That's a pretty heavy word, isn't it?

Unconstitutional.

So I'm gonna ask you, first off, let's get to the high hard one A, a as a person who

has been at the intersection of politics and policing, you've been elected, you've

served as a cop, you've got an interesting perspective, what unconstitutional

behavior has ICE performed in Minneapolis?

This is Heroes Behind the Badge.

Today's conversation isn't about a single moment or incident, it's

about how recent events are being understood, interpreted, and lived with.

As someone who has spent a career inside the institutions now under the most

scrutiny, our guest is Rich Stanek.

What follows is a measured, candid conversation about responsibility,

trust, and how to think clearly when emotions are running hot.

When Craig told me that you were gonna be our guest, I

did my homework and I said, whoa, this is the real deal because you are that

rare guy who sits at the intersection of some very critical issues.

First of all, you were a cop, 20 years Minneapolis cop, but at the same time for

the latter part of your service, uh, at Minneapolis, you were an elected state

legislature legislator in Minnesota.

I think you served, uh, three terms, four, five terms.

Yeah,

Five terms, five terms, and, and then of course,

later on, you ran for Sheriff and one, uh, sheriff of Hennepin County.

That's the county that, uh, min, uh, Minneapolis resides in.

And I believe you had three terms there, 12 years as Sheriff of Hennepin.

So, uh, you sit at a very interesting place because what we

are seeing in Minneapolis is toxic.

It's toxic, mostly because from what we see in the media, the so-called

"leaders" have made inflammatory remarks, particularly Mayor Frey.

He suggested that the activities of ICE were unconstitutional.

That's a pretty heavy word, isn't it?

Unconstitutional.

So I'm gonna ask you, first off, let's get to the high hard one A, a as a

person who has been at the intersection of politics and policing, you've

been elected, you've served as a cop, you've got an interesting perspective.

What unconstitutional behavior has ICE performed in Minneapolis?

Well, that's a great, uh, question, Dennis and others, you

know, my seventh grade nun, uh, sister Benita from Holy Cross, who had a

huge influence on my life and career, told me, if you're not part of the

solution, you're part of the problem.

And that clearly defines, uh, Mayor Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis, as well as

Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota.

And, you know, politics aside, I don't, I, I, you know, I just don't see it.

I mean, people can see this video, right?

That's the best.

That's the best visual image there is.

They see it with their own eyes, and four people can see it, and five people walk

away with different interpretations of it.

And what did they see?

What did they not see?

So who's influencing 'em at the end of the day?

Uh, the media, the elected officials, their friends, their

neighbors, they know what they see.

'cause that doesn't lie, but it's how they interpret it.

And I, you know, I've watched a video from a number of different angles.

The one I saw come out on Friday afternoon after the Wednesday

afternoon, tragic shooting of Ms.

Good, released by Jonathan Ross's, uh, cell phone as he was walking around

the car, filming the car, filming the license plate, filming the occupants.

I think that's probably the best video that we have.

Yes, it's of the tragic interaction that led to her death and all the turmoil

since then, but it didn't start just with Jonathan Ross and Renee Good.

This has been going on and boiling for quite

Yes.

For a long time.

Some time, and you're right, I've been right

in the right in the heart of it.

Let me ask you this question, a follow up on that.

How can we, like you say, we all, we can all look at the videos.

We all form some opinions, but how.

Can Frey actually go in the media the day of and say, I watched

the video, and that's bullshit.

How, what does that do to the mentality of the cops in Minneapolis?

Well, honestly, it, and then if you watch videos and,

you know, national news reports following the protests, the civil

disobedience, uh, people's right to congregate and say, we don't like this.

If you've watched it, you'll see them throwing rocks and.

Chunks of ICE and snowballs at the Minneapolis cops, just like they do at

the federal law enforcement ICE officers, they, they don't know the difference.

They don't care what the difference is.

They don't care.

Law enforcement as a whole has been denigrated to such a level

by these elected officials.

They had become the bastards of society, and that is not fair.

That's why Minneapolis can hire back up to a thousand police officers

like they should have at a minimum.

They're still sitting at about five 50, maybe 600 on a good day.

Yeah.

He

claims

600.

I don't know.

He said chief said 600.

Yeah, when I

was, there's a, you know, 900.

That's a good jump in because I think to start this off the, big question

right here that I'd like to ask, and I'm sure a lot of people are

interested in, what the hell is it like to be a cop in Minnesota right now?

Well, if you were a police officer in Minnesota, you know, let's

just go back 25 years when, you know, I was in my early thirties and I've

been a Minneapolis cop for 10 years and I was a sergeant on patrol in the

city's neighborhoods in precincts.

We've got four of 'em and I had two young kids at home and a

beautiful wife who worked full-time.

And, you know, I would work the afternoon shift from four at night to two in the

morning, 10 hour shifts and you know, you, you go to work, you're not sure if

you're ever gonna come home at night, uh, or if you're gonna get injured.

I got injured in line of duty like a lot of people do.

Uh, but at least I didn't die in the line of duty.

They are, you know, they go to church on Sundays, they go to the doctor's

office on Monday and Tuesday with their kids or for their annual physical.

They go to the eye doctor.

They see their neighbors out in the yard during the day

when they're mowing the grass.

And everybody's looking at 'em kind of with that jaded eye like, are you friend?

Are you fo?

Never Have you seen where, you know, come on.

I lived in a great neighborhood.

I've lived there for 35 years.

I was born and raised.

In Minneapolis, and then I moved out to the city of Maple Grove, a little

suburb about 15 miles outside the city.

And I liked my neighbors.

We spent a lot of time doing a lot of different things together.

But just think about this, everywhere you go, people are looking at you.

You go to, uh, you go to a birthday party and your family

members want to talk about it.

