Firing Line

- One battle after another.

In Minnesota.

This week on Firing Line.

- [Onlooker] People.

Shame on you!

- Policing in this country depends on the consent of the community.

We require the trust of the community in order to be effective.

- [Margaret] Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara learned that lesson firsthand.

He was hired to restore faith in the department after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

- [Onlooker] What's going on?

- [Onlooker] Oh my God!

- [Margaret] Today, Minneapolis is again a tinderbox, after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by masked Federal officers.

- [Brian] People just don't view these actions as legitimate, and that's kind of the root of the problem.

- [Margaret] In December, President Trump deployed 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents.

- Gas, gas, gas!

- [Margaret] Into a city with a police force of only 600 officers.

- We gotta get out of here.

- Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.

- [Brian] It is perfectly reasonable for people to expect the federal government to be able to enforce federal law in ways that do not cause chaos and widespread fear.

- [Margaret] How does the chaos undermine the progress that you have made in the last three years?

- I've been worried about that every single day as this has been happening.

- [Margaret] What does Police Chief Brian O'Hara say now?

(uptempo music) - [Announcer] Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri.

Vanessa and Henry Cornell.

The Fairweather Foundation.

The Tepper Foundation.

Peter and Mary Kalikow.

Pritzker Military Foundation.

Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

- Chief Brian O'Hara, welcome back to Firing Line.

- Thank you, Margaret.

- President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, announced this week that he is pulling 700 immigration officers out of Minneapolis, that body cameras will be used, and that the goal of ICE and CPB moving forward will be to end the surge and ultimately return to the 150 ICE officers that existed before the surge in December, and that that should happen as soon as possible.

Do you believe him?

- Well, yes.

I certainly have no reason not to believe Mr.

Homan.

I think he's been very consistent in his messaging as far as having targeted enforcement and looking to get into prisons and jails to conduct a majority of that enforcement.

And I think the experience that I've had with Mr.

Homan personally while he's been here, and in speaking with him, I think he's been consistent and I think he believes in having professional law enforcement, which is largely unlike a lot of the things that were happening here before.

- That comes as a relief to you?

- Absolutely.

- Why?

- I think a lot of the things that we had been seeing in this city were very, very clearly questionable methods, very, very unsafe and unsound tactics, and just a lot of confusion and chaos in the streets.

I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to expect the federal government to be able to enforce federal law in ways that do not cause chaos and widespread fear or question civil rights and constitutional rights.

- Even with that reduction of federal presence, 2,000 or so federal officers on the ground will still outnumber your approximately 620 officers.

That's more than three to one.

And you have said this situation is unsustainable.

- Yes.

- Why is it unsustainable?

What are you concerned will happen if it continues?

- Well, this has been going on since the end of last year, and while this surge has been happening, we've had a dramatic increase in calls for service related to it to the police department.

This is a police department that was typically staffed with about 900 officers going into 2020.

And after 2020, we've lost 500 of those members.

And today we've built up to about 600 sworn members.

And so, it's a department that still remains very, very overstretched, understaffed, and we struggle to provide the services that we need to provide for conventional policing of the city.

The dramatic increase in calls for service and confusion and chaos around a lot of these street operations have caused us to cancel days off several times for all of our police officers, have to extend tours for all of our officers.

It's a significant, significant impact on the health and wellbeing of our officers.

And it's just not sustainable.

- Borders Czar Homan claims that the end of the mission would be dependent on the end of illegal and threatening activity against federal officers.

Shouldn't the end of the surge be about the mission, the supposed mission, deporting undocumented criminals and individuals?

- Well, the mission has been dictated by the federal government.

We have had no input as local law enforcement or state law enforcement into what that mission is or what the goals or projected outcome would be.

I do know there has been immigration enforcement consistently in Minnesota.

The chaos and the problems that we're seeing have been created by the manner in which this enforcement has been taking place.

- Tell me more about that.

- There's been a, you know, plenty of videos online that have shown a lot of confusion on scenes, a lot of just really unsafe tactics and a lot of questionable methods.

We've gotten plenty of reports of people who have been stopped and asked for proof of citizenship seemingly for no reason other than their appearance.

And I know Mr.

Homan knows that's not what targeted law enforcement looks like.

