The president of the Minneapolis police union announced that a partnership with a law enforcement training organization will offer free "warrior-style" training for police officers.
The announcement comes just a week after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey banned the popular "warrior-style" training style, which he first said in his State of the City address.
The free training, which is valued at $55,000 a year, will be offered "for the remainder of Mayor Frey's term," according to a news release posted on the website for Law Officer, the law enforcement training organization.
Mayor Frey told KARE 11 Wednesday evening, "if officers who take any training that conflicts with MPD authorized and sanctioned training they will get disciplined" and "any use of force training needs approval."
The president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, Lt. Bob Kroll, thanked Law Officer for defying Frey's banning of the training.
"Law Officer brings our officers state of the art warrior training that we are proud to embrace and while it seems that the lives of our officers are not important to politicians, they certainly are by Law Officer and we are grateful for this partnership," Kroll said in a news release.
Kent Erdahl: "What happens if one set of training teaches you principles that are in direct conflict with another set of training?"
Lt. Bob Kroll: "We'd have to look at what specific parts of the curriculum is in violation. I'd be happy to sit through the first training block with the Mayor and have him tell me directly, what he perceives as wrong with this training.”
MPD Public Information Officer, John Elder says the new training policy remains in place, meaning officers can be disciplined if they undergo training that conflicts with MPD standards. So far, he says no officer has taken the free “Law Officer” training, and it is now being reviewed to see whether it complies.
Even if MPD considers the training to be in violation, Lt. Kroll says officers shouldn’t be worried about completing it on their own time.
"If (MPD) deems that this training is in violation and (officers) are on their own time and they want to attend it, I'm going to encourage officers to do it,” Kroll said. “I, myself, will be the first one to do it. If I were to be disciplined, it would never be upheld."