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Policing in the Age of Viral Video - Power, Perception, and Trust · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:00
Dennis Collins: That's a pretty heavy word, isn't it?
0:02
Unconstitutional.
0:03
So I'm gonna ask you, first off, let's get to the high hard one A, a as a person who
0:09
has been at the intersection of politics and policing, you've been elected, you've
0:14
served as a cop, you've got an interesting perspective, what unconstitutional
0:20
behavior has ICE performed in Minneapolis?
0:35
Paul Boomer: This is Heroes Behind the Badge.
0:37
Today's conversation isn't about a single moment or incident, it's
0:41
about how recent events are being understood, interpreted, and lived with.
0:44
As someone who has spent a career inside the institutions now under the most
0:49
scrutiny, our guest is Rich Stanek.
0:52
What follows is a measured, candid conversation about responsibility,
0:56
trust, and how to think clearly when emotions are running hot.
1:01
Dennis Collins: When Craig told me that you were gonna be our guest, I
1:05
did my homework and I said, whoa, this is the real deal because you are that
1:11
rare guy who sits at the intersection of some very critical issues.
1:17
First of all, you were a cop, 20 years Minneapolis cop, but at the same time for
1:21
the latter part of your service, uh, at Minneapolis, you were an elected state
1:26
legislature legislator in Minnesota.
1:29
I think you served, uh, three terms, four, five terms.
1:32
Rich Stanek: Yeah,
1:32
Dennis Collins: Five terms, five terms, and, and then of course,
1:35
later on, you ran for Sheriff and one, uh, sheriff of Hennepin County.
1:40
That's the county that, uh, min, uh, Minneapolis resides in.
1:44
And I believe you had three terms there, 12 years as Sheriff of Hennepin.
1:48
So, uh, you sit at a very interesting place because what we
1:53
are seeing in Minneapolis is toxic.
1:57
It's toxic, mostly because from what we see in the media, the so-called
2:03
"leaders" have made inflammatory remarks, particularly Mayor Frey.
2:10
He suggested that the activities of ICE were unconstitutional.
2:16
That's a pretty heavy word, isn't it?
2:18
Unconstitutional.
2:19
So I'm gonna ask you, first off, let's get to the high hard one A, a as a
2:24
person who has been at the intersection of politics and policing, you've
2:28
been elected, you've served as a cop, you've got an interesting perspective.
2:33
What unconstitutional behavior has ICE performed in Minneapolis?
2:41
Rich Stanek: Well, that's a great, uh, question, Dennis and others, you
2:43
know, my seventh grade nun, uh, sister Benita from Holy Cross, who had a
2:47
huge influence on my life and career, told me, if you're not part of the
2:52
solution, you're part of the problem.
2:53
And that clearly defines, uh, Mayor Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis, as well as
2:58
Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota.
3:00
And, you know, politics aside, I don't, I, I, you know, I just don't see it.
3:05
I mean, people can see this video, right?
3:07
That's the best.
3:09
That's the best visual image there is.
3:10
They see it with their own eyes, and four people can see it, and five people walk
3:15
away with different interpretations of it.
3:17
And what did they see?
3:18
What did they not see?
3:19
So who's influencing 'em at the end of the day?
3:22
Uh, the media, the elected officials, their friends, their
3:26
neighbors, they know what they see.
3:28
'cause that doesn't lie, but it's how they interpret it.
3:31
And I, you know, I've watched a video from a number of different angles.
3:35
The one I saw come out on Friday afternoon after the Wednesday
3:39
afternoon, tragic shooting of Ms.
3:40
Good, released by Jonathan Ross's, uh, cell phone as he was walking around
3:45
the car, filming the car, filming the license plate, filming the occupants.
3:51
I think that's probably the best video that we have.
3:53
Yes, it's of the tragic interaction that led to her death and all the turmoil
4:00
since then, but it didn't start just with Jonathan Ross and Renee Good.
4:04
This has been going on and boiling for quite
4:06
Dennis Collins: Yes.
4:07
For a long time.
4:07
Rich Stanek: Some time, and you're right, I've been right
4:09
in the right in the heart of it.
4:12
Dennis Collins: Let me ask you this question, a follow up on that.
4:15
How can we, like you say, we all, we can all look at the videos.
4:18
We all form some opinions, but how.
4:21
Can Frey actually go in the media the day of and say, I watched
4:27
the video, and that's bullshit.
4:29
How, what does that do to the mentality of the cops in Minneapolis?
4:34
Rich Stanek: Well, honestly, it, and then if you watch videos and,
4:37
you know, national news reports following the protests, the civil
4:41
disobedience, uh, people's right to congregate and say, we don't like this.
4:46
If you've watched it, you'll see them throwing rocks and.
4:50
Chunks of ICE and snowballs at the Minneapolis cops, just like they do at
4:54
the federal law enforcement ICE officers, they, they don't know the difference.
4:59
They don't care what the difference is.
5:00
They don't care.
5:01
Law enforcement as a whole has been denigrated to such a level
5:05
by these elected officials.
5:07
They had become the bastards of society, and that is not fair.
5:11
That's why Minneapolis can hire back up to a thousand police officers
5:16
like they should have at a minimum.
5:18
They're still sitting at about five 50, maybe 600 on a good day.
5:22
Dennis Collins: Yeah.
5:23
He
5:23
Rich Stanek: claims
5:23
Dennis Collins: 600.
5:24
I don't know.
5:24
He said chief said 600.
5:27
Rich Stanek: Yeah, when I
5:27
Bill Erfurth: was, there's a, you know, 900.
5:30
That's a good jump in because I think to start this off the, big question
5:34
right here that I'd like to ask, and I'm sure a lot of people are
5:38
interested in, what the hell is it like to be a cop in Minnesota right now?
5:45
Rich Stanek: Well, if you were a police officer in Minnesota, you know, let's
5:48
just go back 25 years when, you know, I was in my early thirties and I've
5:52
been a Minneapolis cop for 10 years and I was a sergeant on patrol in the
5:57
city's neighborhoods in precincts.
5:59
We've got four of 'em and I had two young kids at home and a
6:02
beautiful wife who worked full-time.
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And, you know, I would work the afternoon shift from four at night to two in the
6:08
morning, 10 hour shifts and you know, you, you go to work, you're not sure if
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you're ever gonna come home at night, uh, or if you're gonna get injured.
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I got injured in line of duty like a lot of people do.
6:20
Uh, but at least I didn't die in the line of duty.
6:23
They are, you know, they go to church on Sundays, they go to the doctor's
6:27
office on Monday and Tuesday with their kids or for their annual physical.
6:31
They go to the eye doctor.
6:32
They see their neighbors out in the yard during the day
6:35
when they're mowing the grass.
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And everybody's looking at 'em kind of with that jaded eye like, are you friend?
6:40
Are you fo?
6:41
Never Have you seen where, you know, come on.
6:44
I lived in a great neighborhood.
6:45
I've lived there for 35 years.
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I was born and raised.
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In Minneapolis, and then I moved out to the city of Maple Grove, a little
6:51
suburb about 15 miles outside the city.
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And I liked my neighbors.
6:57
We spent a lot of time doing a lot of different things together.
