And that may be the tip of the
iceberg.
APRIL 16 | WEB EXCLUSIVE
MINNEAPOLIS POLICE UNION
PRESIDENT LT. BOB KROLL told In These Timesthat he lobbied Minnesota
lawmakers to advance a statewide law clamping down on protests—legislation that
civil liberties advocates say targets Black Lives Matter.
The pending bill, HF
390/SF 676, would significantly increase fees and jail time for protesters
who block highways, a common civil disobedience tactic, including at protests
against police killings. According
to the ACLU of Minnesota, the proposed legislation “chills dissent”
and constitutes an “attempt to silence Black Lives Matter movement.”
“I knew they were trying to
pass it last year, and I encouraged them to do it again,” Kroll told In
These Times.
Kroll has faced numerous
accusations of racism for, among other comments, likening protests against
police killings to “the local version of Benghazi” in 2015 and calling Black
Lives Matter a “terrorist organization” in 2016.
His acknowledgement of the
lobbying by his union, Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, raises
concerns that law enforcement is pressuring legislators to clamp down on
protests—and specifically, on protests against police violence. “Cops are going
to keep pursuing ways to keep themselves above the fray and unaccountable for
the things they do,” says Tony Williams, a member of the MPD150, a police
abolitionist project that recently released a “150-year performance review of the Minneapolis
Police Department. “It's a naked case of self-interest more than anything
else.”
Minneapolis police aren’t
alone: According to research conducted for In These Times in
partnership with Ear to the
Ground, law enforcement in at least eight states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Wyoming—lobbied on behalf of
anti-protest bills in 2017 and 2018. The bills ran the gamut from punishing
face coverings at protests to increasing penalties for “economic disruption”
and highway blockage to criminalizing civil protests that interfere with
“critical infrastructure” like oil pipelines.
Emboldened by the Trump
administration, at
least 31 states have considered 62 pieces of anti-protest legislation
since November 2016, with at least seven enacted and 31 still pending. The full
scope of police support for these bills is not yet known. As in the case of
Kroll, police support often takes place in private meetings, far from the
public eye.
That police are playing any
role in this wave of anti-protest legislation is raising alarm among organizers
and civil liberties advocates. Traci Yoder, director of research and education
for the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive bar association, is the author
of a recent report on
the forces behind the wave of anti-protest bills, which include conservative
groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, corporations like
as Energy Transfer Partners (the
company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline) and state Departments of Homeland
Security.
“We are deeply concerned about
the role of law enforcement agencies and leaders supporting the current wave of
anti-protest legislation,” Yoder tells In These Times. “We see this as a
direct response to the success and visibility of recent movements of color such
as Black Lives Matter and #NoDAPL. The collusion we are seeing between law
enforcement, lawmakers and corporate interests is undemocratic and designed to
deter social movements for racial and environmental justice.”
BEYOND MINNESOTA
Following uprisings in
Ferguson, Standing Rock, Baltimore and elsewhere, the policing of protests
became a hot topic at law enforcement conferences and within law
enforcement publications.
But law enforcement like Lt. Bob Kroll are not merely discussing how to apply
the law to protests, but actively lobbying for new laws curbing public action.
According to research by In
These Times and Ear
to the Ground, police associations, police unions, district attorneys
or officers in leadership positions lobbied in favor of “protest suppression”
laws in 2017 and 2018 in at least eight states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Wyoming.
One bill was signed, two
passed but were vetoed, and a 2018 Iowa bill to protect “critical
infrastructure” has passed, but still awaits its governor’s signature. Four are
still pending, and the rest died or were voted down.
In other states, top sponsors
of protest suppression legislation had close ties to law enforcement. In
Tennessee, for example, the main sponsor of a bill that was signed into law in
2017 was a member of Blue
Lives Matter Tennessee.
These state-level efforts
appear to be compounding the repressive national political climate, where the
Trump administration has aggressively
prosecuted more than 200 Inauguration Day protesters, and the
president has openly
endorsed police brutality.