I have sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws who don't agree, you know, they're

on both sides of this issue.

Just like guns, just like abortion.

Everybody's got an opinion about immigration, legal, illegal.

What can they do?

What can they not do?

But the people who are on the front lines every day are wearing that blue uniform.

Dark blue, light blue, maybe maroona, if you're a state trooper,

maybe brown, some shade of brown if you're a a sheriff's deputy.

Either way, they all look alike and they all get denigrated the same unfortunately.

And you gotta have thick skin, right?

You guys went through this thick skin.

Yeah, I just think, we see what we see on the news, and of

course it's all, all jaded and slanted.

And you see this guy that's the mayor of Minneapolis, to me, he's just a

emasculated, twit, nonsense, right?

And then I can't help it.

But from my police experience you see the police chief there now, and

I know they brought him in from New Jersey, and I know his background.

He's a liberal dude and everything else, and he just stands there with the mayor.

He tries to be kind of emotionless from everything.

I mean, he's been all over the news, but he just comes across as

like comes the mayor's lap dog.

And I can tell you as a leader, I supervise countless people over my career.

You know, if you don't have the respect of the rank and file and, whatnot, the

morale there, I mean, after watching some of these press conferences and

the way that the police chief just follows him around, like his puppy

dog, tell us what you think about that.

Like what do you know about that police chief?

What do you know about the morale currently?

And I, just read somewhere that just with, since this whole incident happened up

in Minneapolis, that, uh, 18 cops left.

MPD and became ICE agents.

Yeah.

The rumor is that 24 have, uh, have departed since, uh, this action

started in early December, this surge operation, Metro Surge, and that 18

of 'em have gone to work for ICE.

It's unconfirmed, but you know, then again, there's unconfirmed reports that up

to a hundred Minneapolis police officers just applied for the Family Medical Paid

Leave Act, which says that they can take.

You know, 20 plus weeks off, uh, no questions asked.

They want to get out of there.

That's why you had massive retirements.

There's nobody left from my era.

I'm 63 years old.

There's one guy left, a guy named, uh, uh, commander Zimmerman.

Uh, he's still around after 45 years.

He's just kinda, I, I think he's got something to prove, but,

you know, so he, here we are.

you've got Minneapolis Police, you've got federal ICE officers, they do not talk or

interact, you've got this tragic shooting.

I mean, when, when would you ever have law enforcement agencies

working the same jurisdiction?

the same streets, and they don't talk to each other.

You have a tragic shooting where the ICE officer fatally shoots a resident of the

city of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Police instead of the, um, instead of being

on the inside, looking out, doing the investigation, working with us to find

out what really happened to get the facts.

And, you know, it takes time to gather facts in a fatal shooting.

Instead there from the outside looking in, uh, because their police chief has

said, we don't wanna work with you.

In fact, get the Frick outta Minneapolis.

you got the governor, you know, calling people Gestapo and Nazis.

I'm sorry, but those are, those are fighting words.

We all have friends of different persuasions and

ethnicities and nationalities.

I'm Polish, my wife's Norwegian.

Does that mean we're bad because something my ancestors did

a couple thousand years ago?

I don't think so.

And that's what they face every single day.

And we've got a pretty diverse police force as well, both in

Hennepin County Sheriff's office, as well as Minneapolis Police.

They're treated just as bad as the white Caucasian officers.

The citizens can't tell, won't tell the difference between the two.

Talk about that leadership though.

What have you heard about this chief and what have you heard about the

new sheriff there in Hennepin County?

What, what's going on with them and their leadership?

Yeah.

Well, you know, leadership starts at the top.

I mean, you've seen Gregory Bovino, the commander of uh, CBP on the ground

every single day with his men and women and leading from the front.

And now you've got, you know, Chief Brian O’Hara who came to town just

after the George Floyd incident.

About 22.

He just got reappointed to a three year term, 25 now 26 to 29.

So that may give you some idea what's been going on the last couple

months in terms of his loyalties.

He likes being the police chief.

He came in after a police chief.

That was also an utter failure during the George Floyd and testified against,

you know, the officers involved, whether right or wrong, But, O'Hara is

caught between a rock and a hard place.

I'm not gonna criticize the police chief 'cause it's a really, a tough

place to be a rock and a hard place.

The Rock is Governor Tim Walz.

The hard place is Mayor Tim Wa uh, Mayor Jacob Frey.

And he's gotta somehow walk that line every single day.

They, he is got 13 council members who make.

Uh, my more liberal friends appear very conservative.

I mean, they are really bad.

Sure.

They're the ones that wanted to defund the police.

They don't like the police.

Their rhetoric is amped up even worse than Walz and Frey.

And so, you know, I told, friends and I would tell Chief O'Hara, when you

get up in the morning, you look in the mirror, you gotta be thinking, what's

gonna hit me between the eyeballs today?

'cause every day it's something.

This has been going on since early December in terms of the metro surge.

Every day he gets up, he's getting phone calls from his command staff, and by the

way, chief O'Hara, it just shook up his command staff over the last week or two,

made a number of significant changes.

No explanation as to why.

Um, what does that tell you?

You know, somebody's gotta take the fall and all they do is push it off.

That's all.

The sheriff is a, is a good person as well.

She, uh, she is, uh, the num, she's the 29th sheriff of Hennepin County.

I was the 27th.

We had 28 in between us and he was an utter disaster.

Got arrested and DUI and rode a squad car and lied to everybody and we, we

don't even, we don't even talk about him.

This sheriff though, uh, does things just a little bit different.

Uh, when I was sheriff, we cooperated with immigration, customs enforcement.

We allowed them to come into the jail if they wanted to look through the roster

in the morning and see who was in custody and they wanted to interview those people.

