[News] “I’ve Been Involved in Three Shootings Myself, and Not a One of Them Has Bothered Me”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/02/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-shootings/?fbclid=IwAR2JSU1JHIszgxtCv-TQ_BES-VdkidM-jpRYcNwXbOpHtGmC5N0hDDcbQKw
Minneapolis
Police Union President: “I’ve Been Involved in Three Shootings Myself, and
Not a One of Them Has Bothered Me”
Ryan Grim - June 2, 2020
------------------------------

*In an interview* in April, Lt. Bob Kroll, head of Minneapolis’s police
union, said that he and a majority of the Minneapolis Police Officers’
Federation’s board have been involved in police shootings. Kroll said that
he and the officers on the union’s board were not bothered by the
shootings, comparing themselves favorably to other officers.

“There’s been a big influx of PTSD,” Kroll said. “But I’ve been involved in
three shootings myself, and not one of them has bothered me. Maybe I’m
different.”

His comments underscore the rampant nature of police violence in the United
States. The number of times police officers fire their weapons swamps the
level of violence in most other countries, where authorities rely on
nonlethal methods of coercion, persuasion, or control. Many police officers
live with post-traumatic stress disorder induced by the violence associated
with policing.

But not Kroll’s crew, he said. “Out of the 10 board members, over half of
them have been involved in armed encounters, and several of us multiple. We
don’t seem to have problems,” he said. “Certainly getting shot at and
shooting people takes a different toll, but if you’re in this job and
you’ve seen too much blood and gore and dead people then you’ve signed up
for the wrong job.”

Kroll has been a central figure in the unfolding protests and riots
following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police officer Derek
Chauvin. In a letter to union members
<https://twitter.com/StribJany/status/1267471624397361162?s=20> on Monday,
Kroll called Floyd a “violent criminal” and described the ongoing protests
as a “terrorist movement” that was years in the making, starting with a
minimized police force. He railed against the city’s politicians, namely
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state Gov. Tim Walz, for not authorizing
greater force to stop the uprising. “The politicians are to blame and you
are the scapegoats,” he wrote.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Minnesota AFL-CIO called for Kroll’s resignation,
blaming him for his role in “[enabling] violence and brutality to grow
within police ranks.” Police forces across the country have been escalating
violence against demonstrators; driving vehicles into crowds; firing rubber
bullets, tear gas, and flash grenades at largely peaceful gatherings; and
even killing a man in Louisville
<https://theintercept.com/2020/06/01/louisville-police-left-the-body-of-david-mcatee-on-the-street-for-12-hours/>,
Kentucky.

*The conversation,* “The Nothing Sacred Interview Lieutenant Bob Kroll,”
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xEV710ETb0&feature=youtu.be&t=401>was
posted to YouTube and Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/STIM-Radio-113462384020/?__tn__=kC-R&eid=ARAz9alTNegVT2367r6stl8oJJ_enFl1x7vIO5GXflbI0gt26FCh_uO3vF1SAsb1TizFAxh_A8fFaguC&hc_ref=ARRLcIoni3L63vVxZYSYabNIa7hC83Vz2GwMfHAWqA4AWPeCnZi0MgsQXnug7HsxqRU&fref=nf&__xts__[0]=68.ARDx95bvgoEMFScDR9gEOCXnP1zhvguAX6RU0yF7J6zgwu4D88FJCbA5Kqx-a9T6bAEsAaOB-sGB5av_0nz5sgmot3v9KG2rSon10LMYWPmMC1-N4x-O107F6cviVIjvf-9o6y5p-PAHyYB9kiAHInClO3481r_Ktj886uGbpGb_CF6RWcaX9pieCG4yld7wGwn6WODtI1iBlaDbX6XFfc2N2H2MVsket7rQ7BEGCfoJTL-NO50FkUyAJ26pm1UgpssjAqvxAatdCMUHUrelDigzXSrh5VwGxbsnZEUOyjyau5VduaKaHFhdbb_GXDz2G7hLinISsoy-uX-t7Lxz>
on April 29, but has gone largely overlooked. Kroll, in the interview with STIM
Radio
<https://www.facebook.com/STIM-Radio-113462384020/?__tn__=kC-R&eid=ARAz9alTNegVT2367r6stl8oJJ_enFl1x7vIO5GXflbI0gt26FCh_uO3vF1SAsb1TizFAxh_A8fFaguC&hc_ref=ARRLcIoni3L63vVxZYSYabNIa7hC83Vz2GwMfHAWqA4AWPeCnZi0MgsQXnug7HsxqRU&fref=nf&__xts__[0]=68.ARDx95bvgoEMFScDR9gEOCXnP1zhvguAX6RU0yF7J6zgwu4D88FJCbA5Kqx-a9T6bAEsAaOB-sGB5av_0nz5sgmot3v9KG2rSon10LMYWPmMC1-N4x-O107F6cviVIjvf-9o6y5p-PAHyYB9kiAHInClO3481r_Ktj886uGbpGb_CF6RWcaX9pieCG4yld7wGwn6WODtI1iBlaDbX6XFfc2N2H2MVsket7rQ7BEGCfoJTL-NO50FkUyAJ26pm1UgpssjAqvxAatdCMUHUrelDigzXSrh5VwGxbsnZEUOyjyau5VduaKaHFhdbb_GXDz2G7hLinISsoy-uX-t7Lxz>
host Maxwell Thomas Silverhammer, also discusses efforts by the mayor and
city council to pressure the police and other unionized workers to forgo
raises in order to help the city mitigate the budgetary crisis brought
about the coronavirus pandemic.

