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Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have served as my State's attorney general. I have served as a U.S. attorney for Rhode Island. I used to lecture at the police training academy in Rhode Island. I know a little bit about police work, and I know bad police work when I see it.

What we are seeing in Minnesota is a level of violence, a lack of deconfliction, and flatout unprofessionalism that is dangerous.

Trust me, it is not just me. Let's start with Minneapolis's own police chief, who described ICE's behavior this way:

It looks very untrained. It looks unprofessional. It looks very chaotic.

He described it as ``poor tactics and really unconstitutional practices.''

He put some good context on it. He said:

Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year, recovering 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't shoot anyone. This is the second American citizen that's been killed, this is the third shooting within three weeks.

It is not just up in Minnesota. In Maine, a sheriff said that this is ``bush league policing.''

Another Minnesota sheriff said:

I am seeing . . . people being stopped, questioned and harassed solely because of the color of their skin.

A Philadelphia sheriff said that these agents are ``made up, fake, wanna-be law enforcement.''

A chief in St. Paul described ``traffic stops'' that are ``clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.''

A former police chief said:

Their tactics are unsound. I question their training, if any.

All the way in Montana, a police chief said:

We do not do business in that manner. . . . When you see those types of tactics being used, we don't use those.

In Texas again, the former head of the Combined Law Enforcement Association said:

Newly recruited, masked agents no doubt damage and destroy the reputations of our proud and professional officers.

A law professor and former police officer described their conduct as ``egregiously deviating from professional norms of policing.''

So what we are hearing out of law enforcement professionals around the country is disgust with the lack of professionalism with which ICE and CBP are discharging their responsibilities.

I will close by talking about deconfliction because that is probably the most dangerous mistake that law enforcement can make. That is how you get blue-on-blue violence. That is how things get dangerously out of hand.

With respect to deconfliction, a sheriff in Maine talked about ``unmarked cars'' and masked individuals, ``men with guns in the yard'' frightening residents, and his office had no idea it was taking place. They hadn't disclosed to local police that they were going to do a weapons-out, armed raid in their jurisdiction.

In Brooklyn Park, the chief said that his own officers were being pulled over, the deconfliction was so bad. He said:

If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.

In Austin, TX, the chief described how they are not warned ahead of time by ICE when they are going around. That threatens to create dangerous misunderstandings between local and Federal law enforcement Agencies.

We are short on time, so I am going to end there. But nobody in this body should believe that what is happening, what we are seeing with our own eyes on the streets of Minneapolis, is legitimate or professional law enforcement. It simply is not. It has gotten out of hand, and nobody knows it better than real cops.

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