Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak is calling out an inflammatory social media post that incorrectly insinuates his department’s immigration task force was violating the rights of people in a Cheyenne home.
“The task force in action. Terrorism in action,” states the post by Joseph Ramirez, a local activist who has helped organize a number of protests calling out President Donald Trump and recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in other states.
The Sunday Facebook post is accompanied by three photos showing Laramie County Sheriff’s Office vehicles and deputies in front of a home in Cheyenne.
Ramirez added in a comment to his own post: “BS in action.”
In a Facebook video of his own posted Monday, Kozak said he felt compelled to respond.
“A citizen brought to my attention a post from a local activist named Joseph Ramirez, where he posted some pictures of deputies doing their job on the street,” Kozak said.
He then went on to say that the operation Ramirez posted about had nothing to do with immigration enforcement and that alleging it was “terrorism in action” isn’t close to the truth.
“Folks, you know what the deputies were doing? They were recovering a stolen car,” the sheriff said. “That’s what they were doing, because the day before they took a report from a woman who doesn’t have any money to buy another car.”
He said the deputies “worked all night long to find her car and get it back to her.”
What Ramirez saw was the conclusion — that deputies had found the car and were processing it as evidence.
“That’s what they were doing,” he said.
A call to a number listed for Ramirez triggers a message that the number has either been changed or is no longer in service.
A message to his social media asking for comment on the post and Kozak’s reaction wasn’t responded to by the time this story was published.
‘Intent Is To Inflame’
While immigration and ICE enforcement is an emotionally charged issue now around the country, it’s not a good idea to assume that’s what’s happening when local agencies are doing their jobs, said Campbell County Undersheriff Quentin Reynolds.
Kozak’s office and other departments have agreements with ICE to help enforce federal immigration laws, but local agencies “are dedicating 99.9% of our time on investigating and prevention of other state statutes,” Reynolds said.
Posting photos out of context and insinuating ICE enforcement is happening is reckless and can inflame animosity against local officers, which could lead to unnecessary conflicts between residents and police, said Frank Groth, a retired career law enforcement officer who lives in Gillette.
“To take a series of images and take them out of context — you can’t say whether he did it deliberately or didn’t do it deliberately — then moving that out into the public consciousness on social media, that’s propaganda,” Groth said. “The intent is to inflame. Nothing good can come with that.”
Immigration and ICE are "a polarizing topic, for sure, and this could cause problems in the future,” Kozak told Cowboy State Daily during a follow-up interview. “We don’t need to have some false perception of what’s going on.”
The Task Force
The Laramie County Sheriff’s Office has an enforcement agreement with ICE and a 25-member task force that was sworn in last October.
The task force mainly deals with English proficiency and other issues with commercial vehicles and their drivers, Kozak said. It doesn’t conduct immigration raids of homes or businesses.
“My policy prohibits immigration sweeps,” he said during the swearing-in at the Wyoming Capitol. “It does not allow deputies to enter private property, such as schools, churches, homes, businesses, or farms for the sole purpose of immigration enforcement.”
He said there is “zero tolerance” of racial profiling or any of those types of sweeps.
To that end, Kozak has also promoted his agency’s immigration-related enforcement with commercial trucks.
He said that there’s a big difference between the ICE protests and violence happening in Minnesota and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
“Remember that we are in Wyoming,” he said. “We are neighbors and we help each other, right? We don’t need to stir up things that aren’t true.”
The sheriff said he also noticed Ramirez advocating for donations to a local food pantry, a cause he said he and the sheriff’s office can get behind.
He ended his response with an offer to help, urging people to also drop off food donations for the food pantry at the LCSO.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
