Good morning.
Thanks for being here.
We wanted to talk to our next guest because we've been hearing since Minneapolis and back in Los Angeles and in Chicago when ICE and federal
law enforcement comes into a city.
There have been clashes, maybe too strong a word, but there has been a lack of communication or a lack of cooperation, allegedly, between local law enforcement and the federal law enforcement agents that are coming in.
Stephen Miller last week put out a statement on his social media saying, quote, only federal officers are upholding the law.
Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender, end quote.
And that statement.
caused us to worry, so we wanted to get some expert opinion on this.
We reached out to Lieutenant Diane Goldstein.
She's retired from the Redondo Beach Police Department and now is the Executive Director for Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
Diane, thanks for being here.
We appreciate your time.
Let's start with this quote from Stephen Miller.
Is that even possible for federal officers to completely shut out local law enforcement?
1 and 2 as a former local law enforcement officer.
What did that statement make you feel?
So there's a couple things.
First, Stephen Miller has never been a federal police officer.
Federal agent has no background in policing and his statement should just be broadly discounted.
I'm not even going to answer that, you know, in the sense of.
here's the bottom line is four years.
I worked with federal agents, DA, ATF, back when ICE was called INS and actually were professionals is the best way of describing it.
And one of the things that has always occurred has been cooperation or
the federal government basically coming into a city and saying, hey, we're executing a search warrant so you know, so neighbors would understand.
So if we get calls for service, there has always been broad cooperation between the feds and local and state law enforcement in many aspects.
There are times where there have been issues, right?
And I think about when we were working or when my team was working narcotics and
Um...
One of the things that occurred post 9-11 was the fusion centers that popped up across the country to provide what's called deconfliction.
So everybody would basically call in and say, hey, we're executing a search warrant here.
And we would find out, oh, there's a federal investigation.
And then we would connect with other law enforcement to ensure that we weren't pointing guns at undercover officers between vets and state or local.
So Stephen Miller should
be broadly discounted because what is currently going on in Minnesota in particular is just absolutely shocks the conscious.
When you have a Brooklyn Park police chief press conference that recently occurred where you are having police officers of color who are being boxed in an unsafe
tactics, having guns pointed at them and then having their cameras knocked out of their hands, and then no apologies, just moving on, shows you very much what Stephen Miller and Department of Homeland Security think about local, local and state officers.
So we can move on from there.
All right, that's perfect.
It's unconstitutional what
doing.
So we want to move into another story because I think you tied the bow on that one nicely and put an end to the Stephen Miller conversation.
There was a story that came out in the AP not too long ago about warrants.
And what's happening with the ICE agents is the fact that they're going to the door.
There was a whistleblower who came out and said they're basically using administrative warrants, which do not give them the same authority to basically ramrod doors in.
So let's start with that.
get into that just a little bit, and we'll get into some details.
But first of all, explain to us the difference, if you will, for people who don't understand the different levels of warrants that apply in these situations.
So if you're a state or a local law enforcement agent, we don't have administrative warrants.
When we go out into the field to execute a law enforcement action, I have had
dozens and dozens and dozens of judicial warrants signed and approved by a judge that allows us to go into people's houses in full compliance of the law and the Constitution based on probable cause, whether it's a murder or a theft or a drug investigation.
ICE has administrative warrants that their own supervisors can issue that do not allow them to enter people's residence.
They must have a judicial warrant as well.
And so the issue, which is really interesting with this whistleblower, and I am absolutely not shocked that this is going on, is that they are training
newer ICE officers now who don't have the law enforcement experience to be able to dissent and say, you're endangering people, right?
And then again, looking at, was it Mr. Thao, who was from Laos, who had been here for years, they go in, they execute a warrant without any judicial approval, they drag the victim out of the house, they
detained him for an hour by driving him around until they can identify that he's a US citizen who didn't even look like the sexual offenders that they were trying to allegedly capture.
And so, you know, it is right now Department of Homeland Security is operating outside of any normal constitutional guardrails.
And I think what's made worse by this whistleblower allegation is that there are two policies being circulated.
