest criticism of ICE. Earlier this month, he warned that Minneapolis had “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.”
In a TV interview with KSTP, O’Hara said he respected that “federal law enforcement has a role to play” but called parts of the operation “troubling to me as a human being,” adding that “people in our community…are being terrorized the way some of this stuff is being handled.” He said the sweeps were “making people scared and terrified” and noted a “dramatic increase” in 911 calls reporting possible ICE activity.
O’Hara has also directed his own officers to step in if federal agents cross the line. “If unlawful force is being used by any law enforcement officer against any person in this city and one of our officers is there, absolutely, I expect them to intervene, or they’ll be fired,” he said.
O’Hara has repeatedly stressed that Minneapolis police do not participate in immigration enforcement and urged immigrants not to be scared to call 911. “Just because ICE is here doesn’t mean that we’re not the police for Minneapolis,” he said.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
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