Bob Kroll, the former head of the Minneapolis police union, is now banned from working as a licensed officer in three Minnesota counties for the next 10 years as part of a lawsuit settlement reached on Tuesday.
Mr Kroll, an ally of former President Donald Trump, was a well-known pro-police advocate in Minneapolis for years before he burst into the national spotlight following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
In the aftermath of Mr Floyd’s killing, protests erupted in Minneapolis and St Paul — and were, according to two class action lawsuits, brutally suppressed by members of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). According to the ACLU of Minnesota, the settlement with Mr Kroll stems from those two lawsuits.
In a statement given to KSTP on Tuesday, a ACLU of Minnesota Legal Director Teresa Nelson said the organisation hopes the settlement “sends the message to other police that mistreatment of people trying to assert their First Amendment rights will not be tolerated”.
“This settlement achieves a much-needed goal: It takes Bob Kroll, a police leader and union head with a long history of racist and inflammatory statements, off the beat and out of police leadership in the Twin Cities metro for a decade,” the statement read. “The case alleged that his actions as a de facto policymaker led to the use of excessive force against demonstrators.”
Not only will Mr Kroll not be allowed to serve as a police officer in Hennepin, Ramsey, or Anoka counties for the next decade, but he will also be barred from service on the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training.
For Mr Kroll, it’s a remarkable development in a long tenure in public life in Minneapolis. He first joined MPD in 1989 and rose through the ranks of its union, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, until he was elected president in 2015.
During Mr Kroll’s tenure in union leadership, MPD was accused of systematically racist policing and was the frequent target of protests that reached a boiling point with the murder of Mr Floyd. Mr Kroll was also outspoken politically, appearing at a rally with Mr Trump in 2019.
In the aftermath of Mr Floyd’s murder, protesters in Minneapolis burned down a police precinct and demonstrated outside a union hall and outside Mr Kroll’s home in Twin Cities suburbs calling on him to resign. He eventually announced his retirement effective in January 2021.
Mr Kroll was involved in multiple police shootings during his career and reportedly racked up more than 20 internal affairs complaints over his policing conduct.
