This Is What Surrender Looks Like

Below is the full text of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's presser delivered on the evening of January 14th following the second confirmed ICE-involved shooting in his city. In the speech, he articulates a political surrender: explaining why the city cannot defend itself from a federal occupation, pleading for national empathy, and commanding his constituents to go home. The shooting that prompted the address was of an unnamed Venezuelan immgirant. As Frey spoke, his constituents were demonstrating against ICE. While he pleaded for calm, rogue federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs in residential neighborhoods as the MPD cordoned off protests and tried to quell protest.

"This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in. And at the same time, we are trying to find a way forward, to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order. And we are in a position right now where we have residents that are asking the very limited number of police officers we have to fight ICE agents on the street. To stand by their neighbors.

We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another. Why are we put in this position? We are put in this position because we have approximately 600 police officers in Minneapolis. Far fewer that are able to work at any given time. And there are approximately 3,000 ICE agents in the area. 3,000. The 600 police officers that we have are charged on any given day with investigating crime, stopping homicides from taking place, preventing car-jackings, that's the work of a police officer in a city.

Meanwhile, we have ICE agents throughout our city and throughout our state who, along with Border Control, are creating chaos. This is not the path that we should be on right now in America.

Thankfully there's another path.

And I wanna talk to everybody who's out there. Even people who aren't living in Minneapolis right now. Maybe you just put your kids to bed. Maybe you're cleaning up the dishes. I'm sure you love your family. There's no doubt in my mind that you love your town. Imagine if that city or that town was suddenly invaded by thousands of federal agents that do not share the values that you hold dear. Imagine if your daily routines were disrupted. The local cafe that you eat at was shut down because they're scared that their own family might get torn apart. Imagine if schools shut down and parents suddenly gotta figure out what to do for daycare.

This is not creating safety. It's certainly not creating safety when a huge percentage of the shootings that have taken place so far this year in Minneapolis have been by ICE.

So let's be very clear: I've seen conduct from ICE that is disgusting, and is intolerable. If it were your city, it would be unacceptable there, too. And for anyone that is taking the bait tonight, stop. That is not helpful. Go home. We cannot counter Donald Trump's chaos with our own brand of chaos. And I have seen thousands of people throughout our city peacefully protesting. For those that have peacefully protested, I applaud you. For those that are taking the bait, you are not helping, and you are not helping the undocumented immigrants in our city. You are not helping the people that call this place home. ICE can leave and this massive deployment can come to an end. We have filed litigation to hopefully make it so and at the same time I’m deeply concerned that we don’t have that kind of time.

This is already the second shooting that we’ve had in a week. People are scared, the atmosphere is tense, but again, there is another option. We can stop going down this route together."