Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's locking down of the police body camera footage stands in contrast to his long-held demands for transparency when he was a defense attorney for "gang members," according to Bob Kroll, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.
"He's has made it a career of wanting transparency and full disclosure of police body-worn cameras and squad cameras, and things like that for many, many years, and now, he's the one who wants it locked down," Kroll told host John Catsimatidis on "The Cats Roundtable" on WABC 770 AM-N.Y. of Ellison.
"So, he's taking the exact opposite view of this. While he prosecutes the officers, he doesn't want any information out either. There is something just doesn't pass the smell test."
Kroll told host John Catsimatidis the public and the media have things "backwards" when it comes to the bad guys. It is not the law enforcement officers, he said.
"You wish that these prosecutors would go after other criminals with such fervor that they do police," Kroll said. "The overcharging and the acquittals that come out of it and things like that. Look around the country in the last several years and it's profound how they're always anxious to charge an officer and, in most cases, they are acquitted.
"The public and the media would have you feel that this is a large problem. In reality, it's a drop in the bucket compared to other murders. In Minneapolis alone, we've had over 40 homicides this year. I challenge anyone to name any of the names of those criminal homicide victims."
Kroll predicted "at least a couple of" the four officers charged for murder of George Floyd are going to be acquitted.
"If you see the rest of the encounter with Mr. Floyd, I believe that it will show some resistance," Kroll said. "I haven't watched the video, but that's what I've gathered from the attorneys representing the officers — that they firmly believe that at least a couple of these officers are going to be acquitted on this."
Kroll laments the politicization of law enforcement, especially in the American cities roiled by protests and rioting.
"All of the major cities, all of them have had Democrats in power for decades and decades and decades," he said. "They will have you believe that police are the problem. It didn't used to be that way. When I was a young cop, we were strongly supported by the community and the business community
"What I think we're seeing right now is 5 to 10% of the population that are just having a very loud voice with protests, with social media blitzes, those types of things."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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