7:00
But just think about this, everywhere you go, people are looking at you.
7:04
You go to, uh, you go to a birthday party and your family
7:07
members want to talk about it.
7:09
I have sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws who don't agree, you know, they're
7:12
on both sides of this issue.
7:14
Just like guns, just like abortion.
7:16
Everybody's got an opinion about immigration, legal, illegal.
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What can they do?
7:23
What can they not do?
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But the people who are on the front lines every day are wearing that blue uniform.
7:28
Dark blue, light blue, maybe maroona, if you're a state trooper,
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maybe brown, some shade of brown if you're a a sheriff's deputy.
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Either way, they all look alike and they all get denigrated the same unfortunately.
7:42
And you gotta have thick skin, right?
7:43
You guys went through this thick skin.
7:48
Bill Erfurth: Yeah, I just think, we see what we see on the news, and of
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course it's all, all jaded and slanted.
7:55
And you see this guy that's the mayor of Minneapolis, to me, he's just a
8:00
emasculated, twit, nonsense, right?
8:04
And then I can't help it.
8:06
But from my police experience you see the police chief there now, and
8:11
I know they brought him in from New Jersey, and I know his background.
8:15
He's a liberal dude and everything else, and he just stands there with the mayor.
8:20
He tries to be kind of emotionless from everything.
8:24
I mean, he's been all over the news, but he just comes across as
8:28
like comes the mayor's lap dog.
8:30
And I can tell you as a leader, I supervise countless people over my career.
8:38
You know, if you don't have the respect of the rank and file and, whatnot, the
8:43
morale there, I mean, after watching some of these press conferences and
8:47
the way that the police chief just follows him around, like his puppy
8:51
dog, tell us what you think about that.
8:54
Like what do you know about that police chief?
8:56
What do you know about the morale currently?
8:59
And I, just read somewhere that just with, since this whole incident happened up
9:04
in Minneapolis, that, uh, 18 cops left.
9:07
MPD and became ICE agents.
9:11
Rich Stanek: Yeah.
9:11
The rumor is that 24 have, uh, have departed since, uh, this action
9:15
started in early December, this surge operation, Metro Surge, and that 18
9:21
of 'em have gone to work for ICE.
9:22
It's unconfirmed, but you know, then again, there's unconfirmed reports that up
9:27
to a hundred Minneapolis police officers just applied for the Family Medical Paid
9:32
Leave Act, which says that they can take.
9:34
You know, 20 plus weeks off, uh, no questions asked.
9:38
They want to get out of there.
9:39
That's why you had massive retirements.
9:41
There's nobody left from my era.
9:43
I'm 63 years old.
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There's one guy left, a guy named, uh, uh, commander Zimmerman.
9:48
Uh, he's still around after 45 years.
9:50
He's just kinda, I, I think he's got something to prove, but,
9:55
you know, so he, here we are.
9:57
you've got Minneapolis Police, you've got federal ICE officers, they do not talk or
10:01
interact, you've got this tragic shooting.
10:04
I mean, when, when would you ever have law enforcement agencies
10:08
working the same jurisdiction?
10:12
the same streets, and they don't talk to each other.
10:14
You have a tragic shooting where the ICE officer fatally shoots a resident of the
10:19
city of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Police instead of the, um, instead of being
10:23
on the inside, looking out, doing the investigation, working with us to find
10:28
out what really happened to get the facts.
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And, you know, it takes time to gather facts in a fatal shooting.
10:35
Instead there from the outside looking in, uh, because their police chief has
10:39
said, we don't wanna work with you.
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In fact, get the Frick outta Minneapolis.
10:44
you got the governor, you know, calling people Gestapo and Nazis.
10:49
I'm sorry, but those are, those are fighting words.
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We all have friends of different persuasions and
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ethnicities and nationalities.
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I'm Polish, my wife's Norwegian.
10:59
Does that mean we're bad because something my ancestors did
11:02
a couple thousand years ago?
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I don't think so.
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And that's what they face every single day.
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And we've got a pretty diverse police force as well, both in
11:11
Hennepin County Sheriff's office, as well as Minneapolis Police.
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They're treated just as bad as the white Caucasian officers.
11:20
The citizens can't tell, won't tell the difference between the two.
11:27
Bill Erfurth: Talk about that leadership though.
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What have you heard about this chief and what have you heard about the
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new sheriff there in Hennepin County?
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What, what's going on with them and their leadership?
11:36
Rich Stanek: Yeah.
11:37
Well, you know, leadership starts at the top.
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I mean, you've seen Gregory Bovino, the commander of uh, CBP on the ground
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every single day with his men and women and leading from the front.
11:48
And now you've got, you know, Chief Brian O’Hara who came to town just
11:51
after the George Floyd incident.
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About 22.
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He just got reappointed to a three year term, 25 now 26 to 29.
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So that may give you some idea what's been going on the last couple
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months in terms of his loyalties.
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He likes being the police chief.
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He came in after a police chief.
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That was also an utter failure during the George Floyd and testified against,
12:16
you know, the officers involved, whether right or wrong, But, O'Hara is
12:24
caught between a rock and a hard place.
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I'm not gonna criticize the police chief 'cause it's a really, a tough
12:29
place to be a rock and a hard place.
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The Rock is Governor Tim Walz.
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The hard place is Mayor Tim Wa uh, Mayor Jacob Frey.
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And he's gotta somehow walk that line every single day.
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They, he is got 13 council members who make.
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Uh, my more liberal friends appear very conservative.
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I mean, they are really bad.
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Sure.
12:48
They're the ones that wanted to defund the police.
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They don't like the police.
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Their rhetoric is amped up even worse than Walz and Frey.
12:57
And so, you know, I told, friends and I would tell Chief O'Hara, when you
13:04
get up in the morning, you look in the mirror, you gotta be thinking, what's
13:06
gonna hit me between the eyeballs today?
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'cause every day it's something.
13:10
This has been going on since early December in terms of the metro surge.
13:15
Every day he gets up, he's getting phone calls from his command staff, and by the
13:18
way, chief O'Hara, it just shook up his command staff over the last week or two,
13:25
made a number of significant changes.
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No explanation as to why.
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Um, what does that tell you?
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You know, somebody's gotta take the fall and all they do is push it off.
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That's all.
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The sheriff is a, is a good person as well.
13:40
She, uh, she is, uh, the num, she's the 29th sheriff of Hennepin County.
13:45
I was the 27th.
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We had 28 in between us and he was an utter disaster.
13:49
Got arrested and DUI and rode a squad car and lied to everybody and we, we
13:55
don't even, we don't even talk about him.
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This sheriff though, uh, does things just a little bit different.
14:01
Uh, when I was sheriff, we cooperated with immigration, customs enforcement.
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We allowed them to come into the jail if they wanted to look through the roster
14:09
in the morning and see who was in custody and they wanted to interview those people.
14:13
We allowed that to happen.
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If they wanted to facilitate a safe transfer within a custodial
14:20
setting, like the jail or the sally port to take them into custody.
14:24
We allowed that to happen.
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Uh, that stopped when I left office in, uh, early 2019.
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Thus we have what we have today, a sanctuary city of Minneapolis,
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a sanctuary county of Hennepin.
