Eddie Frizell takes helm of U.S. Marshals Service in Minnesota amid new public attention

Eddie Frizell's three decades in law enforcement have often placed him at the center of some of the Twin Cities' most notable crises.

While he was a Minneapolis police supervisor, Frizell was just minutes away from the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in 2007. Five years later, he became the officer in charge of responding to the Accent Signage mass shooting in Minneapolis — the deadliest workplace shooting in Minnesota history — when he followed a series of squad cars that blazed by as he filled up his gas tank that afternoon.

"One thing I found in law enforcement is it's too late to hand out your business card in the midst of a crisis," said Frizell, Minnesota's newest U.S. Marshal.

Frizell is now the first Black U.S. marshal in Minnesota history after being nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate this year. He left a Metro Transit Police chief role that forced him to navigate the disruption of a global pandemic and civil unrest. He replaces Ramona Dohman, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump in 2018 and left the agency after Biden's election.

Frizell is now in charge of the local division of the country's oldest law enforcement agency — an agency that, until last year, largely operated outside public view in Minnesota. Primarily tasked with tracking down fugitives and providing security for Minnesota's federal courthouses and judges, the U.S. Marshals Service came under intense scrutiny with the killing of Winston Smith in June 2021 in Uptown Minneapolis.

Smith was fatally shot by a task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service that tried to arrest him in a parking ramp. The agency was criticized for not having equipped its members with body cameras. Now, Minnesota's division of the federal agency is piloting the use of such technology for the Justice Department's ongoing rollout.

"I understand that in today's environment they don't just ask for body-worn camera footage — they demand it," Frizell said.

Deputy U.S. marshals began wearing body cameras in October 2021. The Justice Department changed a policy prohibiting task force members from wearing body cameras after Smith's death.

Frizell spent much of his law enforcement career with the Minneapolis Police Department, with stints as the First Precinct inspector and extensive experience policing the Third Precinct. Before becoming Metro Transit's police chief, Frizell was a finalist for police chief jobs in St. Paul and Seattle. He unsuccessfully ran for Hennepin County sheriff in 2014.

The Waterloo, Iowa, native also has 30 years experience with the Minnesota Army National Guard that included two overseas deployments. Frizell graduated from the University of Iowa before moving to Minnesota. He also earned a master of arts in leadership at Augsburg University and a master's in strategic studies through the U.S. Army War College.

"He's military, man," said Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges, who first met Frizell as he developed Minneapolis' community service officer program. "I think he is a straight-line chain of command type. A proper military man. I don't think he has too many relationships with subordinates. He's honorable, he's ethical. You don't have to worry about that."

Frizell assumes the new post at a rare moment in which Minnesota's federal court system also has a new chief judge, a role that typically changes hands just once every seven years.

"We're going to be climbing our learning curves together — hopefully quickly," said Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz.

Schiltz has expressed worry over the rise in threats against federal judges across the country. He predicted that problem, plus an increase in federal criminal indictments under new U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, would stretch an agency experiencing a shortage of deputy marshals nationally and in Minnesota.

Frizell appeared just last week alongside Luger and other federal law enforcement leaders to announce a new wave of indictments as part of the Justice Department's focus on violent crime in Minnesota.

"Like many of us in the federal government, he is being asked to do more with less," Schiltz said.

The judge found Frizell's experience and connections in law enforcement in the Twin Cities impressive and "extremely valuable" in his new role: "The marshal does not have the resources to do either on his own; he needs a lot of help from local law enforcement."

The Marshals Service also assists in asset forfeiture, witness protection security and transporting federal inmates between prisons.

Frizell has three children and prides himself as a family man. One daughter is a fourth-year medical student in Wisconsin; the other is a West Point graduate who helped with the evacuation of Kabul last year before being sent to Germany.

The first in his family to go to college, Frizell said he has sought out leadership roles like the new one he holds out of a duty to inspire others to follow in his footsteps.

"What needs to happen is that communities of color need to see people who look like them out there in these very important positions," Frizell said.

"As I sit in this position, maybe some people are thinking, 'Hey, I could be a U.S. marshal; hey, someday I could be a chief of police.' Because you need to be in these positions sometimes to effect overall change. You can operate strategically from these positions."