Sheriff’s Facebook post draws formal complaint

A Facebook post made by Dodge County Sheriff Scott Rose has led a Hayfield woman to file a formal complaint against him.

The post on the official Dodge County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page on Feb. 18 – and signed by Rose – recaps a Feb. 11 incident in which Olivia Jensen and ICE agents got into a verbal confrontation at the Rochester North Walmart parking lot. 

After their conversation, agents drove to Jensen’s parents’ house in Claremont, according to a video shared to social media and picked up by Alpha News, Daily Caller and other news outlets. 

From there, ICE agents drove to the Dodge County Courthouse in Mantorville. Jensen said she saw the agents speak to at least one deputy before she left. 

Rose does not name Jensen; however, Jensen said it is clear the Facebook post was about her. 

“I am submitting this letter as a formal complaint against Scott Rose, Sheriff of Dodge County, regarding conduct that I believe demonstrates unprofessional behavior, political bias, misuse of office, and actions that have placed me and my minor child at risk,” Jensen wrote. 

Rose did not respond to a request for comment for this story. When contacted via email on Feb. 20, a returned email indicated he would be out of the office until Feb. 24. 

While it’s still unclear what, if anything, happens in the complaint process, one thing seems certain: Reactions to the post – and the incident itself – are mixed, with some applauding Rose and others criticizing both him and ICE agents. 

Original Incident In Rochester 

Jensen said she was in Rochester on Feb. 11 when she heard ICE agents were in the area. While entering northwest Rochester, she saw a woman driver–later identified as Mary Thammavong–being followed by a dark gray Durango. 

All three vehicles eventually ended up in the Walmart parking lot. 

Thammavong told the DCI last week that ICE agents followed her after she recorded them while they were parked near a bus stop in her neighborhood. In the Walmart parking lot, they asked for her ID and asked questions about her husband, including where he worked.

Thammavong told DCI she is married to a man who has had legal status in America since 1989. In 1993, at 19, he was acquitted of attempted murder in Olmsted County. He was convicted of second-degree assault as part of the same case, according to court records.

He served time in prison and was released in 1999, records show.

Since 2008, he has been required to do check-ins twice a year at the Whipple Federal Building, where he provides them with any new information, such as changes in address and phone number, she said. 

His last check-in was in December, Thammavong said.

Trip To Claremont 

Once agents were done speaking to Thammavong, Jensen said she and others followed the Durango carrying the ICE agents.

“I kept my distance….they'd go left around the block, and I'd go right and meet them back at a stop sign, and you could tell they were pissed,” Jensen said.

Eventually, the vehicles moved out of Rochester. Since she knew agents had run her license plates, Jensen figured they’d be heading toward her address in Hayfield.

She was partially right: The Durango entered Dodge County. But instead of Hayfield, they drove to Claremont, the home of Jensen’s parents. 

Jensen said she no longer lives there and hasn’t spoken to her parents in years. 

In a video posted to Facebook and Tik Tok, which has also gone viral, Jensen and the same three agents from the Walmart parking lot continued to exchange words.

The interaction begins with an agent, whose law enforcement vest bore the letters “ERO,” saying he wouldn’t be surprised if her parents paid all her bills.

“We just wanted to make sure you got home,” the agent said.

Jensen is then heard telling the agent that she didn’t live in the house.

“OK, Olivia, we appreciate it,” the agent responds.

The agent walks back to the Durango and is seen talking to other agents; he can be heard saying, “They never care.”

A second agent then walks up to Jensen’s car. Jensen is heard calling him a “race traitor.”

“You know we were trying to get a child molester, right?” the agent said.

Jensen argued they weren’t.

The original agent comes back over to Jensen’s vehicle and says, “How would you know?”

Jensen responds by saying they were talking to a woman.

“Then his plate came back as murder,” the second agent said.

The DCI has reached out to ICE about the video and the agents’ allegations and has not received a response.

The next stop for the ICE agents was a trip to the Dodge County Courthouse. 

According to Jensen, they drove around the parking lot three times, and she drove around as well.

Eventually, two agents got out of the vehicle and entered the courthouse. One of them stayed in the car, according to Jensen.

“I was like, OK, this is weird,” Jensen recalled. “So I went and parked on the street, right in front of the courthouse, so I could see them… through the cars.”