We allowed that to happen.

If they wanted to facilitate a safe transfer within a custodial

setting, like the jail or the sally port to take them into custody.

We allowed that to happen.

Uh, that stopped when I left office in, uh, early 2019.

Thus we have what we have today, a sanctuary city of Minneapolis,

a sanctuary county of Hennepin.

People say a sanctuary state of Minnesota, although there's many parts of the

state, probably 85 outta the 87 counties.

They don't see it the same way as to two metro counties, Hennepin and Ramsey,

which account for know, probably 65, 70% of the population, unfortunately.

Yeah.

And I know that this was something that Craig wanted to drill down on and he's

gonna ask you a little bit more, but when you did say just now about you,

when you were the sheriff and and allowed immigration to come into the jail and

whatnot, did you get pushback from the governor's office or the state in general?

Well, here's the beautiful thing about sheriffs.

As you all know, we are elected by the people in the county.

I had 1.3 million bosses every day.

Some that agreed with me, some that didn't agree with me.

Nonetheless, they were my bosses.

And so we did the right thing cooperating with law enforcement, protecting people

in our community, or you know, Kristi Noem or Greg Bovino or Tom Homan to say that.

Minneapolis has released 500 plus murder rapist, kidnappers shooters,

violent, violent gang members back into the community when they could have

facilitated, facilitated a safe transfer to ICE weeks, or weeks, or months ago,

is absolutely outstanding and you gotta look at it and go, why didn't we do that?

Why are we having to stop them on the street and traffic stops or knock on their

door or go into businesses to get them?

that's, you know, that's the, and, and most people, honestly, most residents

in Minnesota, although we live it every single day, do not understand.

What detainers are or aren't, what immigration does or does not do, you

know, they were saying, well, you, if, if ICE comes to your door, don't open it.

They need a warrant and they're not gonna have a warrant.

Well, yesterday you saw ICE doesn't need a warrant.

If you have a, a final order for removal.

They'll just break the door down and people are like, whoa, wait a minute.

You can't do that.

yes you can.

The federal courts have said they can.

And so you've got state courts versus federal courts.

You got my Attorney General in Minnesota, as liberal as they come,

uh, giving advice and guidance suing the Trump administration.

Please don't sue 'em on my behalf.

I'm not, uh, I favor, uh, what's happening, not, not the other way around.

Now, the t if you want to talk about the tactics, Craig and

Dennis and Bill of ICE officers.

I get asked all the time.

Look, are ICE officers, police officers?

Yes, they are.

They receive similar or the same training as local Minneapolis

Police or Hennepin County Sheriff's Deputies or Minnesota State Troopers.

They go to Glynco.

They get go to the federal law enforcement training center.

They're taught use of force.

Uh, they abide by the Constitution.

They have the same rules and policies as we do, although

they work for a different boss.

That being the Department of Homeland Security under President Donald

Trump, just like my deputies worked for Chief Deputy Mike Carrolson,

under the control of Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, or Chief Brian

O'Hara under the Mayor Jacob Frey.

Uh, that's the only difference with all this.

Rich, the, oli politicization of law enforcement.

This is a big issue.

We've talked about it on this show before.

Um, you've got a Portland police chief who sheds tears when he talks

about two, um, TDA members, gang members being arrested and, and being

shot by, uh, border patrol agents.

Um, you have a sheriff.

In Philadelphia who, threatened ICE agents, if they come into

Philadelphia, they're gonna be arrested.

The district attorney did the same thing.

and you've discussed the situation in Minneapolis.

We're seeing it in Chicago.

We're seeing it in so many of the major cities.

What, what is your view in this?

ha have things changed much since you were a sheriff in Hennepin County?

Did you have the same kind of, interference from your political leaders?

Did you, you were president of the major County Sheriff's Association.

Obviously you saw what was happening across this country 10, 20 years ago.

Have things gotten that bad that, uh, we're having the mayors and the governors

and, and the president and everybody dictating, you know, the, uh, the way law

enforcement occurs and, really encouraging a lot of the citizens to resist if they

don't like a particular law, simply impede the enforcement of that law.

Simply resist if somebody tries to enforce that law on you.

Don't comply.

And I mean, isn't this what's created this very dangerous,

this very volatile situation that this country's in right now?

I think if you drill down even further, you will find that

if you look at major city chiefs.

You know, many of those chiefs are really good.

They're men and women who serve their communities.

But if you look at the cities that have major city chiefs, they're their largest

cities in the United States, about 75 of them in their organization, including

Minneapolis, who's not a major city by any means of the definition, other than their

grandfathered in over the last 30 years.

But those cities are controlled by.

Liberals and the concentration of power is tremendous.

Again, you just look at what happens and I'll just give

myself, you know, as an example.

'cause that's best case.

Uh, when I ran for reelection in 2018, I have 1.3 million residents in my county.

I won 45 of the 40.

I won 46 out of the 47 cities in my county by the election numbers,

by the sheer number of votes I lost because of the city of Minneapolis.

And even then I won four out of the 13 precincts in the city of

Minneapolis, and I still lost an election by 500 some votes when there

were about 600,000 people who voted in my little sheriff election in 2018.

That concentration of power and who votes how they vote,

are they even legal to vote?

There's no, you know, there's no accountability.

I mean, you know, I contested the election for a period of time, but

we don't have provisional ballots.

Like, God bless these people in Florida.

They have them.

Which means when you vote, uh, your vote is set aside and

if it's valid, it's counted.

If it's not, they'll go back in and look at Dennis Collins and say,

uh, your vote is null and void.

In Minnesota, they don't have Rich Stanek name on my ballot.

So when I vote and put it in the box, it's gone.

