Minneapolis Police Chief Gives Residents Advice
Minneapolis has once again managed to put itself in the national spotlight — not for a policy triumph or a public safety win, but for the surreal spectacle of its own police chief publicly warning citizens to call 911 if they see federal agents doing their jobs.
Yes, really.
In a bizarre Tuesday press conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara advised residents to report possible "kidnappings" if they witness masked individuals taking people into custody — referring, of course, to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducting raids tied to a massive welfare fraud case. According to federal sources, a significant portion of that fraud is tied to the city’s large Somali community, a politically sensitive detail that city leaders seem intent on downplaying or outright ignoring.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara says that Somalians should call 911 if ICE shows up wearing masks to make arrests.
He says police will "immediately respond" and "intervene."
Interfering with immigration enforcement is a CRIME. pic.twitter.com/yTY0lFg3Sb
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 2, 2025
O’Hara, whose job is to support law enforcement, not second-guess it based on optics and social media narratives, said, “We have had those reports” — vague references to masked men possibly not being law enforcement, with no concrete evidence, no publicized cases, and no arrests stemming from such claims. In short, speculation. Still, the chief insisted that officers have a “duty to intervene” if something seems off. Intervene — in federal operations.
This would be laughable if it weren’t so reckless.
Meanwhile, Mayor Jacob Frey, never one to let facts get in the way of a narrative, accused ICE of “targeting Somali people based on appearance,” even going so far as to say it was “inevitable” that American citizens would be mistakenly rounded up. Except there’s one major problem with that claim: the Department of Homeland Security has already debunked it.
“What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin clarified, “but the fact that they are in the country illegally.” That’s not a racial profile. That’s legal status.
But in Minneapolis, up is down. The message from city leadership appears to be that federal agents protecting the integrity of the immigration system are more of a threat than the criminals exploiting it. This isn’t the first time Minneapolis has inverted basic law enforcement logic. Lest we forget, this is the same city where leaders watched neighborhoods burn in 2020, where violent crime skyrocketed, and where public trust in police plummeted after city officials demanded both defunding and reform — sometimes in the same sentence.
Tom Homan on Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara refusing to cooperate with ICE:
"He oughta put his badge in the desk drawer and walk away because he stopped being a cop to become a politician." pic.twitter.com/wJ9lUCVJGp
— Alpha News (@AlphaNews) December 3, 2025
Chief O’Hara, ironically, was one of the few figures earlier this year who dared to call out the “bizarre” political climate and mismanagement surrounding the 2020 riots. Now, with this new stunt, he seems to be pivoting hard, possibly to regain favor with a city council that sees ICE enforcement as more offensive than actual crime.
The result? A law enforcement agency at war with itself — unable to decide whether it should enforce the law or politicize it.