Support for state-level
anti-protest laws extends far beyond police departments, as showcased in
Minnesota, where an action item to require “prosecution of protestors who
impede emergency traffic” was approved by the Republican Party Convention in
2016.
And the cozy relationship
between Minnesota state lawmakers extends far beyond anti-protest legislation.
Representative Zerwas and Minnesota State Senator Tony Cornish, who have
advanced the anti-protest legislation, have also advanced law enforcement’s
agenda on a number of other issues, including body worn cameras, school police
and new protections for police dogs.
As highway-blocking protests
continue, some in Minneapolis remain skeptical that police are—or will ever
be—on the public’s side.
“Police officers and police
unions try to portray themselves as nonpartisan enforcers of laws,” says
Williams. “But if you look at the history of police departments in Minneapolis
and across the country, there's a documented history of that not being true.
Police have an agenda.”
ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM
Speaking over the phone
with In These Times, Kroll elaborated on his role in lobbying for the
Minnesota bill. “We have ongoing meetings with politicians, and one of them,
Nick Zerwas, we encouraged him to bring it again,” Kroll explained.
State Rep. Zerwas—who did not
respond to a request for comment—is author of and principle force behind the
bill, which would make the obstruction of an interstate or a major roadway to
an airport punishable by up to $3,000 and a year in jail. Zerwas first
introduced the bill in January 2017, then tried to work the language into an
omnibus spending bill, but was thwarted by Gov. Mark Dayton. In March 2018,
Zerwas revived the original bill. Like those of all Minnesota state
representatives, Zerwas’ communications are exempt from the state’s sunshine
law.
Ben Feist, legislative director
of the ACLU of Minnesota, was surprised to learn of Kroll’s comments. “This is
the first I’ve heard” of police support for either iteration of the bill, he
says.
“In all of the hearings that
have occurred last session and this session, law enforcement and their usually
very vocal lobby have been silent. Lawmakers have not said that law enforcement
has asked for this.”
But not everyone was
surprised. Williams tells In These Times, “There is a long history of
police advocacy groups, specifically police unions, using their cultural
capital as police to convince legislators to pass policy on their behalf.”
Williams points out that in 2012, for example, the Minneapolis Police Federation
successfully pressed lawmakers
to pass a law that reduces the power of a statewide panel tasked with
investigating police misconduct.
When he spoke with In
These Times for this story, Kroll again denigrated protests against police
killings of Black Minnesotans, including 24-year-old Jamar Clark and
32-year-old Philando Castile.
“They impede normal people's
travel plans, holidays, you name it,” Kroll said of the protests, which have
been used across the country by Black Lives Matter organizers responding to
police killings. “They keep working people away from their destination,
from childcare. These are a group of people funded by a radical left-wing
organization that disrupts the lives of normal people.”
Asked to clarify who he
believes is funding these groups, Kroll replied: “George Soros … He's a big
funder of things like that. The groups that we're talking about take part in
blocking freeways and airports, disrupt vehicle traffic in and out of the Super
Bowl.”
In response to Kroll’s latest
remarks, Williams said, “A vast majority of people who have protested police
brutality in Minneapolis or around the country are not funded or even supported
by resources in that work at all. Certainly not to the level of a group like
the police union is.”
“What groups are fundamentally
demanding is a way to keep our communities safe from police officers,” Williams
continued. “It’s not a radical thing to want our community to be safe. But the
police union and Bob Kroll have shown themselves to be radical far-right
individuals with ties to white supremacy.”
In a 2016 interview,
Kroll admitted he is a member of City Heat, a motorcycle club that has been denounced by
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for its tolerance for white supremacy (the ADL
often collaborates with police departments). When asked about this affiliation,
he abruptly ended his interview with In These Times.
SIMON DAVIS-COHEN is
editor of the Ear to the Ground newsletter, an exclusive “civic
intelligence” service that mines local newspapers and state legislatures from
across the country.
SARAH LAZARE Sarah Lazare
is web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in
independent journalism for publications including The Intercept, The
Nation and Tom Dispatch. A former staff writer for AlterNet and Common
Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
Against War.
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