If I say, well, wait, Rich Stanek was is dead, or he's a felon, or he

was illegal to vote, uh, well show me which one was Rich Stanek's ballot.

They can't do it.

So their only recourse then is to redo the entire election.

Oh, I'm sorry.

But that's, that's a lot of cost, time and effort.

And so every place in this country is a little bit different.

We issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in Minnesota, and most people

would agree, that is not a good idea.

That's your ticket to get onto an airplane.

It's your ticket to get into all kinds of things.

They wanna drive, drive, I don't care, but don't issue 'em photo id, that's,

valid for all kinds of other things.

And that is part of the problem.

You forgot, Bill, that when I I served in the legislature, I left there to

go to work for my governor as this Commissioner of Public Safety and

Director of Homeland Security, and I spent a couple years doing that.

So, you know, I looked at law enforcement from the local level with

Minneapolis Police, the state level as the Commissioner of Public Safety.

And then back, uh, in the county as the sheriff of Hennepin County.

I had a pretty good.

Purview of what was happening both politically, strategically,

I understood law enforcement.

I would argue that just like all of you today, you know, being retired

for several years and working in a nationwide consulting group.

11 of us we're more engaged today than we were when we

were working in some respects.

'cause we can focus on what's important and what's interesting to us and weigh

in and have an influence like this.

I've commented a number of times about what's happening in Minnesota

since December 1st with this operation Metro Surge with, you know,

the ICE and immigration efforts.

But that's 'cause they trust what we say and most people just want it broken down

to something they can actually understand.

Unfettered nonpolitical, just tell us like it is.

You see it with your own eyes.

What does that mean,?

Interpret it for us.

Absolutely.

And you say you, you see it with your own own eyes and it's kind of eyes wide

open about, you know, the fraud and the, the Somali community and the, and the

amount of crime that's going on there.

And so you've seen it through, uh, the law enforcement perspective as a

sheriff, legislatively, you've seen it.

Going back to when you were sheriff, how long has this been going on and, and

what was your experience with it overall?

Well people say, "well, all Somalis are bad." All Somalis are not bad.

All African Americans are not bad.

All Pollocks are not bad.

I mean, you know, pick, pick whatever nationality you want.

people have their way and they're mean and nasty about it.

That's why I never look at Twitter and I don't look at Facebook.

Why would you want see those comments?

and I don't get my news from them.

But I would say that what we're all forgetting is how we got to this place

in time in Minnesota, and it's because of the incessant, obscene numbers in

terms of fraud that's been going on.

People say hundreds of thousands, hundreds of millions, billions of

dollars of fraud going out the door over the last 10, 15, maybe 20 years.

All under DFL leadership of Governors.

Not to say it didn't happen before under Republican governors, but that's,

this is when it started to come about.

People started to call attention to it and what did they do?

You just ignored it.

Now you've got Walz and Frey both being subpoenaed by the Department of Justice.

They wanna know what they said when they said how they set it, to, you know,

encourage citizens to act out against ICE.

But I guarantee you they're also gonna look at campaign contributions.

There are a number of people who were indicted here federally for

the fraud that worked for these two men, these two elected officials.

How could that come to be?

You know that if you ran an agency and you had somebody that worked

for you and they got a DUI or domestic assault or something,

they'd immediately be put on leave.

Probably never see the light of date again, at least in your command staff.

That's not the way it is back here in Minnesota.

All they do is just recycle it, hide it, cover it up.

Move on.

People say that Governor Walz loves what's going on with the ICE immigration efforts

because it takes away from all the fraud.

Remember, he stood before a camera two weeks ago and said, eh, I'm not

gonna run for a third term as governor.

It's just, it's too hot, right?

Uh, people are saying, why are you continuing on as our

governor for the next 11 months?

If it's too hot, get out, resign, be done.

Rich.

Uh, switching gears, the, the protests that we've seen, we

saw the same thing after George Floyd died, right in Minneapolis.

Uh, violent protestors, you know, destroying police cars,

throwing, uh, bombs, whatever.

Uh, we're seeing similar things now.

These violent protestors, um, are, are, you know, doing destructive behavior.

Are these homegrown minnesotans?

Um, are they from Minneapolis?

Or are these agitators as some have claimed, that are brought in, uh,

that are trained by leftist groups to basically cause trouble, uh, basically

be anarchist, uh, opposing the law, opposing the government, uh, opposing

those who, uh, enforce the laws?

What is your opinion on that?

Combination of the two?

If you go out during the day, you're gonna find, uh, homegrown.

If you go out at night, take life in your own hands.

Um, the ones that, you know, organically spring up because of an action or

an incident and the neighbors come out of their homes and they're

upset about what's going on, that's organic, but there's no question.

There are paid agitators that come to Minnesota to.

Spice it up a little bit to, you know, get in the face of ICE officers

to obstruct the legal process, to encourage others, to train others.

You know, every night, just about every night there's a couple hundred

people that get together and.

Churches and other meeting places across Minneapolis and learn from others

about how to obstruct ICE operations.

It's ridiculous.

I got better things to do.

I'd rather watch Netflix in the evening than go to a training session on

how to agitate local federal police.

But this is what they do.

Do you feel that some of this though, you know, I can go

back to my days working in Miami.

I was one of, I was a tactical commander and I was also an operational commander.

And I can tell you that back when we were working there was, uh, there was

this group, they were called the Black Block or something like that, and the,

you know, these G seven things they were going to, and they had just come from

California and they came to Montreal.

then they came down to Miami and I remember they were all

screaming and crying because they were like, we've never been.

So harshly and hard handed, treated like we were in Miami, and you know what?

It was over in about two hours.

It was done.

And I, I think, and I'm sure based on your experience, we're just

coddling these people too much.