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People say a sanctuary state of Minnesota, although there's many parts of the
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state, probably 85 outta the 87 counties.
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They don't see it the same way as to two metro counties, Hennepin and Ramsey,
14:50
which account for know, probably 65, 70% of the population, unfortunately.
14:56
Bill Erfurth: Yeah.
14:56
And I know that this was something that Craig wanted to drill down on and he's
14:59
gonna ask you a little bit more, but when you did say just now about you,
15:03
when you were the sheriff and and allowed immigration to come into the jail and
15:08
whatnot, did you get pushback from the governor's office or the state in general?
15:13
Rich Stanek: Well, here's the beautiful thing about sheriffs.
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As you all know, we are elected by the people in the county.
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I had 1.3 million bosses every day.
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Some that agreed with me, some that didn't agree with me.
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Nonetheless, they were my bosses.
15:26
And so we did the right thing cooperating with law enforcement, protecting people
15:31
in our community, or you know, Kristi Noem or Greg Bovino or Tom Homan to say that.
15:39
Minneapolis has released 500 plus murder rapist, kidnappers shooters,
15:47
violent, violent gang members back into the community when they could have
15:51
facilitated, facilitated a safe transfer to ICE weeks, or weeks, or months ago,
15:57
is absolutely outstanding and you gotta look at it and go, why didn't we do that?
16:03
Why are we having to stop them on the street and traffic stops or knock on their
16:08
door or go into businesses to get them?
16:12
that's, you know, that's the, and, and most people, honestly, most residents
16:16
in Minnesota, although we live it every single day, do not understand.
16:21
What detainers are or aren't, what immigration does or does not do, you
16:26
know, they were saying, well, you, if, if ICE comes to your door, don't open it.
16:30
They need a warrant and they're not gonna have a warrant.
16:32
Well, yesterday you saw ICE doesn't need a warrant.
16:35
If you have a, a final order for removal.
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They'll just break the door down and people are like, whoa, wait a minute.
16:42
You can't do that.
16:43
yes you can.
16:44
The federal courts have said they can.
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And so you've got state courts versus federal courts.
16:48
You got my Attorney General in Minnesota, as liberal as they come,
16:53
uh, giving advice and guidance suing the Trump administration.
16:57
Please don't sue 'em on my behalf.
16:59
I'm not, uh, I favor, uh, what's happening, not, not the other way around.
17:03
Now, the t if you want to talk about the tactics, Craig and
17:07
Dennis and Bill of ICE officers.
17:10
I get asked all the time.
17:11
Look, are ICE officers, police officers?
17:14
Yes, they are.
17:15
They receive similar or the same training as local Minneapolis
17:19
Police or Hennepin County Sheriff's Deputies or Minnesota State Troopers.
17:24
They go to Glynco.
17:25
They get go to the federal law enforcement training center.
17:28
They're taught use of force.
17:30
Uh, they abide by the Constitution.
17:33
They have the same rules and policies as we do, although
17:35
they work for a different boss.
17:37
That being the Department of Homeland Security under President Donald
17:41
Trump, just like my deputies worked for Chief Deputy Mike Carrolson,
17:46
under the control of Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, or Chief Brian
17:51
O'Hara under the Mayor Jacob Frey.
17:54
Uh, that's the only difference with all this.
17:58
Craig Floyd: Rich, the, oli politicization of law enforcement.
18:03
This is a big issue.
18:04
We've talked about it on this show before.
18:07
Um, you've got a Portland police chief who sheds tears when he talks
18:12
about two, um, TDA members, gang members being arrested and, and being
18:17
shot by, uh, border patrol agents.
18:20
Um, you have a sheriff.
18:22
In Philadelphia who, threatened ICE agents, if they come into
18:26
Philadelphia, they're gonna be arrested.
18:29
The district attorney did the same thing.
18:32
and you've discussed the situation in Minneapolis.
18:35
We're seeing it in Chicago.
18:36
We're seeing it in so many of the major cities.
18:40
What, what is your view in this?
18:42
ha have things changed much since you were a sheriff in Hennepin County?
18:46
Did you have the same kind of, interference from your political leaders?
18:51
Did you, you were president of the major County Sheriff's Association.
18:55
Obviously you saw what was happening across this country 10, 20 years ago.
19:00
Have things gotten that bad that, uh, we're having the mayors and the governors
19:06
and, and the president and everybody dictating, you know, the, uh, the way law
19:11
enforcement occurs and, really encouraging a lot of the citizens to resist if they
19:18
don't like a particular law, simply impede the enforcement of that law.
19:22
Simply resist if somebody tries to enforce that law on you.
19:26
Don't comply.
19:28
And I mean, isn't this what's created this very dangerous,
19:31
this very volatile situation that this country's in right now?
19:35
Rich Stanek: I think if you drill down even further, you will find that
19:40
if you look at major city chiefs.
19:43
You know, many of those chiefs are really good.
19:45
They're men and women who serve their communities.
19:47
But if you look at the cities that have major city chiefs, they're their largest
19:51
cities in the United States, about 75 of them in their organization, including
19:56
Minneapolis, who's not a major city by any means of the definition, other than their
20:00
grandfathered in over the last 30 years.
20:04
But those cities are controlled by.
20:06
Liberals and the concentration of power is tremendous.
20:10
Again, you just look at what happens and I'll just give
20:14
myself, you know, as an example.
20:16
'cause that's best case.
20:17
Uh, when I ran for reelection in 2018, I have 1.3 million residents in my county.
20:27
I won 45 of the 40.
20:30
I won 46 out of the 47 cities in my county by the election numbers,
20:35
by the sheer number of votes I lost because of the city of Minneapolis.
20:39
And even then I won four out of the 13 precincts in the city of
20:43
Minneapolis, and I still lost an election by 500 some votes when there
20:48
were about 600,000 people who voted in my little sheriff election in 2018.
20:55
That concentration of power and who votes how they vote,
21:00
are they even legal to vote?
21:02
There's no, you know, there's no accountability.
21:04
I mean, you know, I contested the election for a period of time, but
21:08
we don't have provisional ballots.
21:09
Like, God bless these people in Florida.
21:12
They have them.
21:13
Which means when you vote, uh, your vote is set aside and
21:16
if it's valid, it's counted.
21:18
If it's not, they'll go back in and look at Dennis Collins and say,
21:20
uh, your vote is null and void.
21:23
In Minnesota, they don't have Rich Stanek name on my ballot.
21:26
So when I vote and put it in the box, it's gone.
21:29
If I say, well, wait, Rich Stanek was is dead, or he's a felon, or he
21:34
was illegal to vote, uh, well show me which one was Rich Stanek's ballot.
21:39
They can't do it.
21:39
So their only recourse then is to redo the entire election.
21:43
Oh, I'm sorry.
21:44
But that's, that's a lot of cost, time and effort.
21:48
And so every place in this country is a little bit different.
21:50
We issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in Minnesota, and most people
21:56
would agree, that is not a good idea.
21:58
That's your ticket to get onto an airplane.
22:00
It's your ticket to get into all kinds of things.
22:03
They wanna drive, drive, I don't care, but don't issue 'em photo id, that's,
22:10
valid for all kinds of other things.
22:11
And that is part of the problem.
