Indian Restaurant Manager Exposes JD Vance’s “Crazy” Minneapolis Story
Vice President JD Vance’s story about protesters who harassed off-duty ICE and Border Patrol agents at a Minneapolis restaurant is being published. disputed by the local police and the restaurant manager.
On Sunday, Vance released a story about about the police officers at dinner who were doxxed (in this case, simply by revealing their choice of restaurant) before protesters supposedly assaulted them. Vance claimed the officers were locked inside the restaurant and that local police refused to help them because authorities asked them not to. According to Vance, the off-duty agents only received assistance from their fellow federal agents.
But the restaurant manager that night said Vance’s account was wrong. Balli Singh of Darbar India Grill & Bar said Politico that he didn’t even know Vance was talking about his restaurant until the publication contacted him on Thursday and that the real story was very different. He said two men entered the restaurant at 8:30 p.m. on January 19 and asked why so many restaurants were closed or only offering takeout.
Singh said ICE activity could be the reason, to which one of the men responded, “ICE is not a problem.” The officers were eating when people came to the restaurant and told Singh they suspected ICE was there. Singh said more people started arriving and gathered near the men’s car. The officers told their server that they were being harassed.
“One guy actually told me, ‘Brother, don’t come between that,'” Singh said, referring to one of the officers. “‘We’re going to teach them a lesson.’ » Only a few minutes later, uniformed police officers arrived and the two men left shortly after.
A Department of Homeland Security report on the incident claimed that one of the arriving protesters locked the two officers in the restaurant, which Singh said he did not see anyone do, “even afterward on my cameras,” he added.
Local police also verified Vance’s accounts. “MPD monitored the situation and determined that federal agents had sufficient resources to handle the incident,” said Sgt. Garrett Parten, the department’s public information officer, in a statement to Politico about the incident.
“Records indicate that the two individuals and the federal resources that assisted them were able to leave the area approximately 15 minutes after the initial 911 call. MPD was then informed that one of their vehicles had been abandoned,” Parten said. “MPD monitored the vehicle until officers were able to return and recover it.”
It appears that DHS agents may have exaggerated the incident to Vance, who took their account at face value and shared it to reinforce the Trump administration’s narrative that the Minneapolis protesters are aggressors against federal agents who are simply trying to enforce immigration law. But it’s obvious to anyone who’s on the ground or who sees video of these agents. violent actions that the administration is lying.
