Hennepin County sending deputies to presidential inauguration event
By Mike Kaszuba
For the fourth presidential inauguration in a row, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office is sending deputies to provide security for the event.
The county board last month authorized $100,000 for the undertaking, and the sheriff’s office said that 40 deputies would be in Washington, D.C. on Friday for the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Through a spokesman, the sheriff’s office told Public Record Media that Hennepin County would be one of 11 governmental jurisdictions in Minnesota providing security for the event. The sheriff’s office added that “the request for the budget allowance advance [from the county board] is to cover expenses until the federal reimbursement is made.”
The sheriff’s office said that the deputies were being sent to Washington, D.C. under a mutual aid agreement. “The inauguration, in particular, requires a lot of mutual aid just because of how many people swarm into the D.C. area for the inauguration,” a spokesman for the sheriff’s office stated. Local police in the D.C. area “just don’t have enough bodies” to provide all the necessary law enforcement duties, the spokesman noted.
In a briefing document for the county board, the sheriff’s office said deputies would “aid in crowd control along the parade route, the Inaugural Balls. and other critical sites around the city.”
In an e-mail to PRM, the sheriff’s office said that it sent the same number of deputies to both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations in 2009 and 2013.
(Supporting documents for this article can be accessed by contacting Public Record Media at admin@publicrecordmedia.org , or at 651-556-1381)