President Trump is visiting Minnesota on October 10, and holding a campaign rally in the Target Center. His team thinks they can win Minnesota in 2020, after Trump came close to winning the state in 2016.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis has problems. There is an epidemic of brutal assaults and car-jackings, many of which have occurred in broad daylight. The number of violent crimes is already up significantly in downtown Minneapolis versus last year, and 2019 has three more months left.
Instead of fixing his crime problem, Democrat mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Frey is obsessing about President Trump’s visit. Trump’s “message of hatred will never be welcomed in Minneapolis,” Frey crowed.
And only days before the planned rally, Frey worked to end police-officers’ ability to attend the Trump event with their uniforms on. Minneapolis says that they had planned the change for a year. Either way, the rule wasn’t considered until Trump was president, and was put in place only hours after Trump announced that he was going to visit. That’s a bad look for Frey.
Lt. Bob Kroll, head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, noted in an interview that when Minneapolis police in the past usually supported Democrats, officers wearing their uniforms at political rallies wasn’t a problem. It only became a problem when police started, in masse, supporting Republicans. Kroll noted that officers in uniform were even forced to stand behind former president Bill Clinton when he came to Minnesota in the 1990s.
And it is no small wonder that our police officers have abandoned Democrats. The Obama administration stood out for its anti-police rhetoric. But there are more tangible examples of Democrats abandoning police as well.
Frey fudges on more cops
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo has asked for 400 more police officers by 2025 to combat the crime epidemic, and better-police the non-violent property crimes that—if unchecked—surely breed more-serious criminal activity.
Yet the Minneapolis City Council, full of avowed Marxists, has flat-out rejected Arradondo’s request.
Mayor Frey, meanwhile, has been duplicitous about the issue. The Star Tribune tried to make it look like Frey was fighting the City Council to get more cops on the street, with the headline “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey faces off against City Council on call for more police.”
One only has to read into the seventh paragraph to discover the truth: Frey doesn’t support more cops on the street. The usually-spendthrift Frey said that there are “budgetary limitations” to adding 400 more cops, but says that he would consider adding “five or 10 or 15” officers instead. That’s about 2 percent of the Chief’s ask.
Ignoring violence against Trump supporters
Finally, it is worth remembering that leftist crowds became increasingly violent during Trump’s previous appearance in Minneapolis.
“We were open game,” said a Trump supporter who went to a fundraiser for Trump in 2016. Leftwing activists in masks spit on, spray painted, pushed, and assaulted the Trump supporters. The man, interviewed by Alpha News at the time, said that officers told him that orders came “from the top” not to apprehend the violent activists. The mayor at the time was Democrat Betsy Hodges.
A Hill article shows several clips from that night, with Trump supporters “running the gauntlet” to get into and out of the 2016 fundraiser. One family is physically threatened and assaulted while leaving. Another clip shows white liberals screaming and appearing to threaten physical violence as a black conservative man enters the building. These clips confirm the Alpha News reporting, as police officers were nowhere to be seen, even as
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Willis Krumholz
Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz.
