Cops Don’t Have to Collaborate

This story is super important. Even a cop can intervene against the fascist agents of ethnic cleansing, as happened in St. Peter, Minnesota.

MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident.

The resident, a woman, had been observing and recording video of immigration enforcement actions from her car when agents removed her from her car and took her into custody.

It’s believed to be the first time a local police department in Minnesota intervened in a federal law enforcement action since the surge in immigration enforcement began two months ago.

The woman, who did not want to be identified because she fears for her safety, is a U.S. citizen and a resident of St. Peter. She told MPR News in an interview that she was out in the community in her car, tracking the movements of federal agents, and recording them on a dash cam.

She shared that video with us. Agents in three vehicles began chasing her and trying to force her to pull over. Eventually they box her in, three agents get out of the car in front of her, with their guns drawn and try to force her out of her vehicle.

….

The husband told MPR News that after his wife was taken into custody, he called his attorney, and soon after, he got a call from St. Peter Chief of Police Matt Grochow, whom he said he has known for years.

“I was talking to him, kind of venting some of my frustrations,” the man said, adding that he urged the chief to have his officers just be more visible during the federal enforcement actions. “If [local police] were present and they could see you, I promise you their behavior more than likely, or hopefully, would, you know, be appropriate and law abiding.”

The husband says he talked to the chief for a while and “we had a good conversation.”

“He asked me, ‘what was your wife’s name’? I told him my wife’s name. He said, ‘was she picked up in a bronco?’ And I said, ‘I’m not sure, but it was an SUV, dark colored. I’d have to look at my video.’ He goes, ‘I think I got her. I’ll call you back’.”

The husband said a few minutes later, the chief called again, “and said, I got her or I’m bringing her home.”

First, what ICE was doing there was full-fledged fascism, agents using the Constitution as nothing more than toilet paper, obviously ordered to do that from the fascists that Americans elected in part because they told other Americans exactly what they were going to do. Second, cops can intervene. They don’t have to shrug their shoulders, they don’t have to collaborate. Anyone can do anything. It’s not preordained.