“The first thing we said was OK, let’s see the budget, let’s see the city
budget. And guys they’re pissing away, millions and millions of dollars to
projects,” he said. “Like, you know, they’re giving $15,000 a year to the
transgender coordinator of the city.”

“Guys they’re pissing away, millions and millions of dollars to projects …
they’re giving $15,000 a year to the transgender coordinator of the city.”

Kroll said that he asked for an assessment of how much the city would save
by postponing raises for the officers and said he was told that it would
come to $410,000. That was an unacceptable sum, he said, because the city
had been spending similar amounts settling claims of wrongful death by
police officers. Kroll’s curious logic argued that the police should be
held blameless for the costly settlements because the true blame rested
with city attorneys, who didn’t properly defend police officers when they
were sued after fatal shootings.

“They just paid a former Minnesota Viking $385,000 in an out-of-court
settlement because he was tased when he wouldn’t leave a bar,” Kroll said,
apparently not considering the possibility that the police could have
declined to tase him. “The cops tased him,” Kroll said.

“You’re giving away money left and right in lawsuits, and you want us to
take a bath? So forget it,” Kroll said, adding that the settlement with the
family of Terrance Franklin particularly bothered him. Franklin, a burglary
suspect, unarmed and 173 pounds, was found hiding in a basement by five
officers who unleashed a dog on him. His family’s attorneys say an
officer’s semiautomatic weapon accidentally went off, hitting two officers
in the legs, and police responded by shooting and killing Franklin in
anger. Police claimed that Franklin attacked an officer and took control of
the gun, a charge the family’s attorneys said was absurd and contradicted
by evidence. The city eventually agreed
<https://kstp.com/news/minneapolis-city-council-agrees-to-795k-settlement-over-shooting-death-of-terrance-franklin-february-14-2020/5645733/>to
a $795,000 settlement. Kroll said that a good friend of his had killed
Franklin: “stepped up and shot him in the head at close range.”

“The Franklin one was near and dear to my heart because he shot two friends
of mine, and a very good friend of mine was the one who shot and killed him
in the confrontation,” Kroll said.

Kroll’s politics are not incidental to what is effectively a police riot
underway in Minnesota and across the country. He’s one of Minnesota’s more
outspoken supporters of President Donald Trump and took the stage with him
at a 2019 campaign rally
<https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/06/01/minneapolis-police-union-president-praise-trump-campaign-rally.cnn>
to praise the administration for “letting the cops do their jobs.”

According to a 2015 Star Tribune report
<https://www.startribune.com/controversy-follows-minneapolis-police-union-chief/361517061/>,
Kroll clocked at least 20 internal affairs complaints during his three
decades in the Minneapolis Police Department, “all but three of which were
closed without discipline.” There have also been several lawsuits against
Kroll, detailing a long history of allegations of bigoted comments,
including one that accused him of using excessive force against an elderly
couple during a no-knock raid and another that accused him of “beating,
choking, and kicking
<https://www.twincities.com/2009/01/10/ruben-rosario-cops-off-duty-club-questioned-in-lawsuit/>”
a biracial 15-year-old boy while “spewing racial slurs.”

“The big buzzword they had was deescalation,” Kroll said of police reform
efforts. “You’re supposed to, you know, even if you’re lawful in using
force, it could look bad and give a bad public perception.”

Being trained not to use force is what’s causing officers stress, Kroll
said. “Certainly cops, it’s not in their nature. So you’re training them to
back away,” he said. “And it’s just not a natural — that’s where a lot of
the stress does come from with the cops is not [having] the ability to grab
somebody and say, no, step back or you’re going to jail and if need be, by
force.”

Kroll also mocked the concept of procedural justice, an institutional
reform meant to reduce police use of force through diversity and anti-bias
training, saying that it’s an opportunity for people of color to get back
at white men. He said that in his early days of training, the rule was to
“ask them nicely to do something the first time,” then give them a “direct,
lawful order” to do so, and if they refuse — “you make them with force,
that’s how you get compliance.”

“Those days are over,” he said. “Now, it is ask them, love them, call, you
know, give them their space and give them their voice. And this is what
they’re training new officers. … Our cops went through that and they’re
going, ‘Oh my God.’ Yeah, procedural justice. And the theory behind it
being that, you know, the white men have oppressed everyone else for 200
years. So it’s their opportunity to get back.”

Minneapolis Police Officers Federation did not respond to a request for
comment.


*Correction: June 3, 2020 **This article previously misspelled the name of
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.*
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