According to Jensen, a Dodge County Sheriff’s Office deputy came out of the courthouse, got into a squad car and circled the lot twice.

The deputy saw Jensen, who was then parked beside the agents’ Durango.

Jensen said one of the agents got out of the car and started showing the deputy what she believed to be pictures on his phone.

At the courthouse 

Rose has a different take on what happened.

On Facebook, he said the SUV was full of agents from “all different states” who were in Minnesota working Operation Metro Surge.

“The ICE agents were explaining their frustration with an agitator who had been following them around for hours in the Rochester area,” Rose wrote. “At one point they tried to explain to the agitator who they were looking for – a man wanted for murder and raping a child. The agitator ignored their explanation and continued to rant and rave that none of them care, suggesting that they just try to detain legal immigrants, and at one point stated, ‘if you were here to look for illegal violent immigrants that would be fine…that’s not what you are doing.’ Apparently, the agitator wasn’t listening…” 

Rose claims the ICE agents told him they were looking for a man who has “apparently been on the run since the early 90s.”

No information corroborating these claims has been provided by the sheriff or any other law enforcement.

Rose, who referred to Jensen multiple times not by name but rather as an “agitator,” noted he spoke on the phone with Jensen when she called requesting an incident report. Rose said he told Jensen there was none.

“I was asked if this guy was so bad, why do we have ‘untrained’ ICE agents looking for him – why weren’t ‘real’ cops looking for this guy,” Rose wrote on Facebook.

“I tried to explain local law enforcement doesn’t handle federal immigration laws with wanted criminals like this. The agitator stated, ‘the man they were looking for has not been in trouble since 1993.’  I thought to myself - THE MAN MURDERED SOMEONE AND RAPED A CHILD!  Who cares when it happened? IT HAPPENED!  Somewhere there is a grieving family who has been waiting decades for closure after losing their loved one to a murderer. Somewhere there is an adult who was raped as a child and their rapist has been free for decades – an adult who I can only imagine has been waiting their entire life for justice and closure.

“The country the man is from has only recently been working with our federal government to take back some of these violent criminals who’ve been evading arrest by hiding here in the United States,” Rose added. 

The Sheriff provided no information to back up the claims made by the agents. DCI also reached out to Rochester Police Department; spokesperson Amanda Grayson said in an email RPD “does not receive advance notice of ICE operations and is not involved in them.” 

ICE has not responded to multiple requests for comments on the allegations. 

The Feb. 18 post also appears, in part, to contradict previous statements Rose made to the DCI, published in a paper that hit newsstands the same day as the post. 

“None of the information you are requesting is public, other than an ICE Courthouse Policy, which we don’t have, and squad video if there were any – which there isn’t,” Rose wrote on Feb. 12. “We treat ICE just like any other law enforcement agency and any communications with them or information on their purpose for being here is not public data and certainly not something we are going to share with the media/public.”

Less than a week later, however, Rose made public on Facebook what the agents told him.

In a video reviewed by the DCI, ICE agents who originally spoke to the woman in the Walmart parking lot made it clear they hadn’t been looking for her husband before she started recording them at the bus stop.

“He wasn’t even on our radar…but you just aided in your husband’s deportation,” an agent said.

According to Rose, “The ICE agents decided to stop trying to find this bad guy because the agitator’s harassment and behavior impeded their work, and because they didn’t want to put the agitator in harm’s way either. So, they decided to head back to the Twin Cities.

“You can’t rationalize with irrational people. I know that, but I tried. Eventually, I gave up and explained there is no information to share about my contact with ICE and ended the call,” Rose wrote of his conversation with Jensen. 

In her formal complaint, Jensen tells the story of the phone call differently. 

Following the incident, she said, she contacted Rose, by voicemail and email, “requesting any public data or incident reports related to the interaction.”

“He did not respond until six days later,” she wrote in the complaint sent to Dodge County Administrator Jim Elmquist on Feb.20.

“During our phone conversation, when I requested information, (Rose) stated that it was ‘none of (my) business.’ When I explained that I believed the conduct toward me constituted intimidation, Sheriff Rose raised his voice and accused me of being responsible for ‘a murderer and rapist on the streets.’ He further claimed the agents were showing him photographs of their intended target, not of me.