I mean, at some point the pendulum's got a swing.

You know, I was in the gym the other day and somebody said to me, why the

hell aren't they bringing the water can cannons out and just blasting

the balls off of these people?

And I said.

You know, it's this ification, this liberalism, but I agree a hundred percent.

You know, you bring the, the, you, you wave the air full of pepper spray

and nail 'em with the water cannons.

Uh, they're not gonna be coming out there, they're gonna be

watching Netflix with you.

you know, and it's, it's interesting that, um,

It just does not define Minnesota.

I'm, I'm TI as a lifelong Minnesota resident of 63 years and

I still live in this community.

I'm tired of seeing Minneapolis on the news.

George Floyd, five and a half years ago, annunciation School shooting and even ICE.

This last week, they went to a church to disrupt a church service because

one of the pastors who wasn't even.

Delivering the sermon that morning happens to be the ICE director here in Minnesota.

So therefore they're justified in disrupting a church service.

I mean, there is no sanctity anymore.

If you don't respect yourself, how are you ever gonna respect others?

There's a lot of good people out there that wanna exercise their right

to civil disobedience and, and First Amendment, but when it crosses the

line, they need to be quick and it needs to be tactful and ICE maybe.

You know, maybe they're not the best at doing that, but then again, that's

what the local police are supposed to be doing, working with them when the

local police are nowhere to be found.

It's really tough.

And now that they're there kind of helping them, they've already got, you

know, six weeks head start and now people are getting hurt during these lawful

protests and they're wondering, well, why?

You know, why did you pepper spray me?

Why did you push me back?

why did you detain me?

ICE has been very clear.

They're not gonna put up with it, tolerate it.

They are police officers just like I am.

Just like you are.

You wouldn't tolerate it.

You wouldn't expect your colleagues to tolerate it.

We don't go to work to be punching bags every day and have rocks thrown at us.

That is not the deal.

You want to yell at me and call me foul names.

We'll have at it.

I can take that, but I don't have to be hurt.

And we've got a number of cops who have been hurt some seriously, and

I've got friends who have had rocks upside the head with a helmet on

and it's still dented their head.

and now they've gotta go out injured on duty.

Some never come back to work or their wives say, Hey, or spouses

say maybe you wanna find a different line of work, one that you're gonna

come home every night and be with your kids as they're growing up.

Uh, rightfully so.

Talk guys.

I mean, this is like, this is fascinating.

You guys are doing a really nice job getting.

I'm glad.

I'm glad you brought up.

I'm glad you brought up Rich, the officers.

Because my question goes back now to the climate, the toxicity.

That's being created by the politicians.

Get inside your cop, your cop head, your cop mentality, uh, for

your 20 years, uh, at Minneapolis.

And of course as, uh, sheriff for 12 years.

what do you have to do mentally to police properly enforce the law in this

community when basically your leadership.

Is flaunting the law is challenging.

The law is calling it unconstitutional, disruptive, whatever name you want to use.

what's inside the mind of the average cop?

Remember it's just been, it's just been in the last decade that

we've talked about the health and wellness of our officers, and rightfully so.

We saw a number of them take their own lives and we saw a number

of them go out, injured on duty.

and so we take better care of our officers.

Today.

But you gotta ask, you know, like I said, a a a 27-year-old patrol officer who

spent four years in college has a couple young kids at home trying to raise his or

her family, uh, and they go to work and they go, why am I, why is this like this?

And then they call their mom and dad at night when they get home, and mom and

dad are like, uh, what are you doing?

You know, the wife is like, what are you doing?

And the neighbors are, you know, looking at you with that, uh,

that slanted eye when you're leaving for work in the morning.

It's really, really hard.

And I, I, think, you know, we gotta, we gotta spend a little more time taking care

of the men and women who serve us, just like we take care of the men and women.

Coming home from the military or serving in the military, these cops are not bad.

This is a job.

At the end of the day, it's only a job and you, you have to go to work,

put on a uniform, get in that squad car, drive down that street and

think, well, am I really a bastard?

Am I really the worst thing?

what did I, you know, this isn't what I signed up for.

I signed up to help people, uh, to be their form.

Uh, to be a problem solver.

They don't get to do any of that.

There's no proactive policing going on these days in the city

of Minneapolis or Hennepin County.

It can't.

Narcotics, gangs, you know, uh, chasing down other fugitives have come to a stop.

A hard stop.

If you're the victim of a burglary, do you think you're gonna get a cop to

come out to your house to take a report these days, or theft of your auto, or,

something happened at school with your kid.

It's not gonna happen.

They, the cops don't have the capacity, not the capabil

capability, the capacity.

And, you know, blame blame for that though.

truly you, you're bla you gotta blame the politicians, especially the crazy rhetoric

coming out of the, the governor's mouth.

And the, and the mayor.

But furthermore, it's, it's the media.

The media is complicit and the media's in bad with the Democrats as far as just.

Demonizing every, everything that law enforcement does.

But as cops, we understand that when you're on the front line, you

literally have your finger on the pulse of the streets of society.

And having said that.

And you said earlier, going back rich, that there's a lot of people

in Minnesota that are pissed about this because if you don't live in the

metropolitan area, you're probably looking at this like, what kind of

fucking clown show is going on here?

This is unbelievable.

This is embarrassing to us.

We don't wanna be in the news.

How's this gonna change?

Are there enough people in Minnesota that are going to rally together

outside of the metroplex and elect a conservative governor and

get rid of some of this lunacy?

Well, this is what I talked about earlier, really tough, right?

We are, uh, nine months away, eight months away from, uh, from a statewide election

where we will be electing a new governor.

Right now, there is not another Democratic candidate out there.

When the governor.

The current governor said he is not gonna run for a third term

because of all this fraud and stuff.