There's the official policy that basically says you need to have all
these guardrails if you're going to enter someone's house, that it's a judicially signed warrant for a particular person.
And then there's the unofficial policy that they just give people a memo to read that authorize them to kick the door and drag people out.
And then they hide that policy.
And so we know that according to the whistleblower that at least one DHS instructor resigned.
over this issue and I would hope that more people resigned because what they are going to do is eventually I think the whole entire Department of Homeland Security services is going to be looked at from a perspective of what went wrong.
It may not happen this year, it may not happen next year, but eventually a new administration is going to come in and really look at how can we prevent American civil liberties or anyone who's in our country because the Constitution applies to you whether or not you are here legally or not.
Our guest is Lieutenant Diane Goldstein.
She's retired from the Redondo Beach Police Department.
She is now the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
So Diane, you read the whole memo.
You've told us the gist.
Was there anything else in that memo that jumped out and shocked you?
Not that the main point of that there's two different rules.
That's shocking enough.
But was there anything else in there that gave you pause?
I think that was the most shocking that there is a deliberate, deliberate intent to hide illegal behavior from not just the troops, but from Americans.
And remember, the Supreme Court has long held, this is from the memo, absent.
exigent circumstances, you know, is when I think about kicking doors, is you only kick door if someone's life is in danger as a local law enforcement officer, that there's got to be something very specific that says, oh my gosh, we got to get into that house right now to save someone's life.
The destruction of evidence is not necessarily that, right?
And so the Fourth Amendment, all people, all Americans, anyone who's living in our country needs to understand
that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government's non-consensual entry into a person's home without a judicial warrant.
And so everyone has the right to ask, I want to see the warrant.
Every warrant we executed, we had a copy that was signed by a judge and was left with very specific paragraphs that said, this is what we're looking for.
And then we would have to go file that at the court afterwards with the whole list of evidence of what we took from that house.
like it could be a very
The level of danger that they are creating for their own officers, as seen by the Renee Good death, right?
Very preventable death.
And the community.
writ large is the most troublesome thing for me.
They, at this point, are not operating with the reverence of life that they should.
Law enforcement role is to use the least amount of force in any given situation, and you only escalate as needed, as necessary.
And the tactics by CBP and DHS currently are absolutely atrocious.
I think about, I saw a picture yesterday of the little five-year-old kindergartener.
Yeah.
Our society, America is being judged harshly.
And we should, given what we're doing to those that are vulnerable in our community, to use a child in that fashion is, I
a kid
That's horrible.
We've got about a minute left, Diane, but I wanted to ask because you talked about de-escalation and only using force when absolutely necessary.
And one of the big buzzwords we hear anytime there is an ICE-involved incident is fearing for their life.
As a former law enforcement officer, what is the criterion for I was in fear for my life?
I've had guns pointed at me where I haven't killed someone, where I
perfectly could have used deadly force and didn't.
I've also been an officer involved shooting because someone tried to stab me.
So it really is kind of complex because it's based on the totality, the circumstances.
But let me say that ICE is using the same language in every bad shooting.
They were boxed in and what we know now because there's videos out there, they're bright checking people deliberately trying to cause accidents.
and then using that as an excuse that they were ramped.
So it is all the tactics right now are absolutely out of control.
And the last thing is, I think about another incident that just occurred where they stole a teenager's phone and put it into one of those, you know, solid bending boxes.
That's that.
If that was a normal, legit police agency, that agent would have been taken
out of the field, gun removed, internal affairs investigation, and likely terminated.
She's retired.
She's now the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
That was when we hoped that the worst thing that was happening was that ICE was operating under two different sets of rules for their warrants.
But unfortunately, we know that that is no longer the case.
When we come back, we will hear Alex Peretti's, in his own words, at the VA and so much more.
Right now, you are listening to Civic Media Mornings, and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Brian Noonan.
A lot to still cover.
We always want to hear from you.
We are, of course, talking about Alex Prettys.
murder at the hands of ICE agents on Saturday in Minneapolis, 855-75 Civic, 855-7524842 is the number you can call us, you can text us, you can get involved in the program.