22:14
You forgot, Bill, that when I I served in the legislature, I left there to
22:19
go to work for my governor as this Commissioner of Public Safety and
22:22
Director of Homeland Security, and I spent a couple years doing that.
22:25
So, you know, I looked at law enforcement from the local level with
22:28
Minneapolis Police, the state level as the Commissioner of Public Safety.
22:32
And then back, uh, in the county as the sheriff of Hennepin County.
22:37
I had a pretty good.
22:39
Purview of what was happening both politically, strategically,
22:43
I understood law enforcement.
22:45
I would argue that just like all of you today, you know, being retired
22:49
for several years and working in a nationwide consulting group.
22:53
11 of us we're more engaged today than we were when we
22:56
were working in some respects.
22:58
'cause we can focus on what's important and what's interesting to us and weigh
23:03
in and have an influence like this.
23:05
I've commented a number of times about what's happening in Minnesota
23:08
since December 1st with this operation Metro Surge with, you know,
23:13
the ICE and immigration efforts.
23:16
But that's 'cause they trust what we say and most people just want it broken down
23:19
to something they can actually understand.
23:21
Unfettered nonpolitical, just tell us like it is.
23:25
You see it with your own eyes.
23:27
What does that mean,?
23:28
Interpret it for us.
23:30
Bill Erfurth: Absolutely.
23:30
And you say you, you see it with your own own eyes and it's kind of eyes wide
23:34
open about, you know, the fraud and the, the Somali community and the, and the
23:39
amount of crime that's going on there.
23:41
And so you've seen it through, uh, the law enforcement perspective as a
23:46
sheriff, legislatively, you've seen it.
23:48
Going back to when you were sheriff, how long has this been going on and, and
23:55
what was your experience with it overall?
23:58
Rich Stanek: Well people say, "well, all Somalis are bad." All Somalis are not bad.
24:02
All African Americans are not bad.
24:03
All Pollocks are not bad.
24:06
I mean, you know, pick, pick whatever nationality you want.
24:09
people have their way and they're mean and nasty about it.
24:12
That's why I never look at Twitter and I don't look at Facebook.
24:15
Why would you want see those comments?
24:18
and I don't get my news from them.
24:20
But I would say that what we're all forgetting is how we got to this place
24:25
in time in Minnesota, and it's because of the incessant, obscene numbers in
24:33
terms of fraud that's been going on.
24:36
People say hundreds of thousands, hundreds of millions, billions of
24:40
dollars of fraud going out the door over the last 10, 15, maybe 20 years.
24:46
All under DFL leadership of Governors.
24:48
Not to say it didn't happen before under Republican governors, but that's,
24:53
this is when it started to come about.
24:55
People started to call attention to it and what did they do?
24:57
You just ignored it.
24:59
Now you've got Walz and Frey both being subpoenaed by the Department of Justice.
25:03
They wanna know what they said when they said how they set it, to, you know,
25:08
encourage citizens to act out against ICE.
25:11
But I guarantee you they're also gonna look at campaign contributions.
25:16
There are a number of people who were indicted here federally for
25:19
the fraud that worked for these two men, these two elected officials.
25:23
How could that come to be?
25:25
You know that if you ran an agency and you had somebody that worked
25:28
for you and they got a DUI or domestic assault or something,
25:32
they'd immediately be put on leave.
25:35
Probably never see the light of date again, at least in your command staff.
25:38
That's not the way it is back here in Minnesota.
25:41
All they do is just recycle it, hide it, cover it up.
25:44
Move on.
25:45
People say that Governor Walz loves what's going on with the ICE immigration efforts
25:50
because it takes away from all the fraud.
25:52
Remember, he stood before a camera two weeks ago and said, eh, I'm not
25:56
gonna run for a third term as governor.
25:58
It's just, it's too hot, right?
26:01
Uh, people are saying, why are you continuing on as our
26:03
governor for the next 11 months?
26:05
If it's too hot, get out, resign, be done.
26:10
Craig Floyd: Rich.
26:10
Uh, switching gears, the, the protests that we've seen, we
26:15
saw the same thing after George Floyd died, right in Minneapolis.
26:19
Uh, violent protestors, you know, destroying police cars,
26:24
throwing, uh, bombs, whatever.
26:27
Uh, we're seeing similar things now.
26:29
These violent protestors, um, are, are, you know, doing destructive behavior.
26:35
Are these homegrown minnesotans?
26:38
Um, are they from Minneapolis?
26:41
Or are these agitators as some have claimed, that are brought in, uh,
26:45
that are trained by leftist groups to basically cause trouble, uh, basically
26:50
be anarchist, uh, opposing the law, opposing the government, uh, opposing
26:55
those who, uh, enforce the laws?
26:57
What is your opinion on that?
26:59
Rich Stanek: Combination of the two?
27:01
If you go out during the day, you're gonna find, uh, homegrown.
27:03
If you go out at night, take life in your own hands.
27:07
Um, the ones that, you know, organically spring up because of an action or
27:12
an incident and the neighbors come out of their homes and they're
27:15
upset about what's going on, that's organic, but there's no question.
27:21
There are paid agitators that come to Minnesota to.
27:24
Spice it up a little bit to, you know, get in the face of ICE officers
27:28
to obstruct the legal process, to encourage others, to train others.
27:33
You know, every night, just about every night there's a couple hundred
27:36
people that get together and.
27:38
Churches and other meeting places across Minneapolis and learn from others
27:42
about how to obstruct ICE operations.
27:45
It's ridiculous.
27:46
I got better things to do.
27:47
I'd rather watch Netflix in the evening than go to a training session on
27:50
how to agitate local federal police.
27:53
But this is what they do.
27:58
Bill Erfurth: Do you feel that some of this though, you know, I can go
28:01
back to my days working in Miami.
28:04
I was one of, I was a tactical commander and I was also an operational commander.
28:09
And I can tell you that back when we were working there was, uh, there was
28:15
this group, they were called the Black Block or something like that, and the,
28:19
you know, these G seven things they were going to, and they had just come from
28:23
California and they came to Montreal.
28:26
then they came down to Miami and I remember they were all
28:30
screaming and crying because they were like, we've never been.
28:34
So harshly and hard handed, treated like we were in Miami, and you know what?
28:42
It was over in about two hours.
28:44
It was done.
28:46
And I, I think, and I'm sure based on your experience, we're just
28:52
coddling these people too much.
28:53
I mean, at some point the pendulum's got a swing.
28:56
You know, I was in the gym the other day and somebody said to me, why the
28:59
hell aren't they bringing the water can cannons out and just blasting
29:02
the balls off of these people?
29:04
And I said.
29:05
You know, it's this ification, this liberalism, but I agree a hundred percent.
29:10
You know, you bring the, the, you, you wave the air full of pepper spray
29:14
and nail 'em with the water cannons.
29:17
Uh, they're not gonna be coming out there, they're gonna be
29:19
watching Netflix with you.
29:22
Rich Stanek: you know, and it's, it's interesting that, um,
29:28
It just does not define Minnesota.
29:31
I'm, I'm TI as a lifelong Minnesota resident of 63 years and
29:35
I still live in this community.
29:37
I'm tired of seeing Minneapolis on the news.