No one has stepped forward.

They are, I think the Democrats are hoping, uh, DFL, Senator

Amy Klobuchar will step in.

she would do a good job, She's been around a long time.

She's beloved by Minnesotas, even though she may be of a different political

party than half of uh, Minnesota.

There are about 26 people on the Republican side running for

governor, although none of 'em have shown up to this point, that they

have what it takes to get it done.

But that's, that's the process they'll be going through.

And they're gonna have to be endorsed by a party, in this case, the Republican party

on the other side, and they're gonna have to swear their allegiance to some values

they may not necessarily believe in.

Or may not have been in their background.

and then, you know, we're gonna have this big election come, uh, come

November, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, whatever that, uh, first Tuesday is in

November 2nd, Tuesday in November, and.

four years ago I ran for governor of the state of Minnesota, right?

I mean, a number of us stepped up and said, things have to change.

You cannot allow this Tim Walz to continue doing was doing that.

Fortunately, I left the governor's race early due to a

very tragic, car crash I had.

I got broadsided at about 60 miles an hour, and, uh, you know, I decided that,

uh, my life and limb were more valuable than running for another elected office.

And here I am four years later, still contributing every day.

In a different way.

rich, um, what is it about Minnesota that you elect?

Um, you elected a, a former wrestler, uh, to be your governor.

You elected a comedian to be your United States Senator.

it just seems that Minnesota comes up with some interesting candidates and

some interesting, uh, politicians.

I, I'm just wondering, you know, why is Minnesota doing this and No, you

don't hear about that in other states.

I.

Minnesota's like the great experiment, right?

I mean, we try all kinds of things.

And honestly, those are, those were third party candidates.

They weren't the mainstream, they were the, the, leftovers.

So you got, you know, Republican democrat, each side gets about 35%

of the vote, just because people are hardcore Democrat, hardcore republican.

The middle 30% are, what are the, uh, you know, the sway voters.

Then if they can draw some from either side, well that's a pretty good deal.

It's just like, Governor Walz, you know, he was gonna run, he had 55% of

the state's population in his corner.

He was gonna get at least 35% for sure.

But as time went on and they saw what was happening with fraud, his

base at 35% base got cut into, and pretty soon it was down to 30 or 25%.

That left it wide open and made it unfeasible for him to

represent the Democratic Party.

And you know, honestly, he's got thin skin.

I mean, if you look at him, if you talk to him, it's not worth,

that's not worth your breath.

You know, I wouldn't cross the street.

Uh, it's just, it, it's not gonna happen.

Um, I've never had a relationship with him, never will not interested in it.

He doesn't like cops.

I'm a cop.

Yeah.

And, and he's a, he's a buffoon.

I mean, you just look at him, he's like a, a weak ballish buffoon basically is, is,

uh, you know, all of us talk about him.

We in our cop groups and everybody,

Billy has such a way with words, doesn't he?

Yeah.

I mean, well, hey, you know, we're, talking cop to cop.

We're, we're just being real here.

Right?

So.

Yeah.

In, interestingly enough, so you, ran for governor.

Uh, you don't, I, I guess you're, you're not looking to, to do that again.

I guess not really, you know?

No, that's good.

I priorities acres in northern Minnesota on forested

land with a private lake, and I can snowmobile fish hunt.

Uh, I don't have neighbors next door to me.

you know, my kids come up every weekend with the grandkids.

Why would I, why?

What a life.

Let's, uh, let's come up there and join you.

Can you fill us in?

Can you fill us in Rich a little bit about the Attorney General?

So, you know, the Attorney General of Minnesota, he was in Congress

and I don't recall exactly why, but he had to leave Congress because

there were some problems there.

Somehow or another, controversy or or not, he gets elected as Attorney General.

And so he's in the midst of all this.

He knows what the hell's going on.

Right.

He already dismissed what we talked about, uh, with the disturbance at the

church is, uh, nothing to see here.

Uh, and also his son now is involved in politics, I guess in

Minneapolis, somehow or another.

And it, it's just kind of interesting, the whole family affair there.

Well, his son is, uh, leaving.

He's, uh, he was an elected city council member.

He still is to be.

Until the end of the year.

And, but he hasn't been around.

He is been over at, uh, Harvard University getting some fellowship.

So he's not even in Minneapolis, but he is collecting her a hundred plus

thousand dollars a year paycheck.

You gotta love it.

And you know the father is.

Uh, fraudulent as well, right?

Oh yeah.

People say, I mean, you know, uh, you be your own best, uh, judge and then.

You know the father of Keith Ellison, you're right, he was a

member of Congress before that.

He used to serve with me in the Minnesota legislature.

Before that.

I used to see him all the time on the north side of Minneapolis when I was

a patrol officer, and he was a young, attorney trying to make his, uh, his way.

He's been around for a long time.

I've known him for a long time.

Again, what you see is what you get.

Uh, his religious beliefs are not aligned with my Catholic beliefs.

So your Lutheran beliefs or, uh, any of those.

And, you know, he ran into problems in Congress.

He came to Minnesota.

He ran for Attorney General, got elected.

He has no interest in being governor.

He says, uh, I think it was yesterday or the day before.

because who wants to inherit this mess?

I mean, it would just be more of the same.

He's not, he's, like I said, if you're not, if you're not part of the

solution, you're, you are the problem.

He's part, he's part of the mess.

Well, he's part of the problem.

Yeah.

I think he's created it.

He's created the legal framework for it.

Right.

He's the Attorney General.

Guys, uh, before we, finish this interview, I, I'm

very interested as a layman not having served in law enforcement.

Let's go back to the Renee Good, shooting.

I'm just, you know, a lot of people say, oh, that was an avoidable tragedy.

