After federal agents chased man into police station parking lot, BCA division head helped calm confrontation

A Columbia Heights man who said he feared for his life during a car chase with federal immigration agents sought refuge in a police station parking lot, where a deputy superintendent at the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension de-escalated the situation.

Ed Higgins said that after an encounter with federal agents, he was pursued for a little over a mile down Central Avenue on Feb. 5 before pulling into the Columbia Heights Police parking lot, where agents surrounded him. According to a statement from the BCA, federal agents were shouting at Higgins and striking his car windows with their firearms.

Higgins thought he could be the next Alex Pretti or Renee Good, he said in an interview. But he happened to park next to Scott Mueller, the head of the BCA’s Investigative Services Division, who had arrived early for a meeting with police. Mueller, Higgins said, was able to talk to the agents and calm the situation.

“That guy saved my life,” Higgins said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Higgins, 48, runs a small marketing firm and has lived in Columbia Heights for almost eight years. He has been an active community observer in the area as Operation Metro Surge led to the detentions of many people in the 3-square-mile city north of Minneapolis. That includes 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were taken more than 1,300 miles from home to a Texas detention center after agents took them into custody Jan. 21 as they returned home from school. A judge later ordered their release.

On Feb. 5, Higgins said he received a message that immigration agents could be in the Sunnyside Mobile Home Park. So just before 1:30 p.m., he drove by in his tan van and saw what he said looked like the vehicles of federal agents. He beeped his car horn in warning, and started to drive away.

Higgins said he tried to get around the car, but the two vehicles scraped against each other as he passed.

In a video posted to Facebook after the chase, however, the agent, wearing badge around her neck, told a bystander that Higgins had threatened her on social media, which he denies. She also said that “the moment [Higgins] saw it was me, he tried to hit my car.”

After the cars scraped, Higgins said he thought about Good and Pretti. Then he thought: “I just gave them a reason to kill me.”

The chase was on.

In the tan van, he set off north on Jackson Street. By 1:27 p.m., he reached Monroe Street and 49th Avenue, and called 911. He stayed on the phone as three vehicles followed him from there to Central Avenue.

The dispatcher responded that they could hear a siren in the background, and then told Higgins to drive to the police station lot.

“I will try that, but they’ve been there before. I’m going. But they just, they just almost hit somebody to try to cut me off. To pull me over. So, I need help now,” he responded.

The dispatcher tried to cut in to tell Higgins he should pull over: “For your safety, I want you to stop before you get hurt.”

“No. They’re going to shoot me,” he responded. “I’m not [expletive] playing that game.”

The dispatcher responded: “You need to go to the police department. OK?”

Surveillance video, supplied after a data request to police, shows Higgins’ van driving swiftly into the lot at 1:30 p.m., pursued by three other SUVs. He stops short as a silver SUV blocks his path.

Then, the female agent whom Higgins said he had recognized exits the silver SUV, unholsters her weapon and walks toward the van with her arms outstretched. Four agents gathered around the van.

On the 911 call, Higgins told the dispatcher he was boxed in. “They’re breaking my window. I have my hands up. Please.”

“Just stay there with your hands up. I’m getting police on the way,” the 911 operator said.

All of this was unfolding just a few parking spots away from where Mueller, the BCA deputy superintendent, had parked.

Higgins said that suddenly, “I just noticed everything gets calm. It was like a switch, like somebody had turned something off.”

In the 911 transcript, a third speaker says in the background: “My name’s Scott. I work for the state of Minnesota.”

The call ends shortly thereafter.

In a statement, BCA spokeswoman Jill Oliveira said that Mueller saw federal agents chase Higgins into the lot. “Deputy Superintendent Mueller saw an opportunity to intercede to try to de-escalate the situation. He approached the scene and identified himself.”

Mueller briefly took Higgins “into protective custody,” Oliveira wrote, before the situation calmed down enough for Higgins to be taken by federal agents to the Whipple Federal Building. State and federal court records do not show that he was charged with any crimes.

Since then, he can’t stop thinking about the roughly 5-minute chase, which felt like it lasted an hour.