President Donald Trump released a new campaign ad Thursday featuring five police officers from the Twin Cities area.
One of those officers, retired Sgt. Kevin Rofidal of Edina, said he has supported Trump from the beginning, but decided to speak out this election cycle because of the Democratic Party’s refusal to stand up for police.
“Until 2020, it didn’t matter what political party you were with — everybody supported the police. And I was very quiet politically because both sides were supporting us and that’s all I want. Publicly, I don’t weigh in on all the other issues. I have my personal beliefs but the only issue I weigh in on publicly is supporting the police and law and order, and stopping riots and lawlessness,” Rofidal told Alpha News Thursday after the new ad was released.
Minneapolis Police Officers Federation President Bob Kroll and a past president of the Minnesota Fraternal Order of Police also appear in the ad. The remaining two officers in the ad are from Minneapolis and Bloomington, Rofidal said.
“All of the sudden in the last three or four months it’s become clear that there’s one side that wants to stop the violence and the other side has just been quiet, and by doing nothing you’re still doing something,” he commented. “Minnesota really became ground zero for this issue so it just made sense to have Minneapolis and Twin Cities officers.”
Rofidal said the ad was filmed a couple of weeks ago — well before Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden failed to name a single law enforcement group supporting his candidacy during Tuesday night’s debate.
The former vice president also claimed that the left-wing group Antifa “is an idea, not an organization” during his 90-minute showdown with the president.
“It’s absolutely false. Anybody that looked at the stuff for five seconds knows they might not be a centralized organization — they might be very individualized and localized — but it’s more than just a belief, it’s more than just an idea. It’s organized chaos,” Rofidal told Alpha News.
“You’re condoning it, you’re allowing it by not denouncing it. Up until now this just didn’t happen. Partly I’m very surprised but it also gets to a point where if you don’t stand up for the police and stand up for the men and women that are out there on the frontlines, it’s going to turn into chaos,” he added.
Rofidal was nostalgic about the unprecedented gratitude and appreciation shown to first responders across the country after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“After 9/11, everybody put a flag up. It just didn’t matter — it didn’t even matter if you were an American citizen. Now all the sudden this has become a political issue,” he said.
Rofidal has seen firsthand how the president treats the families of fallen heroes at the annual National Peace Officers Memorial Day event in Washington, D.C.
“I’ve been there every year volunteering, and when Donald Trump walks in there, he is so genuine to these people who have lost loved ones and he has the kids over to the White House and he listens to their stories,” he said.
When it comes to Biden winning back the support of law enforcement, Rofidal thinks “that train has left the station.”
“I don’t think he’s going to win any back,” he said. “If he tried now it would be too little, too late. He should have in the beginning backed the police and backed law and order. He or his campaign took a calculated gamble and they lost.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
