Wright County Sheriff Sean Deringer this week delivered a blistering denunciation of the Minneapolis Police Department after newly unearthed body camera footage showed its officers talking about "hunting" anti-police brutality demonstrators who took to the streets in the wake of the murder of George Floyd last year.
During a public meeting for the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training this week, Deringer addressed the latest scandal plaguing the Minneapolis PD, which he said lacks leadership and accountability from top to bottom.
"I am telling you folks that I was absolutely disgusted watching that," Deringer said, according to local news station KSTP. "And I’ve defended that agency for the very last time."
The sheriff went on to lament that the actions of the Minneapolis police were damaging the reputations of officers throughout the state.
“I am so upset with the lack of leadership," he said. "We are all cast in the same barrel of crap coming out of Minneapolis proper."
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Rolling Stone reports that the footage was so damning that the Minneapolis PD called it "antithetical" to the kind of culture it wanted to build.
"The footage of Minneapolis cops allegedly 'hunting' protesters showed cops being directed to target protesters and 'F*ck ‘em up,'" writes Rolling Stone. "The videos captured cops high-fiving after shooting nonviolent protesters with less-lethal impact rounds. Other cops used the same weapons in a manner that resembled a drive-by shooting, firing on people on the street, seemingly unannounced, from an unmarked van."