“When I asked for clarification as to how my lawful observation interfered with federal agents’ duties, he refused to elaborate. When I inquired why federal agents investigating a matter in Olmsted County would meet with the Dodge County Sheriff if, as he stated, his office had ‘nothing to do with ICE’s operations,’ he declined to provide an explanation. The conversation ended with him telling me to ‘get a life’ and hanging up.” 

Bathroom Break 

The DCI previously asked Rose why the agents visited the courthouse and if the local agency was given notice.

He did not provide a clear reason.

However, in his Facebook post, Rose claims it was to use the restroom. 

“I was asked why were these ICE Agents in Dodge County? The truth? They called and asked if they could use the restroom,” Rose wrote.

“True story. I thought our staff was kidding me when they said they had ICE Agents on the line asking if it was ok for them to come in and use the bathroom. The agents explained to me that so many businesses and government buildings have told them they aren’t welcome in their buildings – they’ve had to resort to calling first to ask permission, even with law enforcement agencies. We live in sad times when federal agents feel they have to call local law enforcement for permission to use their bathroom.”

The DCI reached out to various local police departments to ask if ICE agents had asked to use their restrooms – and what the federal agents were told. 

On the way to the courthouse, the agents passed the Kasson Police Station. 

“No, we did not receive a call asking to use our bathroom,” Police Chief Josh Hanson wrote. “Yes, they would have been allowed to use the bathroom.”

Owatonna Police Chief Jeff Mundale, wrote, “Yes, I am familiar with one instance where ICE agents have used a restroom at a city facility. Specifically, at OPD, I am not sure.They sure could if they wanted to. The city is not taking a stance to ban ICE agents from using public space, parks, parking lots, restrooms that other citizens are afforded to use. I would have to push back if that were the case.”

Were they allowed to use the restroom in Rochester, the community where the original incident occurred? 

“The Rochester Police Department has public restrooms that anyone can use,” Grayson wrote.

The Complaint 

Aside from the phone call with Rose, Jensen points to the Facebook post he made, writing in her formal complaint that “... he characterized me as an ‘agitator,’ implied that I had impeded an investigation, and suggested I was protecting a violent criminal.

“These statements were made publicly about a private citizen who was not charged with any crime and who was exercising constitutional rights. The post omitted key details of the interaction and presented a one-sided account that I believe mischaracterized events,” she wrote. 

“As an elected official, the Sheriff has a responsibility to serve all constituents impartially and to maintain professionalism in public communications. Using an official government platform to publicly criticize and label a constituent in this manner raises serious concerns about abuse of authority, bias, and conduct unbecoming of a law enforcement officer,” Jensen wrote. 

She added that following Rose’s Facebook post, she began “receiving threats, including death threats, both in the comment section and through direct communications. As a result, I have had to notify my child’s school to implement additional safety precautions. I believe the Sheriff’s public statements contributed to an environment that has placed my family at risk and caused significant emotional distress.”

In her complaint she requested the following: 

1. A formal investigation into Sheriff Rose’s conduct and communications regarding this matter.
2. A review of any coordination between federal agents and the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office on February 11, 2026.
3. An evaluation of whether the Sheriff’s public statements violated professional standards, department policy, or ethical obligations.
4. Appropriate corrective or disciplinary action if misconduct is found.

Complaint Process

What happens when someone files a complaint against an elected Dodge County official? 

County administrator Elmquist, when speaking to Jensen, said he would forward the complaint to the Dodge County Attorney, which he did. 

He also said he would send it to members of the Dodge County Board. On Feb.23, Elmquist said he had sent it. Reached by email that night, Dodge County Board Chair David Kenworthy wrote, “I have not been made aware of any complaint filed against Scott Rose.”

Questions about what process, if any, occurs in Dodge County when a formal complaint is filed against an elected official were referred to County Attorney Paul Kiltinen. 

“This office has no ability to do anything with regard to investigating the actions, attitude or perceived inaction on the part of the sheriff,” he wrote. “The county administrator has no ability to do anything with regard to discipline of the sheriff as an employee, again regarding what is forwarded to him as a complaint regarding the sheriff, as to his attitude or how he does his job.

“Fundamentally, the sheriff is not an employee of Dodge County.”