Ramsey County Attorney John Choi is asking people to file a police report if they believe they’ve been a victim of a felony at the hands of federal agents in St. Paul or suburban Ramsey County.
The sheriff’s office already has one active investigation and two preliminary investigations, including ICE taking a 57-year-old Hmong man who is a naturalized U.S. citizen from his St. Paul home handcuffed and into freezing temperatures wearing only boxer shorts, Crocs and a blanket. Another case is of a 23-year-old Somali-American woman, who was born in Minnesota, and was detained by ICE for two days, said Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
For people in law enforcement and in prosecution, “one of our primary responsibilities is to protect and serve our residents, and we should be doing everything that we can to seek the truth about allegations of felonious conduct of federal agents,” Choi said in a Tuesday interview. “… There’s allegations of kidnapping, false imprisonment, assaults.”
Choi met with Ramsey County law enforcement agencies and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Monday about “the unprecedented rise in federal law enforcement activity” related to immigration enforcement.
If members of the public believe they witness a felony crime involving federal law enforcement or are victims of such in Ramsey County, including in the recent past, “we wanted to make it clear that we should be taking police reports,” Choi said.
People should call 911 or their police department’s non-emergency phone number to make a report. Based on the evidence, law enforcement “may investigate and, if warranted, refer the case” to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office to review the evidence and determine if charges are warranted, Choi wrote in a Tuesday memo to Ramsey County’s law enforcement leaders about taking such reports.
“There are limits to ICE authority, just like there are limits to ours as a sheriff’s office when you exceed your authority,” Fletcher said. “… There are checks and balances to hold all law enforcement accountable,” including “local local law enforcement and local laws.”
Choi: No one is ‘above the law’
Tuesday’s memo is a step farther than a request that Choi issued two weeks ago when he asked that, if a federal officer shoots someone in St. Paul or Ramsey County, local law enforcement independently secure evidence and immediately call in the BCA.
But the BCA has been blocked from investigating the recent fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
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A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order brought by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison against the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies, preventing them from altering or destroying evidence related to the fatal shooting Saturday of Pretti by DHS agents in Minneapolis.
In amended guidance issued by Choi Tuesday, he said the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office has agreed to assist all law enforcement agencies in the county in securing a shooting scene.
“No federal, state, or local government agency is above the law,” Choi wrote in Tuesday’s memo about investigating felonies. “While federal agents may act pursuant to federal authority, that authority is not unlimited. … Authority exercised by all law enforcement officers (federal, state, or local) operating within Minnesota must be lawful and consistent with these constraints.”
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