29:40
George Floyd, five and a half years ago, annunciation School shooting and even ICE.
29:46
This last week, they went to a church to disrupt a church service because
29:52
one of the pastors who wasn't even.
29:54
Delivering the sermon that morning happens to be the ICE director here in Minnesota.
29:59
So therefore they're justified in disrupting a church service.
30:03
I mean, there is no sanctity anymore.
30:04
If you don't respect yourself, how are you ever gonna respect others?
30:07
There's a lot of good people out there that wanna exercise their right
30:11
to civil disobedience and, and First Amendment, but when it crosses the
30:16
line, they need to be quick and it needs to be tactful and ICE maybe.
30:23
You know, maybe they're not the best at doing that, but then again, that's
30:27
what the local police are supposed to be doing, working with them when the
30:29
local police are nowhere to be found.
30:32
It's really tough.
30:33
And now that they're there kind of helping them, they've already got, you
30:37
know, six weeks head start and now people are getting hurt during these lawful
30:43
protests and they're wondering, well, why?
30:47
You know, why did you pepper spray me?
30:48
Why did you push me back?
30:51
why did you detain me?
30:53
ICE has been very clear.
30:54
They're not gonna put up with it, tolerate it.
30:56
They are police officers just like I am.
30:59
Just like you are.
30:59
You wouldn't tolerate it.
31:01
You wouldn't expect your colleagues to tolerate it.
31:03
We don't go to work to be punching bags every day and have rocks thrown at us.
31:07
That is not the deal.
31:08
You want to yell at me and call me foul names.
31:11
We'll have at it.
31:12
I can take that, but I don't have to be hurt.
31:15
And we've got a number of cops who have been hurt some seriously, and
31:18
I've got friends who have had rocks upside the head with a helmet on
31:21
and it's still dented their head.
31:24
and now they've gotta go out injured on duty.
31:26
Some never come back to work or their wives say, Hey, or spouses
31:30
say maybe you wanna find a different line of work, one that you're gonna
31:33
come home every night and be with your kids as they're growing up.
31:37
Uh, rightfully so.
31:40
Talk guys.
31:41
I mean, this is like, this is fascinating.
31:43
You guys are doing a really nice job getting.
31:45
Dennis Collins: I'm glad.
31:45
I'm glad you brought up.
31:46
I'm glad you brought up Rich, the officers.
31:49
Because my question goes back now to the climate, the toxicity.
31:55
That's being created by the politicians.
31:58
Get inside your cop, your cop head, your cop mentality, uh, for
32:03
your 20 years, uh, at Minneapolis.
32:06
And of course as, uh, sheriff for 12 years.
32:10
what do you have to do mentally to police properly enforce the law in this
32:16
community when basically your leadership.
32:19
Is flaunting the law is challenging.
32:22
The law is calling it unconstitutional, disruptive, whatever name you want to use.
32:28
what's inside the mind of the average cop?
32:33
Rich Stanek: Remember it's just been, it's just been in the last decade that
32:35
we've talked about the health and wellness of our officers, and rightfully so.
32:39
We saw a number of them take their own lives and we saw a number
32:42
of them go out, injured on duty.
32:45
and so we take better care of our officers.
32:48
Today.
32:49
But you gotta ask, you know, like I said, a a a 27-year-old patrol officer who
32:55
spent four years in college has a couple young kids at home trying to raise his or
32:59
her family, uh, and they go to work and they go, why am I, why is this like this?
33:05
And then they call their mom and dad at night when they get home, and mom and
33:09
dad are like, uh, what are you doing?
33:11
You know, the wife is like, what are you doing?
33:14
And the neighbors are, you know, looking at you with that, uh,
33:17
that slanted eye when you're leaving for work in the morning.
33:19
It's really, really hard.
33:21
And I, I, think, you know, we gotta, we gotta spend a little more time taking care
33:26
of the men and women who serve us, just like we take care of the men and women.
33:30
Coming home from the military or serving in the military, these cops are not bad.
33:35
This is a job.
33:35
At the end of the day, it's only a job and you, you have to go to work,
33:39
put on a uniform, get in that squad car, drive down that street and
33:43
think, well, am I really a bastard?
33:46
Am I really the worst thing?
33:49
what did I, you know, this isn't what I signed up for.
33:52
I signed up to help people, uh, to be their form.
33:56
Uh, to be a problem solver.
33:58
They don't get to do any of that.
33:59
There's no proactive policing going on these days in the city
34:02
of Minneapolis or Hennepin County.
34:04
It can't.
34:06
Narcotics, gangs, you know, uh, chasing down other fugitives have come to a stop.
34:12
A hard stop.
34:13
If you're the victim of a burglary, do you think you're gonna get a cop to
34:16
come out to your house to take a report these days, or theft of your auto, or,
34:22
something happened at school with your kid.
34:25
It's not gonna happen.
34:26
They, the cops don't have the capacity, not the capabil
34:29
Bill Erfurth: capability, the capacity.
34:30
And, you know, blame blame for that though.
34:31
truly you, you're bla you gotta blame the politicians, especially the crazy rhetoric
34:36
coming out of the, the governor's mouth.
34:38
And the, and the mayor.
34:39
But furthermore, it's, it's the media.
34:41
The media is complicit and the media's in bad with the Democrats as far as just.
34:47
Demonizing every, everything that law enforcement does.
34:51
But as cops, we understand that when you're on the front line, you
34:56
literally have your finger on the pulse of the streets of society.
35:02
And having said that.
35:05
And you said earlier, going back rich, that there's a lot of people
35:09
in Minnesota that are pissed about this because if you don't live in the
35:12
metropolitan area, you're probably looking at this like, what kind of
35:15
fucking clown show is going on here?
35:16
This is unbelievable.
35:18
This is embarrassing to us.
35:20
We don't wanna be in the news.
35:22
How's this gonna change?
35:24
Are there enough people in Minnesota that are going to rally together
35:27
outside of the metroplex and elect a conservative governor and
35:32
get rid of some of this lunacy?
35:35
Rich Stanek: Well, this is what I talked about earlier, really tough, right?
35:37
We are, uh, nine months away, eight months away from, uh, from a statewide election
35:42
where we will be electing a new governor.
35:45
Right now, there is not another Democratic candidate out there.
35:48
When the governor.
35:49
The current governor said he is not gonna run for a third term
35:52
because of all this fraud and stuff.
35:54
No one has stepped forward.
35:55
They are, I think the Democrats are hoping, uh, DFL, Senator
35:59
Amy Klobuchar will step in.
36:02
she would do a good job, She's been around a long time.
36:04
She's beloved by Minnesotas, even though she may be of a different political
36:08
party than half of uh, Minnesota.
36:11
There are about 26 people on the Republican side running for
36:14
governor, although none of 'em have shown up to this point, that they
36:20
have what it takes to get it done.
36:21
But that's, that's the process they'll be going through.
36:24
And they're gonna have to be endorsed by a party, in this case, the Republican party
36:30
on the other side, and they're gonna have to swear their allegiance to some values
36:34
they may not necessarily believe in.
36:36
Or may not have been in their background.