Jamie, earlier, pardon me, we were talking about how we wanted people to get to know more about Alex, and one of the things that came out, of course, is what Alex Pretty did for a living.
He was an ICU nurse.
at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.
So Mac Randolph is a guy whose father was in the ICU at the VA hospital and passed away and he had taken footage of Alex reading what they what they call the final salute
after
I don't know.
I thought this was a good way to kind of give you another glimpse into what this guy does.
And probably more jaded people will say, well, that's his job.
Isn't that what he's supposed to do?
Yeah.
I listen to the audio, but then go search out the video.
Would you agree?
It's one of those moments where, yes, it might be part of the job.
It might be part of what he does.
But at the same time, there's
when you watch the video, when you listen to it, which we're going to in just a moment, you can tell he truly cares about the people that he is, who he is caring for, right?
And, you know, when Connie Feldman, our reporter from Green Bay joined, she said, one of the things that she's heard from people in the Green Bay area where Alex Pretty went to school is that there was no surprise that he became a nurse.
Right?
Because
of how
to.
So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom.
In this solemn hour, we render our honor and our gratitude.
If you get to see the video, there are a lot of people standing in the hallway quietly watching and this is done in the hallway.
They wheel.
Mac Randolph's father out of the room.
Now, this is what you heard the date.
That was in 2024.
Now, Mac Randolph had said in his statement when he released this on Facebook that he had not meant to ever make that tape public.
That was just for he and his family.
But after he saw the news and saw that Alex Pretty had been murdered, he felt moved to release it.
And I'm glad he did.
It had to be tough.
Do you know what I think is most, when you listen to the words that Pretty was saying about a veteran, talking about sacrifice, about giving up the life.
Do you find that a little ironic based on what we know what happened this weekend and we saw with our own eyes happened this weekend?
There's irony
in the
And I understand that Alex Pretty was not a veteran, but what he did this weekend was a sacrifice.
It was a sacrifice of his own life.
It was because he was trying to help another human being.
He literally sacrificed himself and said the same words out loud about another human being.
And I find that to be ironic, and that was not lost on me when I watched that video based on what I saw play out on the streets of Minneapolis.
He did die helping somebody else, which is, again, we didn't know Alex Purdy personally, but from all accounts, that's the kind of person he was.
From the video you see...
That woman had been pushed down.
He jumped in to try to try to help her up.
He was doing nothing wrong.
This is this is why, you know, Renee Good was doing nothing wrong.
No, there were these.
These are US citizens who are being taken from us by our own government for doing nothing.
And then we're being told that we didn't see it.
You're wrong.
You don't understand what's happening here.
Well, I do understand what's happening here, and I think most of us understand what's happening here.
I really, truly am, because it is a pet peeve.
I don't like it when I see it in just everyday instances.
I don't like it when it comes to religion.
I don't like it when it comes to our politics.
I don't like hypocrisy.
And so you're right, I am going nuts, because I am being told one thing, and told to believe one thing while I'm sitting and watching a complete opposite thing play out.
That is the complete definition of hypocrisy.
And it is really, really hard for me to fathom those things and justify them in my mind.
And not to mention the fact that one of the other things I think about Brian is.
How do the people in this administration, because they know the truth, they know what's actually happening.
How do you go about your daily life justifying lying to that degree to the American people and telling us that, oh, you didn't actually see that.
That's not what's happening.
They know that's what's happening.
They know this is what we're seeing.
And they're telling us something completely opposite.
I personally, this is just me speaking, me personally, I could not live with myself in that situation to tell those types
That's because you have an ethical core and it appeared again this is my judgment my opinion I don't think you could do that job unless you are one really really stupid and believe all that nonsense or two you have absolutely no morals no ethics no empathy and you
are driven to achieve your goals, no matter how twisted, how evil they are, and no matter who it hurts and at what cost to this country.
Scott from Madison this morning saying, speaking of hypocrisy, have you noticed how MAGA is now deriding the Second Amendment or discrediting the Kerry permit Freddie had?
And then we also have Len from Madison.
saying, I hope to never forget the feelings I had participating in Funeral Slash Burial Detail when stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina during the summer of 1971.
