Before tens of thousands of protesters marched in Minneapolis on Friday to demand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents leave Minnesota, they were mocked by the voice of the Minnesota Vikings.
The protestors marched from Commons Park at the edge of downtown to a rally at Target Center in temperatures that hovered around 10-degrees below zero.
While discussing the cold with former Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway, Allen said, “In conditions like this, do paid protesters get hazard pay? Those are the things that I’ve been thinking about this morning.”
The moment was saved by awfulannouncing.com and can be heard here.
“I’m not touching that one,” Greenway said, according to an audio clip posted by the web site awfulannouncing.com.
Allen continued. “Everyone’s catching strays this week,” he said, citing NFL quarterback Baker Mayfield and former NFL QB Charlie Batch. “They’re just all over. Protestors caught one this morning.”
The remark, which pushes the false narrative that protesters are paid by left-wing groups, is commonly made to undermine the importance of social protest. It drew immediate ire on social media.
Minnesotans have been protesting an immigration enforcement campaign in the Twin Cities that the Department of Homeland Security is calling “Operation Metro Surge.” Since it began in December, federal agents have shot and killed two Minneapolis residents, Renee Macklin Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Saturday. Both were 37 and U.S. citizens.
On the department’s web site, DHS director Kristi Noem said, “In the last 6 weeks, our brave DHS law enforcement have arrested 3,000 criminal illegal aliens.”
A message left on Allen’s phone went unanswered on Saturday, and the show’s producer, Eric Nordquist, declined to comment.
An email to the Vikings received no response.
At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Allen made a post on X.com that seemed to be a response to many posts — some angry, some supportive — made to his account.
“I have to stop watching all this for a little bit. I’m so sad this terror is happening all around us here in MN,” he wrote. “I just prayed to God’s will for it to somehow stop and now and (sic) started crying.
“I truly am sorry for all hurting like me through this, and I just want us to be a Love Covenant again. Truly. Let’s all pray this stops somehow because it’s awful. And no more cheap one-liners from me.”
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