36:39
and then, you know, we're gonna have this big election come, uh, come
36:42
November, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, whatever that, uh, first Tuesday is in
36:46
November 2nd, Tuesday in November, and.
36:51
four years ago I ran for governor of the state of Minnesota, right?
36:54
I mean, a number of us stepped up and said, things have to change.
36:57
You cannot allow this Tim Walz to continue doing was doing that.
37:00
Fortunately, I left the governor's race early due to a
37:03
very tragic, car crash I had.
37:07
I got broadsided at about 60 miles an hour, and, uh, you know, I decided that,
37:11
uh, my life and limb were more valuable than running for another elected office.
37:16
And here I am four years later, still contributing every day.
37:19
In a different way.
37:22
Craig Floyd: rich, um, what is it about Minnesota that you elect?
37:26
Um, you elected a, a former wrestler, uh, to be your governor.
37:31
You elected a comedian to be your United States Senator.
37:35
it just seems that Minnesota comes up with some interesting candidates and
37:39
some interesting, uh, politicians.
37:41
I, I'm just wondering, you know, why is Minnesota doing this and No, you
37:45
don't hear about that in other states.
37:46
I.
37:48
Rich Stanek: Minnesota's like the great experiment, right?
37:50
I mean, we try all kinds of things.
37:53
And honestly, those are, those were third party candidates.
37:56
They weren't the mainstream, they were the, the, leftovers.
38:01
So you got, you know, Republican democrat, each side gets about 35%
38:06
of the vote, just because people are hardcore Democrat, hardcore republican.
38:10
The middle 30% are, what are the, uh, you know, the sway voters.
38:16
Then if they can draw some from either side, well that's a pretty good deal.
38:20
It's just like, Governor Walz, you know, he was gonna run, he had 55% of
38:24
the state's population in his corner.
38:27
He was gonna get at least 35% for sure.
38:31
But as time went on and they saw what was happening with fraud, his
38:34
base at 35% base got cut into, and pretty soon it was down to 30 or 25%.
38:41
That left it wide open and made it unfeasible for him to
38:43
represent the Democratic Party.
38:45
And you know, honestly, he's got thin skin.
38:47
I mean, if you look at him, if you talk to him, it's not worth,
38:51
that's not worth your breath.
38:52
You know, I wouldn't cross the street.
38:53
Uh, it's just, it, it's not gonna happen.
38:56
Um, I've never had a relationship with him, never will not interested in it.
39:00
He doesn't like cops.
39:01
I'm a cop.
39:03
Bill Erfurth: Yeah.
39:03
And, and he's a, he's a buffoon.
39:05
I mean, you just look at him, he's like a, a weak ballish buffoon basically is, is,
39:10
uh, you know, all of us talk about him.
39:12
We in our cop groups and everybody,
39:14
Dennis Collins: Billy has such a way with words, doesn't he?
39:16
Bill Erfurth: Yeah.
39:16
I mean, well, hey, you know, we're, talking cop to cop.
39:19
We're, we're just being real here.
39:20
Right?
39:21
So.
39:21
Rich Stanek: Yeah.
39:22
Bill Erfurth: In, interestingly enough, so you, ran for governor.
39:27
Uh, you don't, I, I guess you're, you're not looking to, to do that again.
39:32
I guess not really, you know?
39:35
No, that's good.
39:36
Rich Stanek: I priorities acres in northern Minnesota on forested
39:38
land with a private lake, and I can snowmobile fish hunt.
39:43
Uh, I don't have neighbors next door to me.
39:46
you know, my kids come up every weekend with the grandkids.
39:48
Why would I, why?
39:51
Dennis Collins: What a life.
39:51
Let's, uh, let's come up there and join you.
39:54
Bill Erfurth: Can you fill us in?
39:55
Can you fill us in Rich a little bit about the Attorney General?
39:59
So, you know, the Attorney General of Minnesota, he was in Congress
40:03
and I don't recall exactly why, but he had to leave Congress because
40:08
there were some problems there.
40:09
Somehow or another, controversy or or not, he gets elected as Attorney General.
40:16
And so he's in the midst of all this.
40:18
He knows what the hell's going on.
40:19
Right.
40:20
He already dismissed what we talked about, uh, with the disturbance at the
40:24
church is, uh, nothing to see here.
40:27
Uh, and also his son now is involved in politics, I guess in
40:31
Minneapolis, somehow or another.
40:33
And it, it's just kind of interesting, the whole family affair there.
40:38
Rich Stanek: Well, his son is, uh, leaving.
40:40
He's, uh, he was an elected city council member.
40:43
He still is to be.
40:44
Until the end of the year.
40:45
And, but he hasn't been around.
40:47
He is been over at, uh, Harvard University getting some fellowship.
40:50
So he's not even in Minneapolis, but he is collecting her a hundred plus
40:54
thousand dollars a year paycheck.
40:58
You gotta love it.
40:58
And you know the father is.
41:00
Bill Erfurth: Uh, fraudulent as well, right?
41:02
Rich Stanek: Oh yeah.
41:03
People say, I mean, you know, uh, you be your own best, uh, judge and then.
41:08
You know the father of Keith Ellison, you're right, he was a
41:10
member of Congress before that.
41:11
He used to serve with me in the Minnesota legislature.
41:14
Before that.
41:15
I used to see him all the time on the north side of Minneapolis when I was
41:18
a patrol officer, and he was a young, attorney trying to make his, uh, his way.
41:24
He's been around for a long time.
41:25
I've known him for a long time.
41:27
Again, what you see is what you get.
41:30
Uh, his religious beliefs are not aligned with my Catholic beliefs.
41:33
So your Lutheran beliefs or, uh, any of those.
41:37
And, you know, he ran into problems in Congress.
41:41
He came to Minnesota.
41:42
He ran for Attorney General, got elected.
41:45
He has no interest in being governor.
41:46
He says, uh, I think it was yesterday or the day before.
41:50
because who wants to inherit this mess?
41:53
I mean, it would just be more of the same.
41:54
He's not, he's, like I said, if you're not, if you're not part of the
41:57
solution, you're, you are the problem.
41:59
Bill Erfurth: He's part, he's part of the mess.
42:00
Dennis Collins: Well, he's part of the problem.
42:02
Rich Stanek: Yeah.
42:02
I think he's created it.
42:03
He's created the legal framework for it.
42:04
Right.
42:05
Bill Erfurth: He's the Attorney General.
42:08
Craig Floyd: Guys, uh, before we, finish this interview, I, I'm
42:11
very interested as a layman not having served in law enforcement.
42:15
Let's go back to the Renee Good, shooting.
42:19
I'm just, you know, a lot of people say, oh, that was an avoidable tragedy.
42:23
Some blame.
42:24
Renee Good.
42:26
And, uh, the agitators, some blame the ICE agent.
42:30
Uh, bill, I want you to comment on this too, but Rich first, you, how
42:35
could we have avoided that situation?
42:37
I mean, there were so many things that went into that, that led up to it.
42:41
Uh, I don't, I don't know that you can nail it down.
42:43
And one thing was to blame, but, but talk me through the incident.
42:47
What led up to it and, and how could that have been avoided?
42:53
Rich Stanek: Again, residents are entitled to exercise their
42:55
first amendment rights and, you know, disagree with public policy.