Thank you so much for the thoughts, gentlemen.
If you want to get in on the conversation this morning, you can definitely do so.
All you have to do is call or text us at 1-855-752-4842.
That's 1-855-75 Civic.
And we have
Dick on the phone this morning, and Dick had some thoughts about hypocrisy and gun rights.
Dick, what do you have for us this morning?
Well, just what you brought up with the text.
But to like, I'm going to tie this into that testimony last week to Jack Smith.
What do you think some of these gun rights activists would have to say if and then they had one of those congressmen had the audacity to blame the Capitol Police?
or not functioning properly on that day.
But on the other hand, so it didn't even happen.
But okay, I guess what I'm going to say is, what if those Capitol Police would have just opened fire on these people with assault weapons?
You know, they actually had assault weapons, not a pistol that he had every legal right to have.
And B, from everything I've seen, he's catching his fall with one hand, clutching his phone with the other, and then gets shot in the back a half dozen times.
He didn't look like that's threat.
And yeah, there seems to be a big double standard with gun rights people.
But Jamie mentioned this before.
The NRA has come out and said, yeah, this was not.
This was beyond the pale, as you said, Jamie.
And it is not what we want.
So it would be different, of course.
And the police at January 6th, they had every right if they had chosen to use deadly force.
They were, in fact, in fear for their lives, as we saw from the abuse that was being heaped upon them.
But they did not.
Yeah, John from Oshkosh also weighing in listening on WISS this morning saying by mega definition, every one of the January 6th traders should have also been gunned down.
So thank you for those thoughts this morning, John.
I mean, and I, you know, it's interesting because, you know, we go back to a little bit of my conversation we were having about hypocrisy and our.
Is there a line in the sand?
Is there a line in the sand for the current GOP?
Because the NRA is opposed to what they saw in video.
There's several Republican senators and representatives now coming out and saying, no, no, we need a completely impartial.
investigation into what happened, what the ICE agents are doing, who is regulating them.
Now, I guess I could say too little too late, but at the same time, if they truly mean what they're saying, that's gonna be my line in the sand.
If they truly mean what they're saying, that they want it to be impartial, because they actually want to make some changes and some improvements, then I'm all for it.
This is a body of government
that most of us, I think, will have a hard time trusting based on their previous actions.
But if they
They've been rubber stamping everything that comes out of this administration.
Yes, you're right.
It would be nice to think that, OK, there is a line in the sand.
And all right, this could be it.
And all right, yeah, better late than never, I guess.
Yeah.
But.
I am with you in the fact that I don't
trust
And that has been proven.
And, you know, even the Democrats this weekend who were coming out, well, we're not going to vote to fund ICE.
Hey, listen, friends, if you've been paying attention, they're already funded.
Yes.
Maybe you're not putting them in the new budget.
Great.
But that's not going to stop them.
There needs to be an impartial investigation.
There needs to be bipartisan cooperation to put an end to this.
Again, when we talk about putting an end to it, I'm not and I think I can safely speak for you based on what you said before.
We are not saying abolish all immigration policies.
No, but this cruel
and violent and movement that is not being used the way it's supposed to be and is a subterfuge for deeper things.
That's what has to stop, not immigration enforcement.
Why aren't...
there needs to
agree on
what we're seeing right now, but we can come to some sort of middle ground and say what's happening right now is not working.
And if it's not working for one side and it's not working for the other side, then at the same point, that means it's not working in general.
And we need to do something so that it is working so that we eliminate this.
And you know, one of the other things I was going to say back to your point about the Democrats.
It's great that in this new budget, as we're trying to avoid another partial shutdown, is that they want body cam footage, right?
Always, that apparently is supposed to mean more transparency.
Do you really count on this administration to ever let
We forgot to turn it on.
The tape was damaged.
No, I don't...
Boy, I never thought I'd get to a point where I distrusted everything about our government.
I used to hear people say that, uh, don't trust the government.
And I was like, you are being a little over reactionary.
But no, it is.
In this case, I think it is well deserved.
Frank jumps in on the tax line at 855-752-4842, asking about your answering your line in the sand question.