And so I'm hopeful that those types of things are a thing of the past now.

- Borders Czar Homan claims this week that the surge has been successful because it has swept up, quote, "a lot of bad people," including 14 people with homicide convictions.

139 people with assault convictions, 87 people with sexual offenses, 28 gang members.

Now, it's been reported that they are not sharing these numbers with you.

Are those numbers consistent with what you have observed as the police chief of Minneapolis?

- We have no official data, but I mean, I have no reason to think it's not accurate.

I would caution though that I do believe state officials have said that a number of those folks were actually people in prisons who were turned over from the state custody to the feds.

- When you were on this program in 2023, you explained that body cameras were in and of themselves, not a panacea.

In this circumstance, could they be helpful?

- Well, certainly, I think body cameras are helpful and video in general has been helpful.

That's obviously why there's been so much protest activity around a lot of enforcement.

You know, when people are present in a place where they're lawfully able to be and they're recording police activity, those are things that are constitutionally protected.

And obviously having so many videos available has been able to shed light on what has actually been happening in the city.

I do think obviously at times lines are crossed.

Just because people have a First Amendment right to observe and record police doesn't mean that you have a right to physically obstruct law enforcement or to be in a place where members of the public otherwise are not allowed to be.

And I think at times we have seen activity that has turned unlawful very clearly.

We've had property damage at times and other threats that have been made.

But for the most part, by and large, all of the protest activity in the city, the First Amendment activity has been peaceful.

- You just referenced that overwhelmingly, these are people who are peacefully asserting their First Amendment rights, but they have been criticized by some on the right for lacking, wait for it, the restraint, grace, and dignity of nonviolent protests that is often associated with the American Civil Rights Movement.

Could you please comment about whether the posture of the protestors could be adhering more closely to those principles of nonviolence?

Or are they being mischaracterized for political purposes?

- Well, I think a lot of people, whether they're in Washington or around the country, are not getting the full set of facts about what's actually been happening in the city.

Having actually been on the ground here throughout all of this, I can tell you we've had several times where tens of thousands of people have been marching in the street.

And minus an incident here and an incident there, they have largely and overwhelmingly have been peaceful.

There's been many different types of protests though during this time.

So at times we do have protests that become unlawful.

We've had to make dozens of arrests outside of hotels when hotel protests, there's noise protests, turn unlawful and seek to damage property or gain access to hotels.

Those are all things that are clearly illegal.

But by and large, the overwhelming majority of people who have been exercising their First Amendment rights have been doing it lawfully and peacefully.

And that's just the reality of the facts of what have happened here.

- Since federal agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, Democrats in Congress have forced a partial government shutdown at the federal level demanding further guardrails for ICE and holding up the funding for ICE.

Among those guardrails, they want agents to be unmasked, they want to end the sweeps, they want to require warrants for arrest.

Are these measures that would help you in your job?

- Well, I don't know the legality around what restrictions can be placed on federal law enforcement.

I can tell you that our officers do not wear masks in the performance of our duties.

Our officers wear badges with numbers on them.

They wear their family name on their uniform, and our police cars are marked and they have numbers on them so that they're readily identifiable.

I think there's just a much higher level of accountability around state and local police, particularly in this city.

And it's much easier for members of the public who feel like they've been wronged in some way to reach out and make complaints against our officers.

- I mean, ICE, as you know, defends the practice of wearing masks saying that it prevents doxing, which place officers and their families at risk.

I mean, does that risk outweigh accountability?

- Well, I do know that that is a real thing.

We had a federal raid here in June that was not related to immigration enforcement.

And a friend of mine who is a federal agent here in a different agency was not masked, and he had this happen to him.

So I think it's a difficult, difficult decision for people to be placed in.

But clearly the reaction that people have had in response to the manner in which law enforcement, federal law enforcement activity has been taking place is they just don't view these actions as legitimate.

And that's kind of the root of the problem.

Policing in this country depends on the consent of the community.

Like we require the trust of the community in order to be effective.

If people don't trust law enforcement, they're less likely to call us when something happens, they're less likely to give us information about who's doing what in their neighborhood.

They're less likely to, you know, participate in an investigation and cooperate as a witness in a prosecution.