43:00
And, but the rhetoric amped up by the elected officials, as we've just
43:04
said, encouraged average residents like Renee Good or her wife.
43:10
I say that right, her wife to, uh, I always have to stop
43:14
and check, uh, her wife to,
43:16
Bill Erfurth: uh,
43:16
make sure you got those pronouns.
43:18
Rich Stanek: I do, they them, he, whatever she.
43:22
But be any good and her wife to, actively engage and resist
43:27
and obstruct ICE officers.
43:29
And the ICE officers had said, look, we'd seen them for some time
43:33
following us around in this case.
43:36
They blocked a major intersection, 34th and Portland, I think is the intersection.
43:40
Portland's a one way with about five lanes going one direction.
43:46
and you know, you can't pull your car across the street and box in local
43:51
law enforcement when they're trying to do their job or impede traffic.
43:54
Nobody, they're not police officers.
43:56
Nobody said, Hey, pull in front, block this car so they
43:59
don't get hit by another car.
44:01
And the ICE agents finally got fed up with it.
44:07
Ross was already outside of his car and he had his cell phone out and he
44:11
literally was like this, walking around the car, filming the exterior of the car.
44:17
The driver who was Renee Good the license plate in the rear.
44:21
He got around to the passenger side and unfortunately got engaged in
44:25
a conversation with Good's Wife.
44:27
It was a nasty, vulgar conversation on behalf of Good's Wife.
44:32
She said something about, Hey, big boy, you want some of this?
44:35
I mean, I don't know.
44:36
People challenge me like that.
44:37
You know what would happen, right?
44:38
The gloves would come off and that'd be it, but he continued walking
44:41
around the car until we got to the front of the car, the front license
44:46
plate, et cetera, and all of a sudden.
44:48
There was another ICE, two ICE officers at the, at the driver's
44:52
side door talking to good.
44:53
One of 'em was reaching into the car, probably trying to either restrain her
44:57
hands or turn the car off 'cause she wasn't listening to their commands to
45:01
turn out the car and get out of the car.
45:04
And she put that car into reverse.
45:08
Then she put it in the drive.
45:09
She spun her wheels on the ICE.
45:13
It was icy L that day.
45:14
And then she gunned it forward.
45:17
Now, at that time, Ross happened to be standing,
45:22
directly in line with the car.
45:23
So now the car is coming right at him.
45:26
I'm sorry, but whatcha gonna do.
45:27
He either kept holding his cell phone or dropped it.
45:30
He drew his handgun with his, uh, strong hand, and he fired one
45:34
round into the front windshield.
45:37
He fired two more rounds as the, you know how this happens, right?
45:40
All this happened in a couple split seconds, and that was it.
45:46
people say, well, you never got hit by the car.
45:48
Depending on what angle you looked at, you could see whether you got hit or not.
45:51
Angles, they showed us on TV for the first day.
45:55
you, you could not definitively see that he was hit or struck by that vehicle.
46:01
Ross's video when it came out two days later on Friday afternoon clearly showed
46:06
that he got struck by that vehicle.
46:09
Um.
46:11
His position.
46:11
And people said, well, you're not supposed to be standing in front of cars.
46:15
I don't look.
46:15
Nobody in their right mind's gonna stand in front of a car
46:17
and say, Hey, I'm Superman.
46:19
Stop it.
46:21
but that wasn't what, that wasn't what he was doing.
46:23
Remember the totality of the circumstances, what
46:25
was going through his mind?
46:27
What was he trying to do?
46:28
His interaction was different than the two ICE officers at the
46:31
driver's side door talking to Good.
46:33
And by the way, when Ross was walking around the car and he had
46:37
the interaction with the wife.
46:39
The wife said, uh, something about, uh, come get your lunch, big boy or something.
46:44
And then she turned around, put her hand on the passenger side door,
46:48
tried to get in and said, drive baby.
46:51
Drive drive.
46:53
And Ms. Good did drive, and maybe she wasn't paying attention.
46:57
I don't know what, what was going through her head.
46:59
I wasn't there.
47:00
But she drove and she struck that officer and he fired his self-defense and.
47:07
That's, what happened.
47:08
Craig Floyd: And again, you know, in the first report, I, remember
47:10
the initial reports, uh, seemed to indicate that, that Renee Good's wife,
47:16
actually blamed herself and was tearful afterwards, uh, when all this went down.
47:22
And, because she said drive, baby drive, and because she had agitated, uh, with
47:26
the ICE agents, uh, and calls this mayhem.
47:29
Um, that she actually blamed herself and, and probably should have, uh, carried,
47:34
uh, a lot of the burden, uh, on her own Bill, what do you think about that?
47:37
I mean, I, I can imagine,
47:39
Rich Stanek: but you, we've never seen, we've never seen the wife's video.
47:41
We've never seen any images from her camera.
47:45
She was clearly videotaping Ross.
47:49
Uh, none of that's been released.
47:51
Why?
47:51
Well, if I was an attorney, I wouldn't release it either.
47:54
you know, I wouldn't release it either.
47:57
It's not gonna be good for her.
47:59
Craig Floyd: What do you think about what went down and, uh, how
48:02
you would've handled that situation if you were, uh, agent Ross?
48:07
Bill Erfurth: You know, everything that Rich just said is, is pretty spot on.
48:11
Pretty much what I would've said here, here, here's a little bit
48:15
of a different factor in how.
48:18
We dealt with it.
48:20
some other agencies deal with it.
48:22
You know, the, really unfortunate thing is with the feds, they're a little
48:27
bit hamstrung because they're coming into a jurisdiction or a city where
48:32
they may not have the relationships with the local law enforcement.
48:35
Or what I'm going to get at is the tow companies.
48:40
If you look at, we'll, use NYPD for example.
48:44
NYPD actually has marked NYPD tow trucks.
48:49
Yeah.
48:49
And when they're doing operations, just like we have the Bearcats and
48:54
things like that, you just smash right into the vehicles or whatnot and just
48:58
move 'em the hell outta your way.
49:00
If.
49:01
If they had tow trucks, like once this started going on, this had been
49:04
happening more, more and more frequently.
49:08
And say if ICE had a relationship there in Minneapolis with some of the
49:12
tow companies, which they probably don't, and Minneapolis PD probably
49:16
does, but they weren't cooperating.
49:19
You have those tow trucks out there.
49:20
You know a lot of people.
49:22
Are very, very pe are particular about their vehicles.
49:27
If you start snagging people's vehicles left and right, you come across the road,
49:31
you obstruct the highway, you obstruct the road, hook that sucker and tow it,
49:37
and they're getting paid, they're getting charged 50, a hundred dollars, for every
49:42
day that that car is in the impound lot.
49:46
I don't think some of these people are gonna be doing that.
49:49
You know, you, you set up.
49:51
Forward behind if you have the manpower.
49:56
And you bring those tow trucks in, you just start towing co. You just put, the
50:00
hook on 'em and yank 'em outta there.
50:02
And I think if, if they had that relationship and could, could
50:06
expeditiously do those kind of things, probably would've prevented that.
50:10
Rich Stanek: Remember there were no Minneapolis cops or Hennepin
50:12
County Sheriff's deputies on scene when this happened.
