On Thursday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her responded to a question on increased aggression from protesters by stating that people should be peaceful and can’t interfere in operations, but “from the highest office of our land, when they do not respect people’s constitutional rights, when they do not believe in law and order, when they do not believe in human rights, they are setting the tone for the reception that they’re going to get back.”
Co-host Robin Young asked, “Okay, play devil’s advocate here for a bit, unlike the early images, where it was mostly people standing with signs, we’ve seen terrible images of protesters storming into a church service — a sacred place — and getting right up in the face of different people there or people yelling right in the face of ICE agents, facing off with them. It seems much more aggressive. You know you’ve been subpoenaed by the Justice Department, along with other Minnesota officials, part of an investigation into whether state officials are obstructing ICE operations. Do you think you, as Mayor of St. Paul, could be doing more to tamp down the situation?”
Her answered, “I don’t know if there’s — if we could have any greater call than we have to our communities, both myself and Mayor Frey and Gov. Walz (D) have said, on a number of occasions, that you have the right to protest, but you have to protest peacefully, that we have reinforced that, if you get in between ICE and their operations, that you are breaking the law. And so, we are all for law and order here. But I want us to remember that, from the highest office of our land, when they do not respect people’s constitutional rights, when they do not believe in law and order, when they do not believe in human rights, they are setting the tone for the reception that they’re going to get back.”
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