Some blame.

Renee Good.

And, uh, the agitators, some blame the ICE agent.

Uh, bill, I want you to comment on this too, but Rich first, you, how

could we have avoided that situation?

I mean, there were so many things that went into that, that led up to it.

Uh, I don't, I don't know that you can nail it down.

And one thing was to blame, but, but talk me through the incident.

What led up to it and, and how could that have been avoided?

Again, residents are entitled to exercise their

first amendment rights and, you know, disagree with public policy.

And, but the rhetoric amped up by the elected officials, as we've just

said, encouraged average residents like Renee Good or her wife.

I say that right, her wife to, uh, I always have to stop

and check, uh, her wife to,

uh,

make sure you got those pronouns.

I do, they them, he, whatever she.

But be any good and her wife to, actively engage and resist

and obstruct ICE officers.

And the ICE officers had said, look, we'd seen them for some time

following us around in this case.

They blocked a major intersection, 34th and Portland, I think is the intersection.

Portland's a one way with about five lanes going one direction.

and you know, you can't pull your car across the street and box in local

law enforcement when they're trying to do their job or impede traffic.

Nobody, they're not police officers.

Nobody said, Hey, pull in front, block this car so they

don't get hit by another car.

And the ICE agents finally got fed up with it.

Ross was already outside of his car and he had his cell phone out and he

literally was like this, walking around the car, filming the exterior of the car.

The driver who was Renee Good the license plate in the rear.

He got around to the passenger side and unfortunately got engaged in

a conversation with Good's Wife.

It was a nasty, vulgar conversation on behalf of Good's Wife.

She said something about, Hey, big boy, you want some of this?

I mean, I don't know.

People challenge me like that.

You know what would happen, right?

The gloves would come off and that'd be it, but he continued walking

around the car until we got to the front of the car, the front license

plate, et cetera, and all of a sudden.

There was another ICE, two ICE officers at the, at the driver's

side door talking to good.

One of 'em was reaching into the car, probably trying to either restrain her

hands or turn the car off 'cause she wasn't listening to their commands to

turn out the car and get out of the car.

And she put that car into reverse.

Then she put it in the drive.

She spun her wheels on the ICE.

It was icy L that day.

And then she gunned it forward.

Now, at that time, Ross happened to be standing,

directly in line with the car.

So now the car is coming right at him.

I'm sorry, but whatcha gonna do.

He either kept holding his cell phone or dropped it.

He drew his handgun with his, uh, strong hand, and he fired one

round into the front windshield.

He fired two more rounds as the, you know how this happens, right?

All this happened in a couple split seconds, and that was it.

people say, well, you never got hit by the car.

Depending on what angle you looked at, you could see whether you got hit or not.

Angles, they showed us on TV for the first day.

you, you could not definitively see that he was hit or struck by that vehicle.

Ross's video when it came out two days later on Friday afternoon clearly showed

that he got struck by that vehicle.

Um.

His position.

And people said, well, you're not supposed to be standing in front of cars.

I don't look.

Nobody in their right mind's gonna stand in front of a car

and say, Hey, I'm Superman.

Stop it.

but that wasn't what, that wasn't what he was doing.

Remember the totality of the circumstances, what

was going through his mind?

What was he trying to do?

His interaction was different than the two ICE officers at the

driver's side door talking to Good.

And by the way, when Ross was walking around the car and he had

the interaction with the wife.

The wife said, uh, something about, uh, come get your lunch, big boy or something.

And then she turned around, put her hand on the passenger side door,

tried to get in and said, drive baby.

Drive drive.

And Ms. Good did drive, and maybe she wasn't paying attention.

I don't know what, what was going through her head.

I wasn't there.

But she drove and she struck that officer and he fired his self-defense and.

That's, what happened.

And again, you know, in the first report, I, remember

the initial reports, uh, seemed to indicate that, that Renee Good's wife,

actually blamed herself and was tearful afterwards, uh, when all this went down.

And, because she said drive, baby drive, and because she had agitated, uh, with

the ICE agents, uh, and calls this mayhem.

Um, that she actually blamed herself and, and probably should have, uh, carried,

uh, a lot of the burden, uh, on her own Bill, what do you think about that?

I mean, I, I can imagine,

but you, we've never seen, we've never seen the wife's video.

We've never seen any images from her camera.

She was clearly videotaping Ross.

Uh, none of that's been released.

Why?

Well, if I was an attorney, I wouldn't release it either.

you know, I wouldn't release it either.

It's not gonna be good for her.

What do you think about what went down and, uh, how

you would've handled that situation if you were, uh, agent Ross?

You know, everything that Rich just said is, is pretty spot on.

Pretty much what I would've said here, here, here's a little bit

of a different factor in how.

We dealt with it.

some other agencies deal with it.

You know, the, really unfortunate thing is with the feds, they're a little

bit hamstrung because they're coming into a jurisdiction or a city where

they may not have the relationships with the local law enforcement.

Or what I'm going to get at is the tow companies.

If you look at, we'll, use NYPD for example.

NYPD actually has marked NYPD tow trucks.

Yeah.

And when they're doing operations, just like we have the Bearcats and

things like that, you just smash right into the vehicles or whatnot and just

move 'em the hell outta your way.

If.

If they had tow trucks, like once this started going on, this had been

happening more, more and more frequently.

And say if ICE had a relationship there in Minneapolis with some of the

tow companies, which they probably don't, and Minneapolis PD probably

does, but they weren't cooperating.

You have those tow trucks out there.

You know a lot of people.

Are very, very pe are particular about their vehicles.

If you start snagging people's vehicles left and right, you come across the road,

you obstruct the highway, you obstruct the road, hook that sucker and tow it,

and they're getting paid, they're getting charged 50, a hundred dollars, for every

day that that car is in the impound lot.

