Waseca’s City Council has voted to reaffirm its commitment to deep involvement in South Central Drug Investigations Unit and its SWAT team, including mutual aid obligations — which could include a deployment to quell potential unrest in Minneapolis.
At the urging of Public Safety Director Kris Markeson and City Manager Carl Sonnenberg, councilors voted 5-1 to effectively reverse a 2021 vote which directed Sonnenberg to decline any mutual aid request for city staff to deploy to Minneapolis during civil unrest.
The 2021 vote took place in the wake of the 2020 Minneapolis riots, during which law enforcement agencies across the state were deployed to supplement local law enforcement and replace officers who had become burnt out, overworked or injured on the job…