During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was asked if black people in Minneapolis had reason to fear and distrust their local enforcement by show host Chris Wallace.
According to Ellison, they did and he blamed the head of the local police union, Minneapolis Police Federation president Bob Kroll.
“On Friday, you urged the people of Minneapolis not to react to the National Guard in the streets the way they would to local police,” Wallace said. “I want to put up something you said, please remember that this is not the group that you associate with unfair authority. Question: Do blacks in Minneapolis have reason to distrust or even to fear their local police?
“Sadly, yes,” Ellison replied. “There is a history of that. It has been repeated time and time again. I want to say that many officers are great people. I know so many of them, and I think the chief is an extraordinary person, and the mayor and the council deserve a lot of credit for appointing Mr. Arradondo. But it is an endemic problem in the Minneapolis Police Department. One problem is our Police Federation president operates as sort of an alternative chief who, I think, undermines good order in the department. So we have — our challenge is in front of us. And I think that we can reform, we will reform, and there’s a lot of great officers who want to reform. And it’s good to have a chief that wants to reform.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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