Minneapolis, MN – Disgraced former Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis leader, Bob Kroll, seeks President-elect Trump’s nomination to become U.S. Marshal for the Minnesota Judicial District. Kroll, a 30-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, had a lengthy disciplinary record, including wrongful arrest and excessive force complaints, before his retirement in 2021.

Kroll settled a federal civil suit in 2023, banning him from serving as a police officer in Hennepin, Ramsey, or Anoka Counties for ten years. The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Minnesota, alleged that Kroll and his colleagues in the MPD retaliated against community members exercising their right to protest and used excessive force and chemical irritants without providing sufficient warning. The settlement also bars Kroll from serving in a leadership role in any law enforcement agency in those counties, or in any role on the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training, the state’s law enforcement oversight and licensing board.

Bob Kroll and MPD’s wanton brutality in response to the uprising in 2020, sparked by MPD’s execution of George Floyd, was the rule rather than the exception. Over the course of his career, Kroll amassed over 20 internal affairs complaints and was named in several lawsuits. In an April 2020 interview with STIM Radio host Maxwell Thomas Silverhammer, Kroll stated, “I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not a one of them has bothered me. Maybe I’m different.”

Alongside his violent career as a Minneapolis police officer, Kroll served as the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis from 2015 to 2021.

“Police unions are not real unions, and police officers are not real workers. Police protect property and the rights of the ruling class. They don’t protect community,” said Angel Smith-El, an organizer with Minneapolis for Community Control of the Police. Several community organizations and a number of labor groups, including Education Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association, and Minnesota AFL-CIO, called for Kroll’s resignation as police federation president after his comments in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

Just days after that tragedy, Kroll sent a letter to police federation members praising their response to the protests, defending the officers who murdered George Floyd, and lamenting that MPD officers were “held back” from using sufficient gas munitions and less-lethal munitions on protesters.

“Bob Kroll has played such a nefarious role in policing in Minneapolis and beyond,” said Noah Schumacher, an organizer with the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice. “The fact that he has been barred from policing and has himself been involved in multiple shootings, which he refers to so flippantly, shows that he has no business in law enforcement anywhere. He embodies everything that the Trump administration is going to bring.”

Last weekend, Kroll’s attorney released a letter supporting his application to join the U.S. Marshals, which is involved in asset forfeiture, witness protection, transporting federal inmates, and providing security for federal courthouses and judges in Minnesota. While it is unclear what the selection process entails, the decision ultimately lies in the hands of the incoming administration.

Kroll’s bid for the federal position comes in the same week that the city of Minneapolis reached a tentative agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the form of a consent decree that would purportedly increase oversight and shift the department’s use of force policy. A similar DOJ consent decree in New Orleans has already been riddled with conflicts of interest, including a number of former New Orleans Police Department leaders on the payroll of the organization tasked with overseeing the consent decree. It is unclear how the existing consent decrees and other ongoing federal police reforms will be impacted by the Trump administration, which has been vocally supportive of militarized policing and violent crackdowns on political dissent.

Trump has repeatedly called for qualified immunity, creating another barrier to holding police accountable when they commit crimes on duty. The coming weeks and months will be informative, as community members watch to see how the incoming Trump administration will take up the Biden administration’s torch in the work to impede police reform and oversight.

On Monday, January 20, starting at noon, the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice, Black Lives Matter MN, the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee and others will protest under the slogan “Fight for MLK’s Dream. Resist Trump’s Nightmare.”

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