SerpApi.Org
Prosecutors struggled to pick their jaws up off the floor on a phone call with Greg Bovino that took place between the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
“These people are wackos,” Bovino, 56, said of protesters in Minneapolis during the exchange. CNN reports that the call took place after the former Border Patrol chief’s agents had shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, dead in the street on January 7, and before they killed another protester, Alex Pretti, also 37, just weeks later on January 24.
The network notes that Good’s killing did not appear to have made Bovino more cautious about containing the violence that later also claimed Pretti’s life. “The s--t is getting ready to come,” he told prosecutors. “We’re not putting up with anything in this city. It’s coming. We’re not going to calm it down, we’re going to put it down.”
He added that he already had “3,000 law enforcement agents that are fixin’ to lock this city down,” and that “if it doesn’t work, we’re gonna bring 4,000 more.” He made clear that “it doesn’t matter to me,” and that “we’re going to pacify this place, we’re going to roll ‘em up.”
“We’re not going to wait on the local PD,” he went on. “We’re not going to p--s with it.”
Bovino was in Minneapolis to oversee brutal raids by immigration enforcement agents that had already stunned the nation and sparked widespread protests across the Twin City area. He had arrived after Good’s slaying, and had asked to speak with Daniel Rosen, 61, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.
The border patrol chief, whom former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, demoted over backlash to the killings and who eventually retired in March, hopped on the call to express his fury that prosecutors had not been pursuing cases against protesters he claimed were guilty of assaults on federal officers (AFOs).
Sources told CNN there was a simple explanation for the lack of cases. Many of the cases presented to Rosen’s office had proven outright false once the evidence was actually presented. “The immigration agents, the prosecutors concluded, were lying. A lot,” the network writes.
Rosen, who is Jewish, was unable to make the call as it was held on the Sabbath. Bovino condescendingly referred to the U.S. attorney as one of the “chosen people” while bragging about how effectively his agents would shut down any further disturbances from protesters.
“They’re going to kill someone else,” a prosecutor who was on the call prophetically told colleagues afterward.
Bovino has rejected any suggestion his comments about Rosen were antisemitic and said he was simply frustrated about the lack of action over reports of AFOs. “I wasn’t mad,” he told CNN. “I was simply trying to get something done. Maybe I was a little intense—I hope I was—and I don’t think they liked that too much.”
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment on this story.