Or no, this is Len.
Sorry, he says, there is a line in the sand, but the blowhards in our government keep obscuring it so they can redraw the line when it suits their purposes.
Hard to argue with that logic, Len.
And then Frank does jump in.
We cannot trust anything that comes out of this administration, foreign or domestic.
it seems to be it seems to be the case and and I hate I hate it and so to back to what we started talking about here the investigation into the into the shooting uh first of all this time Minnesota is saying we don't care what you say feds we are we are handling this investigation and uh as they should now as they as they should have with Renee good yes as they should all the time um
federal agencies are being very quiet about this investigation because, listen, they had what they thought were some claims that they could make about Renee Good and this officer perhaps allegedly being, depending, run over completely or being nicked or being in fear for his life.
Even they are not dumb enough to look at
the video footage of Alex Pretty's murder and say um all right we're they're trying right but this what they don't have they don't have a lot of ground to stand on.
And this is the the GOP is the party of states rights.
So it looks really transparent, really not transparent, I should say, to be like, oh, no, as a state, we don't need you to investigate that.
We don't want you to investigate that.
We've always been about your rights.
But in this case, just just don't just just don't.
I mean, like, what are we doing here?
I this is where the hypocrisy and all of the arguments
we've been making all morning come together because honestly if we want transparency in these cases and we want to find out what's actually happening I feel like we are going to have to rely on our state infrastructures to be the investigating parties of these so we actually know what the truth is at the end.
based on what we're already seeing.
I mean, that's the other thing too.
We can see what's happening with our own eyes.
So I feel like a state
Tilt your head back.
You're going to see a whole different thing.
Oh, you're right.
Yes.
Now, oh my goodness.
That's horrifying.
Here I listen I'm I applaud everybody who's going out on the streets Yeah, if you cannot go out on the streets and protest for whatever reason you can call your representatives and Flood them flood their desk flood their answering machines with messages and let them know that you have had enough and if Listen, we all know all they want to do is keep their job if they really believe
really believe that we have had enough and the Rubicon has been crossed, then maybe in just even, I don't care if it's self-preservation, maybe that's when they will finally do something.
say
actually
sued the federal government successfully and asked a judge over the weekend to ensure that federal law enforcement officials do not destroy any evidence.
Uh, the justice department's approach to the shooting has obviously, uh, as we talked to start a drawing criticism and even more criticism coming in this morning, uh, Nebraska.
Senator Pete Ricketts is calling the shooting a horrifying situation, said he expects a prioritized, transparent investigation into the incident.
Tom Tillis was really the one who raised the red flag this weekend and really started this band of Republican, Republican Congress people being able to, I think, freely speak out.
And interestingly enough, even though she's always concerned, ICE has now come to her back door because Susan Collins was also one of the first
ones, of course, Senator from Maine, where ICE is now doing the no-knocks and intruding into houses.
She was one of the first ones to say, um, maybe this is too far and we should probably start looking into what's happening.
She is concerned now, Brian.
Well, sure.
And it's, it's very easy, Jamie, uh, for some people to, when it, when it doesn't affect you at all, it was just, oh, we're coming for the worst of the worst.
Okay.
That's great.
I, everybody agrees with that.
Then they came and they took some of your, you know, maybe your neighbor or maybe the guy who runs the bakery in town.
And you're like, wait a minute, I knew those people.
They were okay.
And then you start to get a little more concerned.
And then you see two people get murdered.
And a kid being used as bait.
And if I had a dollar for every idiot, it was like, he was abandoned and he wasn't... Shut up.
But now...
Hey, guess what?
They're coming for some white people, too.
Patrick from Madison, chiming in quickly, and I know we've got to get to break here over on our text line saying the autopsy, and he's absolutely correct with this, showed Renee Good was shot first in the chest, second in the arm, and then after...
The agent was clear of the car.
She was executed and shot in her head.
Autopsy came out on that this weekend.
748 right now.
You're listening to Civic Media Mornings.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And all morning, we've been paying attention to the murder of Alex Pretty in Minneapolis.
And now we are joined by WCCO Radio Anchor and reporter Suzy Jones, who's going to give us a little insight on what's happening.
