St. Paul Police Federation President Mark Ross blasted local politicians for not allowing local law enforcement to assist federal law enforcement during immigration enforcement operations, as protesters and agitators stoke chaos across Minnesota. Chaos that culminated in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, which he says were entirely preventable.
🇺🇸 Minnesota cop union boss blasts local officials over notcooperating with ICE
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 28, 2026
St. Paul Police Federation President Mark Ross argues if local cops had been allowed to work with ICE, the recent deaths of protesters could’ve been avoided.
He calls out the disconnect between… pic.twitter.com/qib3GktMrl
“Since the Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul back in 2008, Minnesota law enforcement has undergone extensive training in mobile field force configurations and crowd management for major events. And because of that, I think we’re in the best position to deal with that,” Ross said. “Unfortunately, our local politicians would not allow us to do that."
Had we been allowed just a little bit of coordination – not in terms of what ICE is doing, but if they say, ‘Hey, we need to go to this place to serve a warrant, we’re going to be out there a couple hours. We’re nervous that crowds are going to form and give us trouble. Can you come out and help?’ That’s something we can easily coordinate with a little bit of notice, and sometimes with hardly any notice, we can get out there quickly.
“I believe, had we been able to do that, that there would be no loss of life at this point,” he added.
He added that Border Patrol isn’t trained for chaotic urban protests, a challenge local law enforcement is far better equipped to handle and should be supporting.
“Border Patrol agents don’t usually work in an environment like this, in large urban communities with crowds like that. They have some of the tools," he said. "But I would venture to guess they don’t have the amount of mobile field force training and kind of leadership in those configurations that we have."
Ross went on to blast local leadership for refusing to cooperate with federal law enforcement, warning that their inaction puts public safety, what he says should be everyone’s top priority, at serious risk.
“Part of it is leadership," he continued. "Because the leadership in our cities doesn’t want us communicating with the federal folks. And that disconnect has created some problems for everybody, and we’re stuck in the middle of it, and public safety is everybody’s responsibility.”
“We want to be out there. We want to be keeping people safe, and it’s been really tough. We really feel like we’re in the middle of this, obviously, not by choice,” Ross said.