50:15
They do not work.
50:16
ICE doesn't tell them what they're doing because they didn't wanna, and
50:20
Bill Erfurth: that's the problem.
50:20
Right?
50:21
Rich Stanek: That's the problem.
50:21
Dennis Collins: And therein lies the problem.
50:23
Yeah,
50:24
Rich Stanek: absolutely.
50:26
So local police whom you trust and build a relationship with weren't there for
50:31
the residents to say or do anything with.
50:35
Bill Erfurth: Yeah.
50:35
And then after you have all these disturbances, and this is kind of
50:38
becoming I, you know, if they're going out randomly looking at a
50:42
house and looking to find a guy.
50:44
You know, there's just a handful of 'em.
50:45
You're not gonna have that support.
50:47
You're not gonna have these tow trucks with you.
50:49
But I'm talking about now during a civil dis disturbance, right?
50:53
Yeah.
50:53
Uh, civil disobedience that's going on.
50:55
And you have these people all coming in now and you watch this on the news
50:58
and they're all blocking 'em, and, and they're having this happening now.
51:00
They just happen, I guess yesterday in, in, in another jurisdiction
51:04
where there was a, a shooting and they're ramming the vehicles.
51:08
Yeah, I think operationally and, and absolutely tactically, some of
51:12
these guys just brought their own tow truck along with them and just
51:16
started yanking these people's cars.
51:18
I don't think they're gonna be, uh, bringing their cars in there anymore.
51:21
Dennis Collins: Hey guys, we could go on and on.
51:23
This has been Rich, a fascinating time with you, and we can't
51:28
thank you enough for being our guest on Heroes Behind the Badge.
51:31
As we know from hosting this program, heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
51:36
And you, sir, are our hero.
51:38
You have spent over four decades representing not only at the
51:43
street level, the law enforcement level, but the policymaking level.
51:47
For those of you interested, look up Rich on online and find out all the
51:51
initiatives that he got passed in the Minnesota, Minnesota State legislature.
51:56
Unbelievable.
51:57
Way too many to mention right now.
51:59
You need to look that up and see the contribution this man made to not only
52:04
law enforcement, but also the regulation and administration of law enforcement.
52:09
And as the Hennepin County Sheriff, you are truly.
52:12
Craig Floyd: Let me just, uh, back that up with an exclamation point.
52:16
Uh, I have a story.
52:17
Uh, years ago, rich had set me up on a ride along with one of his deputies,
52:21
one of the most fascinating experiences I've ever had, and very impressed by the
52:25
way his deputies conducted themselves.
52:27
But what impressed me more than anything is they took me back to the, uh, the
52:31
jail area where they process these criminal suspects when they arrest them.
52:36
And I, was amazed to see these criminals walking around like they were at a
52:42
department of motor vehicle, station where they, they had no escort.
52:47
They were not in handcuffs.
52:48
They, they, uh, basically went from the mugshot station
52:52
to the fingerprint station.
52:54
All on their own.
52:55
And I, I was so amazed by that.
52:58
And I said to one of the deputies, I said, I, I, you know, why
53:01
aren't these people in handcuffs?
53:02
Why aren't you escorting them?
53:04
And they said something that's never left me.
53:07
He said, we treat them with respect.
53:10
Until they, uh, prove that they don't deserve that respect.
53:14
And, and that was really, to me, a hallmark of rich stanek.
53:17
And the way he led his department is he allowed his deputies to, uh, treat people
53:23
with respect until they didn't deserve it.
53:26
And then he could be tough.
53:27
But that, that to me is the epitome of a law enforcement leader.
53:31
Rich Stanek: I appreciate that guys.
53:32
I, you know, the shoe, the other shoe hasn't dropped with this whole thing yet.
53:37
Uh, we haven't reached the, uh, the pinnacle yet, as you know.
53:41
And, you know, I think sometime over the next several weeks, something
53:44
bad, hopefully a, a police officer, federal, state, local will not lose
53:49
their life as a result of this.
53:51
But I don't think we've reached the top by any means.
53:53
We certainly haven't reached the top of.
53:56
The fraud that's been going on, or the investigation, or the federal indictments.
54:03
and, you know, let's put a marker out there.
54:04
You wanna have me back, invite me back in, uh, in several weeks,
54:07
maybe a month, maybe two months.
54:09
Absolutely.
54:10
Or maybe just a recap of what happened and saying, Hey, things are back to normal.
54:13
It's, it's 70 degrees in Minnesota.
54:15
Again,
54:15
Craig Floyd: we can hope,
54:16
Dennis Collins: well, like you say, this ain't over.
54:20
And unfortunately the signs are that it's not gonna end well, and
54:24
we can only hope that it does.
54:26
But, uh, again, thank you sir for being here today.
54:30
Thank you for your leadership in law enforcement at all levels
54:33
and uh, and you'll be welcome back here anytime, anytime.
54:36
Come on down to Florida.
54:37
We'll, we'll, we'll get together and do it together.
54:40
Yeah.
54:40
Well, yeah, well think least,
54:41
Rich Stanek: I mean,
54:41
Dennis Collins: you can lease the, leave the frozen tundra and come.
54:45
Rich Stanek: On the horizon.
54:46
You have.
54:48
Federal subpoenas that were issued to that governor and mayor, they'll be
54:51
in court this coming Tuesday, February 3rd, federal court and maybe an
54:55
indictment will be around the corner.
54:57
You've got, uh, the president considering federalized troops coming into Minnesota.
55:02
At least they're coming from Alaska where they used to are.
55:05
Cold weather.
55:05
Yeah.
55:07
You've got, uh, 3000 ICE agents now and you've got Tom Homan and Kristi
55:12
Noem said it's not over anytime soon.
55:16
And you know, you've got a big election coming up in the fall
55:19
in Minnesota, which could change the course or continue as is, uh.
55:24
Dennis Collins: All eyes on Minnesota, huh?
55:26
Rich Stanek: Yeah, we're the 50th state and we plan on remaining.
55:29
We're not gonna, you know, pull away or
55:31
Dennis Collins: you're not seceding or anything from the union.
55:33
Rich Stanek: No, no.
55:34
I'm coming to Florida first.
55:36
No taxes, huh?
55:37
Dennis Collins: The free state of Florida.
55:38
You're always,
55:39
Rich Stanek: I mean, come on.
55:40
I get all in one place.
55:42
Bill Erfurth: Fritz Give them hell man.
55:44
Give 'em
55:44
Dennis Collins: hell yeah.
55:45
Absolutely.
55:46
Thanks for telling it like it is today.
55:48
Also.
55:49
We appreciate your candor.
55:50
Rich Stanek: Yeah.
55:51
Dennis Collins: Lemme um, let me thank our audience, you know, we
55:54
love you guys for tuning in and listening to these broadcast Heroes.
55:59
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56:01
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56:15
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56:17
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You can also join us CitizensBehindTheBadge-dot-o-r-g.
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56:43
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56:47
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56:49
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57:02
Okay, so thanks again.
57:05
signing off for Heroes Behind the Badge for Bill Erfurth, Craig Floyd.
57:09
And thanks to Rich Stanek our guest.
57:11
We'll see you next time on Heroes Behind the Badge.