Suzy, thanks for taking time.
I can only imagine how busy things are there.
Any new developments?
Since, I guess, last night, seems like things are changing in Minneapolis by the hour.
Yeah, certainly by the hour.
I would say it's been a relatively quiet night.
There was a bit of a clash overnight in Dinkytown at the University of Minnesota campus.
A group of students outside of a hotel there clashed with federal authorities.
There was spray painting in a window broken, but other than that, that was an extent to that situation.
It's been a very long weekend, exhausting weekend.
I just want to paint the picture if you guys don't mind that Friday, the 23rd, there were about, I would say between five and 8,000 people and it was below zero, maybe 10 below zero downtown Minneapolis.
And they held a very peaceful march from US Bank Stadium to Target Center in the bitter cold.
And then they went into Target Center and had
uh a rally that was singing so that was sort of the the tone on friday that people sort of felt like unified and that maybe this praying that this would end and then saturday morning to wake up to this has been kind of jarring i would say to to say the very least yeah so
All right.
Today there are two hearings in federal court that one is to ask a federal court a federal judge to end What people are calling the occupation, but you know operation Metro surge end it or put it on pause to say the very least because as
you have heard it's been difficult particularly for the immigrant community in Minneapolis to do anything.
People are staying home, children are not going to school for fear of being detained or in this case shot because it's it's just that kind of chaotic and law that it there's a real fear that it's been twice two people have died that if you come up against
in any kind of way you run the risk of getting killed.
So the hearing today in court to pause the operation and also another hearing guys to ask a federal judge to I guess order the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to
protect and preserve evidence.
There was some question about whether evidence from Saturday morning shooting would be preserved, whether it would be destroyed, because as you know, and I'm sure most people listening have seen, there are at least a dozen and maybe more videos of the events that happened.
And there's question about whether or not evidence will be preserved.
And I don't know how long we have, but the Minnesota Department of Criminal Apprehension,
independent unit that investigates use of force incidents they do it for years and years actually the federal government has asked them to come in on their officer involved shootings well they went to the scene Saturday morning to investigate to collect evidence and they were turned away
WCCO Radio anchor reporter Susie Jones is our guest.
Susie, for those of us who don't live in the Twin Cities, we've seen Mayor Fry, the Minneapolis mayor on TV, very outspoken, very clear on his desire to keep residents of Minneapolis safe and for ICE to leave.
So from the outside, we would think, oh boy, everybody loves the mayor.
Is that how he is being perceived by...
Minneapolis residents, is he doing, in their opinion, everything he can to get this message out that we want ICE out of our city?
I think that he is doing everything he can to try to get ICE to leave the city.
I think that, obviously, he was just re-elected for a third term, so he is popular and well-liked in the city, so I would claim that.
I'm going to just say there's a real sense of powerlessness.
I mean, Mayor Fry can say what he wants.
Governor Walls can say what he wants.
Attorney General Keith Ellison can say what he wants.
But in the end, I feel that we're stuck.
I don't think that the federal government will do anything.
I even think if the court orders them to stop, they won't.
That's my opinion.
And because I think that's the sense right now that
They'll do whatever they want.
They'll shoot whoever they want.
They'll spray Whoever they want.
It's really kind of raucous.
I guess it's a good word for it raucous
Because
I just was watching video preparing this morning to talk to you guys and there's so much video.
That's the thing Just hearsay Exactly a bunch of Federal agents driving down the street in unmarked cars out in not in there not in any kind of uniform
um, just brain people, um, randomly with pepper spray.
And it's kind of weird.
It's like, why did I do that?
But again, it's a sense of like who's in charge.
What is the order?
Like people around here and friends of mine keep saying, and I, I agree.
Get a list out of who you need.
What?
Okay.
You got 20 guys that you say are dangerous and murders and rapists.
Okay.
Give us that list.
will help you find those 20 and leave.
But it can just be this willy-nilly, because to a person, let me just say this, every single person, no matter what political party you belong to, wants murders and rapists and bad guys out of our city.
No
one's against that.
Everybody's like, yeah.
That's