I don't think some of these people are gonna be doing that.

You know, you, you set up.

Forward behind if you have the manpower.

And you bring those tow trucks in, you just start towing co. You just put, the

hook on 'em and yank 'em outta there.

And I think if, if they had that relationship and could, could

expeditiously do those kind of things, probably would've prevented that.

Remember there were no Minneapolis cops or Hennepin

County Sheriff's deputies on scene when this happened.

They do not work.

ICE doesn't tell them what they're doing because they didn't wanna, and

that's the problem.

Right?

That's the problem.

And therein lies the problem.

Yeah,

absolutely.

So local police whom you trust and build a relationship with weren't there for

the residents to say or do anything with.

Yeah.

And then after you have all these disturbances, and this is kind of

becoming I, you know, if they're going out randomly looking at a

house and looking to find a guy.

You know, there's just a handful of 'em.

You're not gonna have that support.

You're not gonna have these tow trucks with you.

But I'm talking about now during a civil dis disturbance, right?

Yeah.

Uh, civil disobedience that's going on.

And you have these people all coming in now and you watch this on the news

and they're all blocking 'em, and, and they're having this happening now.

They just happen, I guess yesterday in, in, in another jurisdiction

where there was a, a shooting and they're ramming the vehicles.

Yeah, I think operationally and, and absolutely tactically, some of

these guys just brought their own tow truck along with them and just

started yanking these people's cars.

I don't think they're gonna be, uh, bringing their cars in there anymore.

Hey guys, we could go on and on.

This has been Rich, a fascinating time with you, and we can't

thank you enough for being our guest on Heroes Behind the Badge.

As we know from hosting this program, heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

And you, sir, are our hero.

You have spent over four decades representing not only at the

street level, the law enforcement level, but the policymaking level.

For those of you interested, look up Rich on online and find out all the

initiatives that he got passed in the Minnesota, Minnesota State legislature.

Unbelievable.

Way too many to mention right now.

You need to look that up and see the contribution this man made to not only

law enforcement, but also the regulation and administration of law enforcement.

And as the Hennepin County Sheriff, you are truly.

Let me just, uh, back that up with an exclamation point.

Uh, I have a story.

Uh, years ago, rich had set me up on a ride along with one of his deputies,

one of the most fascinating experiences I've ever had, and very impressed by the

way his deputies conducted themselves.

But what impressed me more than anything is they took me back to the, uh, the

jail area where they process these criminal suspects when they arrest them.

And I, was amazed to see these criminals walking around like they were at a

department of motor vehicle, station where they, they had no escort.

They were not in handcuffs.

They, they, uh, basically went from the mugshot station

to the fingerprint station.

All on their own.

And I, I was so amazed by that.

And I said to one of the deputies, I said, I, I, you know, why

aren't these people in handcuffs?

Why aren't you escorting them?

And they said something that's never left me.

He said, we treat them with respect.

Until they, uh, prove that they don't deserve that respect.

And, and that was really, to me, a hallmark of rich stanek.

And the way he led his department is he allowed his deputies to, uh, treat people

with respect until they didn't deserve it.

And then he could be tough.

But that, that to me is the epitome of a law enforcement leader.

I appreciate that guys.

I, you know, the shoe, the other shoe hasn't dropped with this whole thing yet.

Uh, we haven't reached the, uh, the pinnacle yet, as you know.

And, you know, I think sometime over the next several weeks, something

bad, hopefully a, a police officer, federal, state, local will not lose

their life as a result of this.

But I don't think we've reached the top by any means.

We certainly haven't reached the top of.

The fraud that's been going on, or the investigation, or the federal indictments.

and, you know, let's put a marker out there.

You wanna have me back, invite me back in, uh, in several weeks,

maybe a month, maybe two months.

Absolutely.

Or maybe just a recap of what happened and saying, Hey, things are back to normal.

It's, it's 70 degrees in Minnesota.

Again,

we can hope,

well, like you say, this ain't over.

And unfortunately the signs are that it's not gonna end well, and

we can only hope that it does.

But, uh, again, thank you sir for being here today.

Thank you for your leadership in law enforcement at all levels

and uh, and you'll be welcome back here anytime, anytime.

Come on down to Florida.

We'll, we'll, we'll get together and do it together.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, well think least,

I mean,

you can lease the, leave the frozen tundra and come.

On the horizon.

You have.

Federal subpoenas that were issued to that governor and mayor, they'll be

in court this coming Tuesday, February 3rd, federal court and maybe an

indictment will be around the corner.

You've got, uh, the president considering federalized troops coming into Minnesota.

At least they're coming from Alaska where they used to are.

Cold weather.

Yeah.

You've got, uh, 3000 ICE agents now and you've got Tom Homan and Kristi

Noem said it's not over anytime soon.

And you know, you've got a big election coming up in the fall

in Minnesota, which could change the course or continue as is, uh.

All eyes on Minnesota, huh?

Yeah, we're the 50th state and we plan on remaining.

We're not gonna, you know, pull away or

you're not seceding or anything from the union.

No, no.

I'm coming to Florida first.

No taxes, huh?

The free state of Florida.

You're always,

I mean, come on.

I get all in one place.

Fritz Give them hell man.

Give 'em

hell yeah.

Absolutely.

Thanks for telling it like it is today.

Also.

We appreciate your candor.

Yeah.

Lemme um, let me thank our audience, you know, we

love you guys for tuning in and listening to these broadcast Heroes.

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Okay, so thanks again.

signing off for Heroes Behind the Badge for Bill Erfurth, Craig Floyd.

And thanks to Rich Stanek our guest.

We'll see you next time on Heroes Behind the Badge.