So, I mean, we need the community to be able to support us and trust us enough so that we can be effective in our job.

- You know, you were first on this program three years ago almost exactly and you had arrived in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd.

And since you've arrived, homicides are down 20%.

The department has begun to replenish its ranks after hundreds of officers left in the wake of George Floyd protests and his murder.

You've worked with the community organizations, you've focused on restoring trust.

How does the chaos that has descended on your city undermine the progress that you have made in the last three years?

- I've been worried about that every single day as this has been happening.

It is true that there has been progress.

There's been progress at reducing serious street crime.

There's been progress at restoring trust with the community.

And there's been some progress on rebuilding the ranks of the department and restoring pride in this agency.

The problem is all of that progress is incredibly fragile.

And I realize that we've been in a situation where tensions have been building for weeks.

And I had been worried that we would have tragedy occur, which unfortunately has happened twice, people losing their lives.

But I had been worried that we'd have a moment where we would simply just lose control again and have significant civil unrest and looting and structure fires and all those things that happened here in 2020.

And I was worried that that would restart the same cycle that happened in 2020, which was a mass exodus of officers, a dramatic increase in crime, and really an increase in loss of life in the community.

And my fear has been that if we set off that cycle again now, while we really don't have much of a buffer with staffing, that it could potentially just be something we wouldn't be able to come back from.

- Why hasn't it?

- Well, I think there's a number of factors that have played into it.

I think clearly a majority of people in our community, our residents do not want this city to burn again.

But there's been times clearly where there's been a whole lot of anger and frustration, and I've been nervous that it's been close.

I mean, we've called in all sworn personnel, we've asked for mutual aid from the state, and every department there is, we've deployed the National Guard in the city again to assist us.

And so, you know, we've been close for sure, but I think both the efforts that we've made over the last several years to restore trust, to engage with the community, to deescalate tense situations, all of those things have helped us to be in a better position today than the department was five years ago.

- You know, President Trump has said in an interview this week that, quote, "Crime now in Minneapolis is down.

Crime in all cities is down.

Do you know why it's down?

It's down because of us."

Is crime down in Minneapolis because of President Trump?

- Crime has been going down on a trajectory over the last few years, and that's across all categories of serious street crime.

And a lot of the violent crime that is down is down, I would argue, as a result of the partnerships that we've had with law enforcement agencies.

And that includes federal law enforcement.

The US Attorney's Office, the FBI, the ATF, the DEA.

They've all been a part of helping us go after the people who actually are the worst of the worst, gang members that were committing murders and shooters and carjackings, all of those things.

And that enforcement combined with the work that we've done with community-based organizations, I believe, has enabled the city to change course.

And that's something that was happening, you know, a few years ago.

It's not something that happened or started happening a couple of weeks ago.

- President Trump has also said this week, quote, "I learned that maybe we can use a little more of a softer touch.

But you still have to be tough.

We're dealing with really hard criminals."

That is what President Trump has said that he has learned about this experience.

What have you learned about this experience?

- (sighs deeply) Well, let me at least say this.

You can be firm as a law enforcement officer, but it doesn't mean that you don't have compassion, that you're not fair, that you're not abiding by the constitution and the rule of law.

You know, it has been a lot to go through the last several weeks.

I'm exhausted.

Our cops are exhausted.

I know the community is tired of all of this.

- Yeah.

- I am just hopeful that we are in a better place now than what we were in last week, and that things will remain peaceful in the city, and that ultimately this drawdown will conclude, we'll go back to what was normal prior to it.

And I'm hopeful that the community and the police department here can be stronger from having survived all of this pressure that we've been under the last several weeks.

- When you were unanimously confirmed as Minneapolis's Police Chief in 2022 after the George Floyd riots, your mandate was to improve trust between local communities and the police.

And so, I suspect you didn't envision that the principal problem one day would be dealing with the federal government.

And yet, federal action in Minneapolis raises an issue that has come up again and again in our nation's history since its founding, which is the power of the states versus the power of the federal government.

I'd like to show you a clip from 1966 when William F. Buckley Jr.

tackled this subject specifically.

Take a look.

- Just as you say, history proves that states' rights have been abused, doesn't history also prove that the power of central government is the historic oppressor?

