Minnesota police chiefs say federal agents are pulling over cops and demanding papers

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are violating Minnesotans' civil rights, including those of off-duty officers, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said in a Tuesday briefing.

"[As] recently as the last two weeks, we as the law enforcement community have been receiving these complaints about civil rights violations, and our streets from U.S. citizens," Bruley told reports. "What we're hearing is they're being stopped in traffic stops or on the street with no cause and being forced to demand paperwork to determine if they are here legally. As this went on over the past two weeks. We started hearing from our police officers. The same complaint as they fell victim to this while off duty."

He went on to say that each of the individuals targeted is "a person of color."

"In Brooklyn Park, one particular officer that has shared her story with me was stopped as she passed ICE going down the roadway. When they boxed her in they demanded her paperwork of which she's a U.S. citizen," said Bruley, noting that as a U.S. citizen she wouldn't have any "paperwork."

"When she became concerned about the rhetoric and the way she's been treated, she pulled out her phone and attempted to record the incident. The phone was knocked out of her hands, preventing her from recording it," the police chief continued. "The officer had their guns drawn during this interaction. And after the officer became so concerned they were forced to identify themselves as a Brooklyn Park police officer in hopes of slowing the incident and de-escalating the incident down."

The ICE agents made no comments or apologies and left.

He said that it isn't an isolated incident.

"In fact, many of the chiefs standing behind me have similar incidents with their off-duty officers. This isn't just important because it happened to off-duty police officers, but what it did do is we know that our officers know what the Constitution is they know what right and wrong is. And they know when people are being targeted and that's what they were," Bruley continued.

"If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think of how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day. It has to stop. This behavior erodes the trust that these police chiefs, who worked tirelessly for the last 5 years, and theoretically in the last 60 years, to stop this exact behavior from happening," he added.

His comment is a reference to the slaying of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. After the incident, local police departments began to work with the leaders to reestablish relationships and deploy community policing standards.