The uproar began almost as soon as Lt. Bob Kroll took over as president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis last May, after handily defeating longtime incumbent John Delmonico in the union election.
Civil rights activists and police reformers pounced on his lengthy disciplinary record, which includes civil complaints and lawsuits for wrongful arrest and excessive force. That record, they say, embodies the brash, hard-charging mentality of a rapidly fading era of policing.
The scrutiny intensified last month after Kroll spoke out in defense of the two officers involved in the Nov. 15 killing of Jamar Clark, which triggered weeks of furious protests over police aggression, racial profiling and what some called a racially biased justice system. Kroll later called for a swift, sharp end to the protesters’ blockade of the Fourth Precinct police station, which drew further ire.
His critics gleefully circulated a newspaper article reporting his membership in City Heat, a motorcycle club for police officers, some of whose members, the Anti-Defamation League said, “have openly displayed white supremacist symbols.”
Kroll has denied the characterization and objected to the story, saying it was based on a misleading photograph of some of the club’s members.
Since succeeding Delmonico, under whom he served for years on the union board, Kroll has emerged as a staunch defender of officers, waging a public battle with the powers-that-be at City Hall over the direction of the Police Department and the treatment of its officers.
Several times since the protests began, he has come out and accused city officials of putting officers in danger and bowing to pressure from anti-police protesters in a rush to defuse racial tensions.
In news interviews since the shooting of Clark, Kroll has repeatedly said that the officer, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was justified in firing at Clark after the 24-year-old reached for his partner’s gun — contradicting multiple witnesses who say Clark was handcuffed at the time of the incident.
The outspoken union head also has taken shots at Mayor Betsy Hodges and Chief Janeé Harteau for their handling of the protests.
When city officials have responded to his accusations, as Harteau did when she called in to a radio program last month, Kroll has accused them of not supporting police officers.
“I just think what you’re seeing is more public scrutiny,” said Kroll, who often represented officers accused of misconduct in disciplinary hearings during his years as the union’s second-in-command. “Everybody now seems to know how to do our job better than us.”
As a clarification, City Heat has a nondescript website, and apparently is NOT affiliated with the more established and respected Blue Knights organization (Blue Knights was founded in Bangor, Maine in 1974 and has nationwide and international chapters, City Heat was founded in 1981 in Chicago and lists only three chapters on its website - also why cop biker groups are fragmented is unclear from the web). BOTTOM LINE: An extremist Kroll backing an extremist Wardlow is what it is, but some have a kinder attitude to the core principles of Black Lives Matter. It appears this one police union has not endorsed any other candidate this election cycle aside from Wardlow, while a less extreme Republican politician, Jeff Johnson who is on the Minneapolis city council, apparently has not sought union backing from Kroll's group. As to backing of AG candidates, the Minneapolis police union is an outlier against almost all other organized labor organizations being opposed to Wardlow's intense anti-labor stance. In any event, the lengthy but unchanging video is what it is, so have a look. The nine officers prancing through that video with Wardlow are gender diverse, but not racially diverse, if that matters. Last, beyond the single urban police union, no other law enforcement organization is known to have endorsed either of the AG candidates.
FURTHER UPDATE: For completeness, Kroll's statement to Alpha News:
“Doug Wardlow understands the job of law enforcement officers and the challenges we face,” Kroll said. “He will be a strong leader for police officers across Minnesota. We are excited about Doug’s vision to refocus the Attorney General’s office on promoting law and order in our State.”
Kroll has no position statewide or regionally, to be talking for others beyond his union, and that from an individual who mischaracterizes Black Lives Matter, and, specifically, he does not represent Police Department management, but only his union membership, so make of it what you will. However, PLEASE DO WATCH THE VIDEO. IT IS A HOOT.
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This is how my FireFox browser displays the thing, top of page today, with NoScript temporarily blocked, and uMatrix also temporarily blocked. Likely accessing it that way has me tracked, but I have after taking the screen capture revoked the temporary privileges, and am running CCleaner as a temporary interruption to this posting. All because Facebook is what it is. The screen capture:
What Timmer calls "meta data" and others might guess as conscious parallelism, that Ellison image Wardlow's campaign folks put into a video, curiously, is Laura Loomer fodder, and we all know her credibility index is near absolute zero. But, how do they think alike?
Beyond that passing observation, the main reason for taking time to post the capture goes to confusion at Crabgrass about "POLICE ENDORSED." Big top page featured FACEBOOK declaration. Then, online there is this, (28 views and I must be four of them to assure getting the image correct for the post - red arrow added):
The link for that video on YouTube is here, and every reader is encouraged to view the video. It is a hoot, insipid and overly drawn out with a footer disclaimer saying it really means nothing. Do have a look, and enjoy the featured background music as a part of the Gestalt experience.
What do you make of that juxtaposition as to audacity and veracity? In trying to locate an actual proof of "POLICE ENDORSED" without combing through all of the Wardlow Facebook stuff, and then going back to the video for authentication and seeing that disclaimer, the just-post-it for readers to figure out seemed proper.
Police Endorsed is an absolutely asserted affirmative representation of fact contradicted by the seldom viewed buried video footer disclaimer. As Tom Waits sings, the large print giveth and the small print taketh away. Now, in fairness there may actually be a police endorsement of some kind that I am unaware of, and the video footer can be explained by lazy inattention to detail, which is not a virtue for an Attorney General, and it may turn out that at some point before election day the video post is corrected somehow by Wardlow and campaign staff. It would be best if that is the explanation, and such an outcome occurs.
Perhaps Mainstream Media may take notice and seek to pin down "POLICE ENDORSED." Wardlow has not responded to an email inquiry sent to the campaign email address listed for him on the Wardlow CFB campaign registration filing. We should with reservations assume inattentive error, and not intent to stretch a truth. But, again, that video is a real professional job all of Wardlow's people should be proud of, and pigs fly.
Watch it. Last, let us hope the nine people besides Wardlow, though in uniform, were not on duty collecting taxpayer money for production of propaganda. That is another question mainstream media could ask.