In fact, Woodrow Wilson at one point said that the history of liberalism is a history of man's efforts to restrain the growth of government.

- Now, insofar as your argument about the abuses of federal government, it hasn't worked this way in our country.

What abuses of human liberties, civil liberties have come from our states.

- Chief O'Hara, of course, they're there referring to the civil rights era, when the federal government sent troops in to protect Americans, particularly Black citizens in the South who were denied their rights by state governments.

In Newark and in Minneapolis, you have been responsible for implementing reforms ordered by the federal government to protect citizens from abuses by local police.

So what did those experiences teach you about the relationship between federal and state governments when it comes to law enforcement?

- Well, law enforcement in this country is largely a function of local government, and I think it works best when we work together, federal law enforcement, state, and local.

And it also works best when the local law enforcement entities that know their city the best, they know the people in their city, they know who's committing crime in their city, when they have a say in the strategy to address crime.

And so, I think from a law enforcement perspective, we're most effective when we work together and when our operations are targeted against specific people who are causing the most harm in our community.

That's what we did here over the last few years, and that's what gives the public the greatest public safety benefit.

- It's no surprise that the rhetoric from the president has, continues to be incendiary, which must be difficult if you're trying to tone down the rhetoric and the volume in your city.

When the president refers to protestors as insurrectionists, there are some who are concerned that his intention and his hope ultimately is to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow the military to engage in domestic law enforcement.

You know, what would happen, what would it look like to your department if the president were to go through and send the military to Minneapolis?

- Well, there isn't an insurrection happening here.

There isn't even civil unrest happening here.

Like I stated earlier, the overwhelming majority of the tens of thousands of people who have been marching repeatedly over several days during this overwhelmingly has been peaceful.

And in cases where things have become unlawful, local and state law enforcement, even with the assistance of the Minnesota National Guard, have been able to maintain the peace.

And so, there's just literally no need for federal resources, federal troops in any way in Minnesota at this time.

- If the Secretary of State in Minnesota and other states are preparing for the possibility that immigration agents could harass and intimidate voters during the upcoming November midterm elections, if that were to occur in your city, what can you as a police chief do to protect voters in Minneapolis?

- Well, I don't have any specific information about threats to upcoming voting.

There's a long history and law that's established around the role of local police and polling sites, and it generally requires law enforcement to not be even at the entrance to a polling site unless we're called in for some public safety reason.

That's something with legal precedent, not just here, but in cities and states around the country.

It's generally a hands-off situation where we don't want to, you know, intimidate or unduly influence, you know, the voting process.

- Chief O'Hara, I can see that you're tired.

I can see that you are, you guys have been pushed to the brink and I suspect that what I observe in you is only representative of your entire department.

What do you want American citizens to know and understand?

- Well, I think things are changing in Minneapolis.

It's certainly not as chaotic as it had been in the past and that's a good thing.

We've been in a very difficult situation this entire time.

Even though people may not view immigration laws as just or they may not view ICE as legitimate because of how they perceive things, the fact remains is ICE is established by law.

They have lawful authority as a federal law enforcement agency and they are able to enforce federal law.

The manner in which that enforcement has been carried out in Minnesota over the last several weeks has created a lot of tension, a lot of confusion and raised a lot of very serious questions that need to be answered.

But I think going forward, I would hope that people understand that the men and women of the Minneapolis Police Department, though seriously understaffed and overstretched, have performed incredibly well.

They have worked to deescalate incredibly tense situations over and over and over again.

They've worked without days off, having had extended tours, having missed, you know, family events, their child's birthdays, other types of things.

And I couldn't be prouder of how well they've performed under such extremely challenging conditions.

But again, this is just not sustainable.

And so I'm thankful that things are beginning to deescalate and I'm hopeful that soon everyone in the community can get back to a normal sense of how life was here prior to all of this.

- Well, from your lips to God's ears, we hope so too.

Thank you, Chief O'Hara, for returning to Firing Line.

- Thank you, Margaret.

- [Announcer] Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri.

Vanessa and Henry Cornell.

The Fairweather Foundation.

The Tepper Foundation.

Peter and Mary Kalikow.

Pritzker Military Foundation.

Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

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